Fresh chapter! Now a heads up to you all, I won't be able to update as often as I used to. I need to make preparations to re-enroll in college this month and begin writing what I hope to be part of my Creative Writing thesis this December.
Anyway, on with the story!
Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING HERE BUT MY OCs!
Chapter 7: Enter The Dragon Whisperer
The ropes were still there, untouched since he had cut them off the Night Fury. Hiccup held up a piece and one of the bolas, his expression thoughtful. "So why didn't you?" he muttered.
"Let's go in the direction they flew off." Zenna pointed to the distance. "We might be able to find them," she suggested.
"And if we do, what then?" Erland raised an eyebrow as he fiddled with one of his daggers.
"Observe them from a distance, I guess. I mean, it's not every day you see two Night Furies up close in person, let alone one," said Zenna, shrugging.
Hiccup tossed the rope and the bola aside, motioning for the two to follow him. They walked on until they reached the entrance to the cove. One by one they entered and stood at the edge of a large smooth upright boulder. Apart from the small pond, the trees, and the twittering of birds, there was nothing.
"Well, this was stupid," muttered Hiccup.
A nudge from Zenna got him to look down at the ground, which was littered with several shiny black scales.
"Extraordinary…" Erland murmured, picking one up and examining it closely. The scale felt warm in his cold hands and was the color of jet.
Hiccup squatted to pick one up as well when Zenna suddenly shrieked, "Get down!" and pulled him and Erland down with her. There was a whoosh of air as a screaming black mass swooped past them, scrabbling at the rocks, before dropping down into the cove.
It took the trio to realize that it was the Night Fury with the missing tail fin. They watched it flop down on the ground after another attempt to fly. The other Night Fury was there too, growling softly as its partner picked itself up and got back on its feet.
"You alright?"
"That one with the full set of fins is a female," Erland blurted out, making Hiccup and Zenna look at him strangely.
"It's useless, absolutely hopeless. Without my other tail fin, I'm nothing but an overgrown lizard."
"The downed one's a male," Erland whispered, pointing to the Night Fury Hiccup shot down.
"How can you tell?" Hiccup asked him, eyes wide.
Erland looked to the side and shrugged. "Simple observation. The contours of their body are different," he explained.
Hiccup and Zenna looked at the two Night Furies again. Erland had a point. The Night Fury with a missing tail fin had an angular, rigid, form befitting a male. The other one was more rounded and curvy, feminine.
"They're mates…" Zenna breathed out, staring at the two dragons in amazement.
Erland rolled his eyes at the obviousness and they crept forward to get a closer look. The male Night Fury was now trying and failing to catch some fish in the pond. His mate, after seeing him pull his head out of the water without a single catch, warbled to him softly and he moved out of the way.
Dunking her head in the water, the female Night Fury was still for a brief moment then sharply jerked her head up out of the water, a large fish held between her jaws.
"Awww, how sweet," Zenna cooed, seeing the two dragons sharing the fish.
Hiccup took out his notebook and began to sketch. Noticing the missing tail fin on the male Night Fury, he felt his insides turn to lead as he erased the left tail fin on his drawing.
'Have I really crippled this dragon for life? What's he going to do? He has a mate, maybe even a few babies to take care of, and I've taken away his ability to fly… Why am I even feeling guilty?' he thought to himself, not noticing that he was getting too close to the boulder's edge.
Erland quickly pulled Hiccup back, the boy slipping and dropping his pencil, before he went over the edge. Unfortunately, the sound of Hiccup's pencil clattering onto the ground below drew the Night Furies' attention to them.
"Shoot…" Erland muttered under his breath while Zenna gave Hiccup her most exasperated look.
Silence reigned as the three humans and two dragons stared each other down.
Hiccup kept his eyes on the male, which curiously tilted his head at him.
Zenna focused on the female, a somewhat embarrassed smile on her face, while the dragoness narrowed her eyes and let out a soft mellow rumble.
Erland looked at both dragons, wondering if he should try talking to them, before deciding to get his two companions out of the cove before things took a turn for the worse.
"Let's get out of here before they start shooting at us," he said crisply, taking the two teens by the arm and gently pulling them up to their feet.
Zenna looked back at the two Night Furies. She couldn't help herself. "Bye bye!" she waved as Erland guided her out of the cove, Hiccup right behind her.
Erland was the last to go. And he was surprised to hear the male speak to him.
"Who are you?"
Looking into the Night Fury's intelligent green eyes, Loki smirked. 'Who do you think I am?' he replied using his mind.
The stunned looks on both Night Furies' faces were priceless.
"Serpent Tongue…" the female growled, taking a step back. She and her mate were no fools. The aura of this dark-haired human was unnatural. The fact that he could send his thoughts to them, producing a sensation that was akin to having a block of ice suddenly pressed to their temples, made them wary.
Loki smiled, forest green eyes flashing. 'In the flesh.' He bowed with a flourish. 'And I suggest that you two get used to seeing those two kids you saw a moment ago. Something tells me that they'll be coming here frequently,' he told the two dragons.
The male huffed. "Great. It's bad enough that I'm grounded, now I have to see that boy who shot me down every day," he growled.
The female shrugged her wings. "It might not be so bad, Destin. They looked like nice kids," she said. Then she lifted her right front paw and began to flick it back and forth, a puzzled frown on her face.
"Erika, what are you doing?" the male Night Fury, Destin, warbled.
"Trying to do that odd gesture the girl was making before she left. I think she called it a 'bye bye,' whatever that is…" Erika waved her front paw around. To Loki, it looked like she was trying to wipe down a window.
'Well, I best be off!' Turning around, Loki waved to the two Night Furies. "Bye bye!"
"Aha! He did the thing, too! It must be a human's way of saying goodbye!" Erika's excited tone elicited a small chuckle from the Serpent Tongue as he left the cove.
Hiccup gagged upon smelling the remains of yak stew clinging to the bottom of Gothi's old cauldron. "Good gods…" he muttered, tipping a bucket's worth of hot, soapy water into the cauldron and using a brush made of fine boar's bristles to scrub, the fiddly brown bits of leftover yak stew floating to the rapidly browning water's surface.
Zenna wiped down the tables Gothi laid patients down for examinations, shooting Erland murderous looks as the boy lounged on a chair and helped himself to tea and biscuits.
"You know Gothi's gonna kill you if she catches us doing your chores," Zenna pointed out, throwing down her stained cleaning rag on the table once she was done.
"Which is why I make sure to invite you two over when she's out," Erland retorted, popping another biscuit into his mouth.
Hiccup grunted as he struggled to lift the full cauldron up, intending to lug the heavy thing out onto the lift so he could head down and empty it into the ground.
"Hold on. I got it." Erland got out of his chair and walked over to the scrawny heir. Both boys lifted the cauldron up and began to walk out the door.
"If you don't mind, my room could use sweeping!" he told Zenna once he and Hiccup made it out of the doorway.
Huffing, Zenna grabbed a broom and headed up the loft. "Treating me like a servant… I take it back. He is not handsome, at all! Not even the slightest!" she grumbled.
Once inside Erland's room, Zenna furiously swept the dust bunnies out of the small space. Bending down to check under the bed, she noticed that the bottom left bedpost had scratches as if someone had taken a sword or a knife to the wood. But these weren't random scratches. 'They're like those figures Eli used to make on paper to count stuff with,' thought Zenna, tracing the neat row of scratches lining the post. She counted about 17 scratches before she heard Erland and Hiccup entering the hut.
It was only when she saw Erland again, helping Hiccup put the cauldron back on its hanging chain, did Zenna realize what the scratches on his bedpost were for.
The rain came down on Berk unexpectedly that night, drenching any unlucky Viking outside. Hair heavily soaked with rainwater and chilled to the bone, Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland trudged into the Great Hall where Gobber and the rest of the teens were having dinner.
"Alright. Where did Astrid go wrong in the ring today?" Gobber asked them.
"I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble," Astrid answered for herself, looking down at her plate. She usually executed her moves with ease. Maybe she shouldn't have missed out on her morning stretches today…
"Yeah, we noticed," Ruffnut said sarcastically. Honestly, somersault dives and reverse tumbles? Were those even legitimate battle moves?
"No, no, you were great. That was so 'Astrid.'" Snotlout flexed his muscles, hoping to catch the Divine Beauty's eye. Then he spotted Hiccup and smiled meanly, moving each time the runt tried to sit with them. It took a glare from Zenna and Erland unsheathing a dagger to get him to stay still.
"She's right, you have to be tough on yourselves," Gobber reminded his students before adding, "Where did Hiccup go wrong?" wanting to make sure they wouldn't make a repeat of the day's mistakes during the next lesson.
"Uh, he showed up?" Ruffnut guessed.
"He didn't get eaten," Tuffnut added.
"He's never where he should be," Astrid said coldly, ignoring the murderous stare Zenna was giving her as she, Hiccup, and Erland sat down at a separate table. "And Zenna's mistake was that she spent too much time hiding and following Hiccup around without making sure of her own safety."
Hiccup quickly grabbed onto Zenna's wrist before she could even make a move to get up.
"Ignore them, Zen. Hotheads who run their mouths often wind up dead," Erland said sotto voce, side-eyeing the Fiersome girl.
Clenching her jaw, Zenna turned her back to Astrid and began to aggressively cut up her chicken.
"Thank you, Astrid," Gobber said, relieved that a shouting match had been avoided, before limping around the other teens' table. "You need to live and breathe this stuff." He swept away the plates and tankards then dropped a leather-bound book onto the table, the Berk crest embossed on the cover. "The Dragon Manual. Everything we know about every dragon we know of," he said as a clap of thunder boomed outside, making him pause for a second.
The thunder's last echoes faded away then he said, "No attacks tonight. Study up." Before leaving the teens with the book.
"Wait, you mean, read?" Tuffnut said, aghast.
"While we're still alive?" Ruffnut looked equally horrified.
Snotlout snorted. "Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?" he asked.
"Well if you don't read the words, Snotlout, how will you know which stuff to kill?" Zenna asked him, turning around and smirking.
"Ooohhh…" Erland and Hiccup both snickered, enjoying the utterly dumbstruck look on Snotlout's face.
Fishlegs was aflutter with excitement as he began to spout off information he had memorized from the Book of Dragons by heart. "Oh! I've read it like, seven times. There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face. And-And there's this other one that buries itself for like a week…"
The Twins intervened before Fishlegs could bore them any further.
"Yeah, that sounds great. See, there was a chance I was gonna read that…" said Tuffnut, unimpressed with the knowledge the chubby Ingerman possessed.
"But, now…" Ruffnut made a face. She and Tuff hated anything that involved sitting down and staying in one place. And reading was, for them, the epitome of torture.
Snotlout scoffed and got up, flexing his arms. "You guys read, I'll go kill stuff," he said, puffing his chest out.
"Good luck with that. Make sure you don't accidentally die tonight thanks to your stupidity," Erland said, mockingly waving goodbye to the pompous buffoon before going back to eating his meal, ignoring Fishlegs as he rambled on about some dragon with tree-shaped spines.
Seeing Astrid alone at the table with the Book of Dragons, Hiccup steeled his nerves and approached.
"So I guess we'll share?" he asked timidly.
"Read it." Astrid pushed the book towards him and got up.
"All mine then. Wow, okay. So, I'll see you…" Hiccup managed to say before Astrid left the Great Hall, slamming the door shut. "…tomorrow."
Erland scowled. 'What is her problem?' he thought, then noticed Zenna furiously glaring at the Great Hall's closed doors. He surmised that the Fiersome girl had a great dislike for the Hofferson shield-maiden wannabee due to the latter's chilly response to Hiccup's affections. He didn't get Astrid, either. That girl could be amiable one second and withdrawn the next.
"Well, looks like we're the only ones studying tonight," Zenna said after a few tense minutes of silence, her anger evaporating as she finished her meal. Then her eyes lit up. "Hey… you guys wanna have a sleepover at my house tomorrow night?" she asked.
Hiccup and Erland looked at each other, blinking, then at Zenna. Hiccup grinned. "I'll bring the cheese dip," he said, earning a whoop from Zenna who high-fived him.
"I suppose one night at your place will be alright." Erland shrugged. "It might be even better than staying in that precariously positioned wooden death trap that old goat calls home," he chuckled, repressing a shudder as he remembered the times he'd get queasy just looking down from the front porch of Gothi's hut.
Zenna clapped her hands together. "Excellent! I'll make sure to cook us something special tomorrow night." Her violet eyes sparkled in the candlelight.
The Great Hall emptied as the night turned darker. Soon, it was just the three of them left. Hiccup went to go get a fresh candle, leaving Erland and Zenna alone.
"You don't care much for Astrid, do you, Zenna?" Erland's question startled the Fiersome girl who raised an eyebrow at the 17-year old.
"Astrid? Well, I uh… Well, you see, it's not that I don't really care so much for her. It's just that…" Zenna sighed, resting her elbows on the table. "It's… complicated, Erland," she told him.
Before Erland could pry any further, Hiccup was back with a newly-lit candle. Sitting down between the two, Hiccup opened the Book of Dragons.
"Dragon classifications. Strike Class, Fear Class, Mystery Class."
Erland looked at each page, reading through the descriptions as quickly as he could, memorizing every illustration of every dragon. If he was going to live on Berk from now on, at least until he was fully Loki again, he needed to know about the dragons and how they behaved.
"Thunderdrum," Hiccup said, turning the page to reveal a large dragon about as wide as a manta ray with an equally wide gaping mouth. "This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."
Zenna turned the page next. "Timberjack: This gigantic creature has razor-sharp wings that can slice through full grown trees. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight," she read the description, the illustration of a wyrm-like creature with massive wings.
Erland cocked his head as he had a go turning the book's pages. "Scauldron," he intoned, staring at a sea dragon that could rival the blue whale in terms of size with a huge sac-like structure hanging from its mouth. "Sprays scalding water at its victim. Extremely dangerous."
CRR-AAAAAA-CCCC-KKK!
While Hiccup and Zenna both yelped, scooching closer to each other as the thunder roared, Erland didn't even bat an eyelid. 'Sounds like Thor's having one of his fits again. Wonder what he could possibly be upset about now?' Loki sighed mentally.
"Changewing."
'Ooh, interesting-looking dragon…' he thought, admiring the illustration of what was supposedly a Changewing, an elegant-looking creature with leaf-like spines. "Even newly-hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight," said Erland, frowning. "Is every dragon 'Extremely Dangerous' around here?"
"Hey, even Terrible Terrors can eat a Viking out of house and home," Hiccup informed him.
The trio continued reading. The pictures in the book seemed to flicker in the candle's feeble glow. Some even appeared to be moving as they read on.
"Gronckle, Zippleback, the Skrill, Boneknapper, Whispering Death…"
"That's a lot of dragons," Erland whistled, feeling overwhelmed for once.
Zenna put a hand to her chin, thoughtful. "Personally, I feel like this book could use some updating. Especially when it comes to the whole 'Kill on sight' advice," she remarked.
Hiccup flipped through the pages, thinking that Zenna had a point. Every entry on the dragons only covered what made them dangerous. There wasn't any information regarding what they ate, what odd behaviors they exhibited, or even a section about mating rituals.
"Burns its victims, buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside-out. Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous, kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight..."
Finally, he stopped at a nearly-blank page.
"Night Fury: Speed, unknown. Size, unknown," Hiccup read, staring at the huge blank space on the page meant for the illustration of the elusive dragon. Erland and Zenna huddled closer to him, curious.
"The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself," Hiccup said softly.
"Never engage this dragon." Zenna felt a shiver go down her spine.
"Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you," Erland read the last line of the Night Fury entry in a dead serious tone then smirked. "You're right, Zenna. This book really needs to be updated."
Hiccup took out his journal and placed it on top of the Book of Dragons, his sketch of the downed dragon showing. Mind flashing back to the brief time he spent at the cove with his friends, Hiccup couldn't and didn't want to believe what the book just told him.
And, Odin dammit all to Helheim, he now wanted to see the two Night Furies again and prove the book wrong.
"I'm going back to the cove tomorrow," he told Erland and Zenna who both grinned.
"Not by yourself, you're not," said Erland.
"Count me in too, Hicc!" Zenna smiled.
The rain had stopped by the time the three misfits left the Great Hall. Loki merely waved to Gothi as he entered the elder's hut and headed straight for his room. Carving another notch onto his bedpost, Loki slipped under the sheets and was out like a light.
Yep, Erland/Loki can talk to dragons.
Regarding the names 'Destin' and 'Erika,' please refer to my story "Through the Eyes of a Striker" for context.
As for Zenna's apparent dislike for Astrid, that relationship will be explained in the next chapter ;)
Erland/Loki seems to be interested in a certain dragon, the Changewing. Will he get to see one?
Find out in the next thrilling chapter of "How to Train Your Dragon… With the God of Mischief"
-GuardianDragon98