Sorry for the delay - my computer finally suffered a Massive Meltdown. It retained it's wonderful use as a laptop dinner table, and it's ability to be thrown at intruders and cause major bodily harm wasn't damaged... but the thing wouldn't turn on. I handed it over to the computer-doctors, who prescribed a new motherboard and a week of rest. I found myself trapped doing plebeian and torturous tasks like reading and drawing and such things as I waited for its return. :)
Thanks MsFrizzle, hiccupfan54, InfinitiumAce, Roxy Emeralds, BiblioMatsuri, Somebody105, Q-A the Authoress, moleking, and Guest for their reviews!
Gargle the Gruesome
A How to Train Your Dragon Fanfic by Cori
Night Fury's Secret
Hiccup Haddock Horrendous III stared at the unconscious girl Toothless dropped carefully onto the ledge. He slipped out of the saddle, nervously running his fingers along the smooth scales on his dragon's side, then up to scratch at the sensitive skin near his ear. The dragon cooed. "Oh, none of this is going to plan..." he muttered.
The dragon made a sour noise as Hiccup's fingers stopped their scratching, folding his legs underneath him and settling down to sleep. His tail curled up and around his nose, snorting derisively before closing his eyes for a nap.
Hiccup scowled. "I'm aware none of my ideas ever go to plan. You can shut it." He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, pushing the heavy helmet out of the way and glancing at the moon, before he settled down next to his dragon. His black armor blended in perfectly with Toothless's scales as he leaned against the warm flank.
Over the past several years, he'd slowly dropped hints to his Viking tribe about the demon lurking in the dragons' nest. When Fishlegs had come up with the name Red Death almost a year ago, the others had latched onto it. Hiccup's goal had been for the Hooligan tribe to believe that they'd come up with Hiccup's plan to defeat the Red Death on their own - leaving Hiccup the Useless out of the picture all together. Leaving his dragon a secret.
The thought had him gently scratching at Toothless's ears again. He couldn't imagine how fast his world would crumble if the others found out that he had a dragon for a best friend.
Everything had come crashing down several weeks ago when - quite suddenly and extremely unexpectedly - his father had put together the rumors he'd been hearing and gotten the plan going earlier than Hiccup had wanted. At least, thus far, Hiccup wasn't part of that plan.
Of course, he really hadn't planned on 'Gargle' being part of the plan either. 'Gargle' was a fun diversion, a way to train with Toothless and get away from the clinging Hooligan tribe, but 'Gargle' was supposed to have vanished long before the plan went into effect. Gone off to wherever he'd supposedly come from.
His gaze slowly turned to the girl lying on the rocky cliff. The marriage thing had been spun off the top of his head - the perfect way to get out of helping and to stop his father from attempting to hunt down 'Gargle' again. He'd assumed nobody would go through with it. Marrying a Shield Maiden to a perfect stranger? It was nearly unheard of. An unfulfillable demand.
...That they'd actually gone through with.
He almost couldn't keep back the desperate laugh as he thought about the fact that he was (sort-of technically) engaged to the girl of his dreams. Astrid Hofferson, the one he'd had a crush on since he was eight. He couldn't actually marry her of course - she hated him and called him utterly useless every chance she got - but for a few nights, he could allow himself to dream.
And dragging her here to meet Toothless? That had been a horrible idea built on impulse from watching her pace back and forth through the village one too many times. He'd often imagined what it would be like for Astrid to meet Toothless... to actually like Toothless. It was a recurring daydream to throw Astrid on his dragon's back and take her flying through the clouds and she'd fall in love...
With a snort, Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest. Who was he kidding? He was some sort of hopeless romantic - and that was something Astrid was very definitely not. This was Astrid Hofferson: Shield Maiden in training. There was no way Astrid would ever see a dragon as anything other than a monster to be killed. She wasn't going to let them take her flying.
Especially since they'd just literally kidnapped her.
He laughed anxiously, shaking his head and trying to force his mind into a new line of thought. Maybe this turn of events would be enough to throw 'Gargle' out of the picture for the Hooligans. There was no way Astrid would keep Toothless a secret. There was no way the Vikings would team up with someone who was friends with a dragon. Maybe this was what he needed to retire 'Gargle' for real and start just being Hiccup again.
Leaning his head back against Toothless, listening to the giant reptile slowly breathe in and out, Hiccup gazed out at the stars. He barely remembered what it was like being Hiccup anymore. It was just an act he played when his father needed him in the village. He didn't even know if he could be Hiccup the Useless anymore.
Then again, this mess he was in - introducing Astrid to Toothless, kidnapping her, being engaged to her, sticking around rather than heading for the hills like his better sense was telling him he should - was pure Hiccup. If he'd had any real sense, 'Gargle' would have disappeared two weeks ago when his father had first started muttering about sending a party out to find him. Honestly, if he was really as smart as Gobber kept telling him he was, Hiccup would have followed 'Gargle' into the sunset.
That, of course, wasn't an option. More than likely, his whole plan needed a solid re-think. Slowly, his eyes closed and he pushed his worries aside to deal with later. He'd found that plans were best made while hunting for breakfast.
Warm and safe in the grasp of his dragon with the moon bright overhead, he drifted to sleep. In his dreams that night, he defeated the Red Death, won the hand of the most beautiful maiden in the archipelago, and brokered some strange sort of peace treaty between the Viking hordes and the dragons.
Astrid jerked awake. Her body ached from sleeping on the hard rock and in her armor. She pushed herself into a seated position, looking around in surprise as memories from last night flooded into her mind.
She'd been kidnapped. By... a dragon?
Scrambling to her feet, she reached for her weapons, only to find them still missing. Her eyes swept the small ledge, but when no dragons met her gaze, her body slowly relaxed. Nothing had eaten her. The beast wasn't lying around, waiting for her to wake up so she could be toyed with prior to her death.
She walked carefully to the edge of the cliff. The rock went straight down, much father than she could jump and survive, and waves smashed into the base of the cliff. Above her, the rock arched upwards dozens of feet, nearly flat and almost as smooth as glass. There would be no climbing up or down. The ledge itself was about seven feet wide, perhaps two dozen long - a tapered shape that resembled the deck of a longboat. It was completely devoid of life.
"Great. So I've been left to starve," she grumbled. No weapons, no food, no water.
Her fingers clenched into fists as her thoughts turned from her predicament to Gargle and what she'd seen last night. The man had been... what? Petting the monster? And then what had happened? Everything after throwing the rock and heading back to the village was a blur. She pressed a fist to her temple, trying to demand her brain begin to function.
A whisper of wind was all the warning she had. She jerked backwards as a huge black form flashed into her field of vision. "No!" she yelped, stumbling over a rock and falling onto her back.
Her death flashed before her eyes as the dragon from the previous night - a hulking, snarling Night Fury, landed on the rock cliff only feet away and leaned over to inspect her. She stared into its acid eyes, its fishy breath loud in her ears.
Then a voice calmly said, "Toothless."
The dragon's head instantly vanished from before her face, pulled back to examine something perched on its back. Astrid crab-walked backwards, her eyes fixed on the dragon and... Was there a person on its back? Her mouth fell open as she recognized the young man and watched him slide easily from a saddle placed between the beast's wings.
"Relax," he said, gazing at her a moment before turning to the bags on the back of the monster. He took out a dozen fish, and dropped them to the ground along with a bundle of sticks. "Breakfast?"
She let out a shaky breath, her fingers scrambling for a loose rock she could use to bash the beast's head in - the man's too. Was he truly asking the dragon if it wanted her for breakfast?
The dragon made a chuffing noise, grabbing a fish and swallowing it whole. Its razor-sharp teeth gleamed in the sunrise, a long tongue swiping its lips and leaving trails of goo behind. Astrid couldn't help but wonder if she would be next on its menu.
"Save some for us, will you?" Gargle muttered, batting at the monster's head as he grabbed the sticks and arranged them into a small campfire. "Would you mind?"
With a huffing noise, the dragon's eyes drifted towards the fish, then to the campfire.
Gargle rolled his eyes and laughed. "Yes, you get most of the fish. Light the fire."
The high-pitched whine was like a sound out of Astrid's nightmare. Her fingers almost went numb as the beast turned its head in her direction, opened its maw, and let out a blast of flame. She flinched backwards, pushing herself against the rock face, determined not to scream as she was roasted alive...
Only, no heat touched her. She slowly turned back to the dragon, noting the cheerily burning campfire and Gargle slowly setting a few of the fish up to cook. "What?" she whispered, struggling to slow her heart. It was beating furiously in her ears.
Gargle glanced up at her at the noise. "This is Toothless," he said, gesturing in the direction of the huge Night Fury.
The dragon grabbed another fish.
"Why is it here?" she had to ask, her sweaty fingers tight around the rock she'd found. Her back pressed against the wall, almost like she would go through it if she could push hard enough.
"He," Gargle said, stressing the pronoun, "is one of the only ways down."
She swallowed hard. "Is it going to eat us?"
Poking at the fish, Gargle sighed. "He likes fish." He glanced over at the dragon, who seemed to be gleefully hoarding the remaining few fish into a pile between its front legs. "Can't get him to eat much else." Gargle let out a small groan at that. "And, so, it's really all I get to eat too."
The dragon snorted at the attention, a bit of smoke blasting towards the black-armored young man, then sorted out the next fish to be eaten.
"I... I..." Astrid desperately wanted to understand what was going on, but she couldn't bring herself to say the words. She just stared at the monstrous reptile.
"Hungry?" Gargle said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. When she jerked around to glare at him, the young man was holding a cooked fish speared on a stick in her direction. "It's pretty good. I've gotten pretty good at cooking fish."
Astrid did not want a fish, although she was somewhat hungry. Her eyes narrowed and her fingers twitched around her rock, her emotions warring between fear and anger. "What is it you think you're doing?"
"Hm?" Gargle shrugged, sitting down and picking off pieces of the fish he'd offered her. He pushed aside the mask slightly to eat. Astrid quietly noted that the man was clean-shaven with a nice-looking chin. "What do you mean?"
"Why am I here?"
"Ah." The fire cracked as Gargle shrugged. He waited a long few beats longer than necessary to answer. "I wanted you to meet my best friend."
Astrid waited for more than that. She forced her eyes off the beast long enough to glance around, searching for this 'best friend', before the answer became blindingly obvious. "The dragon is your best friend?" The words could barely choke out of her throat in disbelief.
Gargle studied her, his green eyes lightened by the fire and the early morning light. "So?"
"It's a dragon!" she yelped. "It eats Vikings for a living. Do you know how many of us it's killed?"
The Night Fury growled low in its throat, turning its acid-green eyes on her. The young man turned his head towards the beast, then back to her. "He didn't kill me. And he didn't kill you. And he doesn't eat Vikings - I told you, he only eats fish."
Astrid scrambled to her feet, eyes wide, unable to understand what she was hearing. "What kind of monster are you?" she demanded. "Vikings aren't friends with demons!"
She almost saw it coming. Gargle was across the fire and inches from her within a blink of the eye, his gaze boring into hers. She brought the rock up to slam into his head, but the man's hand had clamped around her arm, holding it still. His body pressed against hers, holding her against the cliff face. "Toothless has saved my life more often than you can imagine." His voice was barely louder than the breeze, but it was as sharp as a knife. His fingers tightened around her wrist. "He's more than a friend to me - he's the only family I have that cares about me. You can insult me all you want, but leave Toothless out of it."
She didn't dare reply. Her mouth was clamped shut, her breath leaving her nose in shaking bursts. If there was one thing in the world she could sincerely appreciate, it was a solid threat with the ability to back it up.
"Toothless isn't going to hurt you." His voice had softened slightly. "I'm not going to hurt you. And you're not going to hurt us."
It wasn't a question or a compromise, but Astrid slowly nodded anyways.
He let go of her wrist, allowing her hand to fall to her side. The heavy rock tumbled from her fingers and clattered on the ground. Backing up a few paces, Gargle gazed at her before turning his back and heading back to the fire to snag another fish. "Breakfast?" he said, his tone back to the gentle one he'd used earlier. "They're not as good once they get cold."
She couldn't bring herself to move. She stared at the man - the hero of the stories they'd been hearing for the last few years - and then at the dragon he called his best friend. The beast chose that moment to look up at her and slowly lick its tongue over one of its eyes. Its lips pulled back in an odd, toothless grin and its tail thumped against the ground.
Very slowly, she inched away from the wall and over to the fire. She reached for the last fish, snagged it, and scuttled back to where she'd been. She tore off little bits of fish, almost burning her fingers in the process, and slowly ate her way through her breakfast.
It was nearly fifteen minutes of horrible silence before Gargle got up and went over to scratch the dragon's ears. The monster cooed and tipped its head, clearly enjoying the treatment. Kicking the remaining embers of fire and fish bones over the edge of the cliff, the man turned to gaze at her. "There's a meeting soon in the hall. I'll need to be back for it."
Astrid nodded slowly.
"I'm assuming you'd like to go home?"
Astrid wasn't stupid. Her eyes chased over to the dragon. It was very clearly the only way off this bit of cliff. "Yes," she whispered, although her heart clenched at the idea of what she was (probably) about to do.
Gargle wandered around the dragon, slowly tightening straps here and there before climbing on to sit between the dragon's wings. The monster chuffed again, shaking itself a bit to settle everything properly, and turned its reptilian eyes on her. The man held out a hand for her to grab.
Fingers tight in fists, she stalked towards the dragon. She was somewhat convinced the beast wouldn't eat her by this point - at least not with Gargle around - but she didn't trust it one bit. Her body edged around its head, eying the saddle-like contraption on its back. Batting Gargle's hand away, she pulled herself up and gingerly found a place behind his back.
"You're going to want to hold on," Gargle said.
"Why-" she started, but the dragon lunged off the edge of the cliff. Her fingers raced forwards and grabbed onto Gargle's shoulders, yanking herself close and pressing her legs firmly in to the dragon's side. She could hear the man chuckle as the dragon slowed its fall and steadied them into a slow glide. Her home hovered just over the horizon in the distance.
"It's not so bad," he said over his shoulder.
Astrid didn't bother to answer. Her lips were firmly clamped shut to keep herself from screaming in a way that was very unfitting for a Shield Maiden - being this far in the air as a human was unnatural! She kept her eyes fixed on her homeland.
Gargle's head shook slightly. He leaned forwards to pet the dragon, muttering something to it under his breath.
It took far too long to reach the forest outside her home. Astrid slid from the monster's back almost before it had completely settled to the ground, already striding towards the village. A hand snagged her elbow before she could make it more than a few steps, twisting her around. "What?" she snapped.
"You can't tell them."
She stared past the man's helmet to the dragon that was snuffling around in the grass. "Why in Thor's name shouldn't I?" she demanded.
"Because I'll leave," he answered calmly. "I'm sure your tribe will enjoy defeating the Red Death without me."
Her teeth clenched tightly. Her fingers twitched, half-tempted to wrap themselves around this stranger's throat. "You are friends with the enemy," she said.
There was a quiet beat. "No," he said. His voice held a strange note of sadness. "I think you'll find that I'm not."
Ripping her elbow free of his grasp, Astrid glared up at him. Back on her home soil, without a deadly fall only seconds away, she dared to challenge him. "Oh yeah? You're a traitor to your own kind!"
His eyes tightened and darkened, but he didn't move.
"That's a dragon. Its kind have killed hundreds of ours. They steal our food so we starve in the winter. They destroy our town so we freeze in the snow. There isn't a single family in our tribe that hasn't lost someone to those monsters!" Her breath hitched in her throat.
Gargle waited, apparently trying to tell if she was done with her rant. "Maybe you should stop a moment and consider something." His voice was hard as ice.
"Yeah?" she sneered, crossed her arms. "And what's that?"
He took a small step backwards. "That maybe I'm not the one who's the traitor to my kind." His fingers snapped, which brought the Night Fury's head up from the bush it was investigating. The beast galloped over to him, pushing its head under Gargle's arm.
Astrid shook her head, then stared at the monster. Was he implying that the dragon had turned on its own kind? "It'd help us fight the Red Death?" she asked slowly.
The dragon seemed to understand the question. At the mention of the giant she-dragon, the beast's eyes narrowed dangerously, a dark growl thrumming through the woods. All the creatures of the forest - the birds and bugs - all fell completely silent.
She didn't need to see the mirroring expression on Gargle's face to understand what the monster meant. "By Thor, yes," the man said. "He hates the Red Death more than the two of us combined."
Her gaze flitted between the two. A stranger-hero in black armor to the black dragon. A perfectly matched set. Twisting on her heel, she stalked from the clearing.
"You won't tell them," Gargle said. His voice carried easily in the quiet woods.
"No," she finally admitted. Not yet, anyways.
Something slammed into a tree just in front of her. Then several more items. Astrid stared at them - noting her axe and several knives inches apart on the tree trunk. "You forgot those," Gargle mentioned.
Reaching up, she grabbed the weapons and put them back into their original places. Her eyes stared at the knife Gargle had given her as a present the previous evening, still jammed into the tree. It was worth more than her life.
She left it there. Without turning around once, she went back to her village, found her way to her house, and located herself a quiet corner to sit in. She very desperately needed to think.
