Hiccup and Rand watched from a hidden ledge as Toothless worked up the courage to introduce himself to what might be the only others of his kind.
Toothless visibly hesitated in the entrance to the bay, shuffling to the side and flaring his wings, flapping a few times.
Rand could honestly say he'd never before seen a dragon procrastinating, stalling for time. Body language apparently carried over pretty well, for him to so easily interpret those actions.
After a few minutes of that, Toothless barked softly, almost too quietly for the two observers to hear. But in the bay, the sound was clearly audible. All activity stopped, and four heads turned to look at the entrance, eyes widening as Toothless stepped out, walking down a slanted stone ledge with grace and-
Scratch that. Rand winced as Toothless lost his balance, probably because he was so distracted, going from calm and collected to a black mass tumbling the remaining distance to flat ground with a strangled yelp.
Hiccup groaned. "This is all too familiar..."
Toothless stood hastily, shaking his head to clear it. He warbled sheepishly.
The pink-tinted dragon was staring at him, no expression discernable on its face. The red-tinted one had moved to stand over the little one, though it didn't seem to see Toothless as an imminent threat so much as a potential one.
The fourth dragon, however, was a very different matter. It lunged at Toothless, snarling loudly. Toothless jumped back with a bark of surprise, and the two faced each other.
Now visible and in the sunlight, the fourth dragon was quite different, despite being the same species as the other three. It had likely originally been pure white, with a light blue tint, but grey scars marred the purity, darker lines crossing and intersecting at random, like those a child would scribble, no meaning or reason to randomness. It was missing its left ear, a ragged stump extending less than a fifth of the height of the other. Two scars crossed its forehead, forming a V-shaped grey mark. All in all, it exuded a far less perfect and unspoiled image, compared to its less flawed companions. Its actions fit its appearance.
Toothless and the scarred one faced off, though Toothless didn't seem to want to fight. The scarred one bit and clawed at him, but each time Toothless deftly avoided the strike, stepping aside, away, even jumping, but never taking another step backward.
After a few seconds of this, the pink and red tinted dragons began objecting, growling and trying to get the blue one's attention. The blue one wouldn't take his eyes off of Toothless, though the two were once again at a stalemate.
Hiccup watched all of this with worry clear in his eyes. He spoke, explaining what he knew to Rand. "As best I can tell, the dragons are a pack, of sorts. The blue-tinted one is the patriarch, the defender. Even though he is going a bit far."
Back in the bay, Toothless very deliberately shook his head and purred at the blue-tinted dragon, before casting a glance over the dragon's shoulder.
The blue-tinted dragon growled deeply, glaring at Toothless. It was interrupted by the red-tinted one, who nipped lightly at its tail. When it spun in surprise, the red-tinted one yowled angrily at it, flicking its ears at the pink one, who was still staring at Toothless.
Hiccup smiled slightly. "That makes the red one his mate. Only she could argue with him like that, and make him listen." His smile grew as the little dragon walked over and nudged at the blue-tinted one's paw. "Which makes that one theirs. I think the pink one is an older child of theirs too."
Rand nodded. "A female. Wait, are you sure Toothless is male?" There didn't seem to be any indication.
Hiccup snorted, holding in a laugh. "Pretty sure."
The blue-tinted dragon finished its odd nonverbal argument with the red one, and reluctantly stepped aside, but not before snarling angrily at Toothless. Toothless nodded agreeably and purred at the red-tinted dragon in thanks before approaching the pink one. She sniffed at him carefully, the two staying a few feet apart. Toothless took a step forward, and she stepped back hastily, barking at him. He wilted, but flicked his tail out, displaying the nearly invisible prosthetic.
The pink-tinted dragon didn't seem to know what to make of that. She came closer, disregarding the boundary she herself had set only moments ago, lightly pawing at the false tail. Then clawing at it, though Toothless growled and pulled it away as soon as he noticed her claws out and running along the tough fabric, not cutting but coming close.
The pink-tinted dragon warbled curiously, before spreading her wings and launching into the sky. Toothless looked after her before following.
Hiccup smiled smugly at that. "It took forever to get him to accept the automatic tailfin. He broke it the first time. I'll bet he's glad he listened now."
Rand wasn't sure what that meant, but there were more important questions to be asked at the moment, as Toothless and the other dragon flipped through the sky. "Any idea what they're doing?"
"My best guess is that she's making sure he's fit to be considered." Hiccup mused, watching the acrobatics above them. "Some other species do this. They don't pick mates immediately but test each other. I guess she's just as desperate as Toothless is, doing this right away. Usually, the dragons already are familiar with each other first."
"They both test each other?" Rand asked. The two dragons had landed again, Toothless matching the pink-tinted one's every flip and tight turn.
"Yeah. Now would be Toothless's turn." They both turned their attention to the dragons.
Toothless rumbled happily, flaunting his prosthetic tail now, to the interest of the older dragons. Also to the curiosity of the young one, who made its way over to sniff the tail. Toothless allowed that with a happy expression on his face. Until the young one bit his still intact fin, hanging on even as he shook the tail in an attempt to dislodge it. Toothless huffed in frustration, before using his at the moment toothless mouth to pull the little dragon off. There were no visible puncture wounds, so these white dragons evidently also possessed the ability to sheath their teeth.
The red-tinted dragon quickly took charge of the little one, pulling it away and scolding it. Toothless returned to his interactions with the pink one, entirely oblivious to how close the blue one had just come to attacking him.
Rand and Hiccup had both seen the tense moment in which Toothless pulled the little dragon off of his tail. The blue-tinted dragon had been prepared to pounce, mouth open. Hiccup knew what that meant for a dragon. If Toothless had made one wrong move, shown a single instant of aggression or anger with the little one, the blue-tinted dragon would have struck with the intent to kill.
Rand didn't relax when the danger passed. "That one is trouble."
"For now." Hiccup sighed. "He's really overprotective. Which doesn't bode well for us."
Rand was about to suggest they not go down there after all when Hiccup looked back down. An expression of confusion was quickly replaced by uncertainty.
"But I'm not sure Toothless sees that as an issue." Hiccup said, still looking down.
Rand looked back over to see both Toothless and the pink-tinted dragon flying rapidly towards them. He had barely enough time to scramble back before the two landed on the ledge, Toothless immediately getting in between Hiccup and the pink dragon. Leaving Rand unprotected to the side, though neither dragon seemed to be focused on him at the moment.
Rand was therefore in the best position to see what was happening from an outside perspective. He didn't move or draw attention to himself in any way. The situation felt almost fragile as if one wrong move could shatter it.
Toothless very deliberately approached Hiccup. The Night Fury's eyes were slits, and his manner threatening. Hiccup seemed confused but not scared, sitting defenseless in front of his friend. The trust he displayed never wavered when Toothless placed a paw on his chest, pushing him down, pinning him, though the confusion did.
Rand had to force himself not to intervene when Toothless pushed down, just light enough to not crush Hiccup's chest. He had no idea why the dragon was suddenly so aggressive, but to interfere was to destroy that little hope that Hiccup knew what was going on, that things were not as they appeared.
Hiccup wheezed feebly, still staring into Toothless's eyes.
Toothless beckoned the pink-tinted dragon over and deliberately motioned with his head at Hiccup. The pink-tinted dragon moved closer, looking into Hiccup's eyes as Toothless was. Whatever it was she saw there made her croon quietly, eyes softening.
Toothless abruptly inhaled and blasted a patch of earth right next to Hiccup's head, so close it likely singed some of his hair. Hiccup never even flinched. The other dragon was clearly shocked by that.
Rand didn't relax when Toothless moved back, removing the pinning paw from Hiccup's likely sore and bruised chest. He'd figured out what was going on by now, but that didn't stop him from wondering how anyone could be so trusting. Hiccup quite literally trusted Toothless with his life, even when it looked like Toothless was going to spend it in order to impress another dragon.
Hiccup sat up, groaning. "Bud, I think I understand why you did that, but next time, please ease up on my chest." He winced. "You could have broken something."
Toothless chuffed apologetically, eyeing the other dragon. After a moment he barked at her and quickly shoved his head against Hiccup's chest, leaving it there.
"Ow!" Hiccup rocked back. "Again with the chest?"
The other dragon was whining now, pawing at Toothless's side. He wasn't moving, leaving his head right there, within Hiccup's easy reach.
Things were beginning to make sense. Rand smiled as Hiccup ran his hands along Toothless's neck and chin. Hiccup knew what was happening too. The only one who didn't understand yet was the female dragon.
Toothless pulled back after a while, and then he motioned at Hiccup with his head. The female approached quickly, a paw lifted to-
A rumbling growl stopped her, informing her that he didn't mean for her to copy that part. Which left...
"He's testing her... by forcing her to trust me." Hiccup whispered, confirming what Rand had suspected. "First he showed that I trust him, then that he trusts me. If she wants to be with him, she had to prove she can trust me too."
The pink-tinted dragon visibly wavered, whining and looking imploringly at Toothless. She clearly didn't think very highly of making herself vulnerable to a human. Toothless was firm and unyielding. After a long while, he sighed and began to turn away.
The female dragon quickly stuck her head within Hiccup's reach, butting against his chest hard in her haste. Hiccup flinched, but he clearly wasn't going to be the one who screwed this up.
Toothless purred reassuringly, but when the female began to pull away immediately, he growled. She froze. Apparently, this was not a quick test.
Hiccup smiled at her panicking blue eyes. "Nice to meet you." He slowly moved a hand into her line of sight, tentatively touching a white scale. "I'm not going to hurt you. My friend just wants to be sure you won't hurt me. Or be afraid of me."
Rand watched, feeling slightly... envious. Why, he wasn't entirely sure.
The female dragon gradually relaxed as Hiccup ran his hands along her face and head, working his way down to her neck once she was comfortable with him. Toothless watched happily, and after a few minutes warbled softly, presumably saying the female dragon passed his test.
A grin grew on the faces of both Hiccup and Toothless when the female dragon ignored Toothless, enjoying the massage and not willing to end it. Toothless pawed at her side lightly, and she reluctantly withdrew, casting an approving glance at Hiccup as she did.
Hiccup smirked. "Scales and claws make human hands every dragon's favorite thing."
Rand nodded. "I'll remember that."
"There's way more to it than that." Hiccup spoke seriously. "What just happened is not normally how things go. Toothless did the hard work. Getting on good terms with wild dragons without that kind of help is much more complex."
"So how do things stand now?" Rand asked, seeing that the pink-tinted dragon was still staying away from him, but not Hiccup.
"Toothless is in, obviously." Hiccup stood and stretched. "Though I'm not entirely sure if they're mates yet. This is about where my knowledge of that process breaks down, because other species..." He grimaced. "They don't really understand the concept of privacy. So usually it's pretty clear." He carefully approached the female dragon, and she allowed him to touch her side. "She trusts me, thanks to him. I don't think he knows you well enough to vouch for you like he did me."
Rand nodded. "I'd assumed so."
"Hey, don't worry about that. I don't know if he would vouch for some of my other friends either." Hiccup laughed. "And they've ridden dragons for years."
"I am... well acquainted with not being trusted." With being reviled, feared, hated by most. This was simple unease compared to that.
"Well, we'll-" Hiccup was cut off by Toothless rumbling at the pink dragon, and the pink dragon barking loudly. "I don't know what they're doing now."
It became apparent that Toothless wanted to introduce the other dragons to Hiccup. Right then and there. The red-tinted one flew up, following the sound of the bark.
Rand wandered off a few hours later, once it became clear that Hiccup was in no danger... and that none of the wild dragons trusted him enough to let him within ten feet of them. Hiccup had absently promised to teach him how to gain their trust later, but right now the one-legged man was a bit busy.
The blue-tinted one was nowhere to be found, something that troubled Rand. He wasn't sure if it would accept Hiccup, though it looked like Hiccup would have the support of the other dragons when that question came up, but it wasn't around. Where had it gone?
He wasn't looking for it, wandering through the forest around the cliff edge the dragons had congregated on. That nagging feeling had grown. He envied the way Hiccup easily trusted and encouraged trust in others. Maybe it wasn't a big thing, but it was something.
His musing was quite rudely interrupted by a snarl. Looking up, he found the one he hadn't been looking for... in a tree... staring towards the cliff.
"You're spying on them." Rand laughed, not caring that the dragon was still snarling threateningly. "They're fine. Give it a rest." It was hard to feel threatened by a big, scarred white dragon... perched in a tree a bit too small for it.
That amusing image was dispersed when the dragon dropped in front of him, now much less comical and much more threatening. It shrieked at him, pouncing.
Reflex saved him, rolling to the side as claws like dagger sank into the ground where he had been standing. It was definitely trying to kill him.
A moment of indecision plagued him. Generally, when someone tried to kill him, he fought back. But killing this particular dragon was not only a risky plan, given he had no idea what it was capable of... It also felt wrong. He didn't know why that was. But after a moment spent dodging attacks, only his warder-enhanced reflexes keeping him alive, he realized that running might be the only thing that kept both of them alive. Because calming this dragon clearly wasn't an option, and fighting back would result in one of them dead. So his sword stayed in its sheath, and he ran.
It took quite a while to lose the angry dragon, and several hours to work his way back around to where they had been, scanning the unfamiliar forest for any signs of his pursuer back for another try. By the time he once again reached the now-abandoned cliff, the light was fading and it was raining again. The sight of a campfire down in one corner of the bay at least told him where Hiccup had ended up. He worked his way there.
Toothless was nowhere in sight. It was just Hiccup, sitting by a small fire, sheltered by a rock overhang directly above. Rand sat down heavily, soaking in the warmth that fought the numbing ice-cold of the rain and wind.
"Where did you go?" Hiccup asked, sounding worried. "I thought you were just exploring, but it looks like you got into a fight."
Rand glanced down and realized his clothing was stained and ripped, likely from those first few frantic seconds of conflict and the subsequent desperate escape. "Close."
"So..?"
"That blue-tinted dragon attacked me when I ran across him in the woods. It was either fight and kill him, die, or run. I chose to run, for some reason."
Hiccup sighed in relief. "Good. Anyway, if you had killed him Ruby would have hunted you to the end of the world. She seems persistent."
"Ruby?" Rand smiled.
"Ruby for the mother, Amber for the little girl with the orange tint, and Rose for Toothless's 'special friend'." Hiccup grinned at that. "Though, given those two left for a night alone a few hours ago, I think she's more than a friend."
"So that's why you're alone here." Rand looked around. "Did you name the blue-tinted one?"
"No." Hiccup frowned. "He doesn't seem to like me at all. I only name dragons if they want to be around me."
Rand scanned the area again, more intently this time. "Did he come back here?"
"He and the other two seem to sleep in a cave over there." Hiccup pointed at the far end of the bay. "He came back an hour before dusk, looking angry, though that seems to be his normal expression."
"Well, he did just lose a human in the forest, so I guess he has reason to be upset." Rand grimaced. It figured that he'd already made an enemy here.
"Then this is a good time for me to teach you."
"Teach me- why?"
"Because if he attacks every time he sees you, one of you is either going to die or be forced to leave. And you can't leave." Hiccup gestured to the ocean. "You would need a ride off this island, and I don't see any ships around."
"I will listen." Hopefully, there was a way to at least stop the dragon from attacking on sight.
"That's good." Hiccup poked the fire with a nearby branch, watching the sparks rise. "You're already two steps ahead of most of my friends when I taught them."
"How so?"
"First, you want to learn and believe I have something worth teaching. Second, you didn't grow up in a world where dragon-killing is the most honorable profession in existence." Hiccup's tone was light. "Really, you've got the basic idea, I think. Don't attack, don't act aggressively. Treat them like people."
"Yes," Rand recalled the blue-tinted dragon. "Though it didn't help me much today."
"Not with Mr. Overprotective. But none of the others minded you being around."
What? "They wouldn't even get near me. How is that not minding?"
Hiccup laughed at Rand's expression. "Well, Toothless and I were kind of the center of attention. But they didn't run you off, so clearly Toothless and I made more of an impression than we intended." That statement made Hiccup's face darken. "Actually, that's not good. Most humans are still dangerous. For them to so easily change their opinion of us, I don't think they've had many encounters before."
"So..."
"We might have just accidentally taught them that all humans are okay, or at least approachable." Hiccup winced, poking the fire more violently. "Well, if they come back with us to Berk, that won't be a problem. But staying out here, that's not a good idea to have."
"Men like those who captured me, I assume, would be just as happy to easily take these dragons."
"For live sale, skin, claws, or stuffed heads to mount on a wall." Hiccup agreed darkly, his face angry. "They'd make a fortune off of these..."
"On that note, what are they, anyway?" Rand asked.
"Not Night Furies, but very close. White, but White Fury just doesn't sound right." Hiccup shrugged. "Light Furies, I guess? Anyway. We need to take these guys back to Berk, to keep them safe. Which means we probably, as much as I wish it wasn't the case, need the blue one's cooperation."
"Oh." Rand sighed. "Well, we'd better get on with this then."
"Right. The most important thing is trust. You need to get him to trust you. That usually means you need to trust him too. How that works varies from dragon to dragon."
"But how do I do it?" Rand asked, worried that his own inability to trust would make an already difficult task impossible.
"I can't really explain it. You'll know, or figure it out. What I can tell you is how to make sure you know what's going on." Hiccup began drawing in the dirt between them with his stick. "Dragons use a lot of body language. When approaching a dragon, it's best to not even have a weapon. Even if you think they don't know about it. Whatever you do, don't draw your sword against him. Sometimes avoiding eye contact helps, but it depends on whether or not the dragon feels threatened by you."
"This doesn't seem very helpful," Rand muttered.
Hiccup heard him. "No, it isn't. Furies are smart, really smart. There's no easy path, no step-by-step set of instructions. It's something I can tell you the general idea of, but you have to figure out how to connect with that dragon on a personal level. So any advice I give on that part will inevitably fail." He was still sketching. "You don't have to make best friends with him. Just get him to respect and trust you. There are different levels of trust. The dragons of Berk live among us, doing what they will, trusting us to let them be. Some dragons have humans they live with, but don't let the humans ride them, though that's rare. Some rider and dragon pairs constantly argue, but work together because they trust each other, even if they don't respect each other that much. The best of the riders and dragons work together, know each other."
"You and Toothless are in that last group?"
"No." Hiccup surprised Rand with that answer. "The best example of that would be my wife Astrid, and her dragon."
"You're married?" That was news.
"Yup. The only reason she's not here is that she's in charge of the village while we're gone." Hiccup finished his drawing. "But every bond I've spoken of was encouraged, at best a friendship between two people. There's trust, but that trust was helped by the fact that someone told them it could be done, showed them how to connect." He gestured to the dirt.
Rand looked down and saw a remarkably detailed image of a boy holding out his hand, face turned away, eyes closed.
"We didn't know what was possible. Trust had to be absolute, or one of us was likely to kill the other, directly or indirectly." Hiccup spoke softly. "I trusted that he'd let me live, and he trusted me to return him to the sky, to do the impossible. We're closer than any of the others because they already had support, friends. We didn't. The risk increases the result, so to speak. So while Astrid and Stormfly are friends, Toothless and I are brothers. There aren't any other rider-dragon pairs that close, because the odds of surviving such a situation are pretty low."
"You did though?"
"Barely. I was this close to killing him, and five minutes after that he had me pinned to a rock, entirely helpless. One wrong move by either of us would have gotten one of us killed." Hiccup smiled, despite what he was saying. "It was worth it, but neither of us had anything to lose at that point. So anyway..."
"You were saying I don't need to get him to totally trust me. Just to stop attacking me."
"Basically." Hiccup winced. "That's not much help. There are a few more things I can tell you about dragon body language."
"Okay." Rand glanced at the moon. "Whatever will help." Maybe somewhere along the way, he'd figure out why this meant so much to him, why he felt he needed to succeed in at least pacifying the dragon the next time they faced off.