Chapter 9 : Muddied Footprints
-SwT-
Hiccup woke up in Toothless' forelegs. When he'd returned to the cove last night, he was dead exhausted from the long day and the sprint away from his dad. Toothless had leaped on him and pulled him into a scaly cocoon, crooning worriedly. Hiccup didn't complain at all as he drifted off to sleep.
Now, though, he was awake and the silly dragon wasn't. The scaly forelegs wrapped around his arms and rib cage were holding onto him too tightly to just slip away. He sighed at his predicament.
As the few spots of light peeking in from the top and bottom of the black void grew brighter, Hiccup marveled at how comfortable he'd become around Toothless. Already, it was as if they had spent their entire childhoods together. Even now, with the dragon's chest pressing against his back while he slept, he didn't feel at all uncomfortable or frightened.
Enemy of my enemy is my friend alright. Huh. What an amazing friend to have.
Eventually, though, boredom got the better of comfort and Hiccup pushed hard at the limbs, trying to free himself. Toothless snorted, then grumbled at having to actually wake up and move to release his friend. Grudgingly, the legs loosened and Hiccup rolled out of the cocoon of wings into the daylight.
In the darkness of his friend's wings, Hiccup had slept until the sun peeked over the lip of vegetation above the cove. He had maybe two hours until midday, another six after that until sunset.
And nothing to do. Idly, he sat on a rock near the water. Toothless' face from last night, so concerned and overprotective, was etched into Hiccup's memory. He didn't notice that he was drawing it in the dirt until it was almost complete.
He looked at the face, staring up at him from the ground. Pictures, drawings…
Wait, he could break the language barrier between himself and Toothless! One didn't need a language commonality to recognize a drawing of a face or a place.
He thought about how to send a clear message for several minutes. Eventually, he had the idea of groups, circles. He could indicate which people liked which people by having them nearby each other… Wait, that wouldn't work.
Oh! Perhaps scales of relationships were too complicated, but maybe he could just indicate individuals that supported them, and individuals who supported others with differing opinions. One circle would have Toothless in the middle with Hiccup, Bucket, Mulch, and Seabreath around the outside. Another would have Stoick in the middle and Spitelout, Gobber, and Berk as seen from a map. Then a third circle for Alvin, with Mildew, Savage, and Outcast Island.
He spent almost until midday drawing out the circles, then drawing in the faces and places. It took some time, but his artist's instincts did a pretty good job replicating everybody. (In his humble opinion, of course.)
As he went along, he realized he could also show changing relationships. He drew Bucket, Mulch, and Seabreath again in Stoick's circle, then crossed them out and drew arrows to the Toothless circle's versions of their faces. He did the same for Mildew from Stoick's to Alvin's, though he doubted Mildew would matter at all to the dragon.
Now to see if Toothless understood any of it…
-SwT-
After the long night of worrying about Sapling, I slept well and deeply until midday. I would've kept going until the next evening, but Sapling decided to poke my leg with a stick. When I looked at him with a half-lidded gaze, he did the "come-here" gesture from our escape on the island of rock. He didn't seem afraid or agitated, smelling only of excitement and, oddly, a lot of dirt. I grumbled my annoyance wordlessly but rose to follow him anyway.
He'd covered the ground around a rock with scratches and marks, all but four long marks contained by three large circles. He stepped carefully over the lines and pointed one paw at one of the groupings of marks, in the center of a circle.
I shot him an annoyed glance. Playing in the dirt? Really? How helpful. Nonetheless, I took a closer look. After a moment of examination I realized that, to my surprise, the marking rather resembled myself. I turned to the cove's lake to check, but the markings definitely depicted a very concerned-looking me.
Sapling pointed to another grouping of marks, next to "me." This one took me a little longer to figure out, but eventually - looking between him and the markings - I understood. That one was him!
I looked at the other markings in the circle. One with a flat top I understood almost immediately as the tall human from the pile of trees with the fish. The one next to him took a little longer, but the piles of fur around its mouth gave it away as the rotund one who barked at the others a lot. The last group of marks in the circle was a human with fur down the top of his head and a very round chin, with a very tiny set of horns. Again, another human from the "boughautuh" with fish.
Sapling did the strange stretching his mouth and showing his teeth thing that he had done but a few times, only when really happy.
I moved over to another circle. The grouping of markings in the middle of this circle resembled a human I saw only once, the massive, red furred alpha of the island we were presently trapped on. I looked around at the other markings, but many of them were ones I simply didn't know. A few I recognized after a moment as reproductions of ones from the first circle, with extra markings added over top. The markings on top seemed to destroy these images and indicate others in the previous circle.
I followed another "marked-out" marking to the last circle, which had another massive, hairy human in the middle, with uneven fur on his jaw. This circle represented those humans loyal to the alpha of the first island we were trapped at. Apparently, someone from the present island's alpha had at one point changed allegiance to that of the rocky island.
It was a lot of information and the concept was somewhat unfamiliar. Thinking it over, though, I understood: these were various allegiance groups, flocks around certain alphas. The island of rock was led by the massive, unevenly black furred human as I suspected. The island we were on now was led by the massive, red furred human. Finally… Did Sapling consider me his alpha?
I stared at the image of me for a long moment. I looked so concerned, so worried. Images of Her flashed through my mind. When has She ever been worried? Concerned? Especially for one of us?
Never.
I froze, the thoughts threatening to overwhelm me. She couldn't be a just ruler: She forced us to bring Her food and ate us if we failed. She forced us to fight humans when, in all likelihood, we probably could've found enough for Her in the sea or on uninhabited islands. What- what kind of monster-?
I banished the thoughts from my head. It hurt too much to think about. She was my alpha, it wasn't right to tarnish Her memory.
Was your alpha. But a memory, now.
I shook my head, focusing instead on images of Her.
I had something I needed to tell Sapling.
I turned around, searching for some open space, then used my claws to carve out my own circle. I hardly even noticed the dirt getting under my scales, I was too focused on getting this right. Carefully, I dragged my claw along the ground, forming a line that approximated Her mighty crown. With less-than-deft movements I drew Her six, piercing crescent eyes, slitted as they almost always were. With two longer strokes, I marked out Her shoulders.
Below Her I scratched an image of one of every species of dragon I could remember from the nest, all five. I was certain there were one or two more at some point - unique in the nest, like myself - but I hadn't seen them in such a long time, it hardly mattered. Finally, I copied the markings Sapling used for me, then did the "marked-out" marking going from Her circle of influence to… mine.
Sapling stood to the side, mouth agape as I worked. I finished off by marking out the slimmer human from the island of rock and drawing a long indicator to the base of the cliff where his dragon form had spoken with me not half a day before.
I looked back at him and tried to replicate his expression, the strange one with the corners of his mouth pulled up and his teeth on display but also slightly hidden. I don't know whether I was doing it right, but Sapling's mouth got bigger and he did the high-pitched coughing that seemed to be his species' laughter.
-SwT-
Hiccup laughed out loud. It seemed like Toothless understood what he'd drawn, and added his own updates! The dragon drew a new circle with some kind of six-eyed dragon in the middle. Then he added a bunch of other dragons to it, including himself. Then he'd crossed himself out and drawn an allegiance change to the circle with himself in the middle. And he was smiling at Hiccup, too. A dragon, smiling. He was never going to get used to that.
That's when Hiccup stopped understanding the changes, though. Toothless crossed out Savage - of all people - and drew a line to where the Terror had been sitting on the cliff.
As the realization sunk home, the smile dropped from Hiccup's face. Toothless couldn't mean…
The Terror had hissed at him, specifically, not Toothless. On top of that, they'd been making noises for a long time at each other, like a conversation.
Which meant…
Hiccup had to check first. He had to know. He walked over to Toothless, stumbling a little as he did so. Taking his stick, Hiccup drew an image of Savage and an image of the Terror, with the dried blood everywhere.
The smile dropped off Toothless' face as well, his scaly brow creasing in concern.
Slowly, as if he were trying to make the action very clear to Hiccup, Toothless crossed out Savage and drew an arrow to the Terrible Terror. Then he looked up, crooning at Hiccup.
No.
Gods no.
Hiccup stumbled backward, away from Toothless. He couldn't accept it. It wasn't possible! He didn't turn Savage into a dragon, it just couldn't be real!
Toothless crooned in concern and strode over. Hiccup continued walking backward from the drawing of Savage and the Terror on the ground, ending up back at the four circles and tripping over the rock in the middle. He landed on his rear, next to the drawing of Toothless, in Toothless' circle. The dragon sat in front of the rock and took on a nearly identical look of protective concern to the one in the drawing.
Hiccup pulled his knees up to his chest and let out a sob. He'd turned a man into a dragon! Unbelievable. Wait, did that mean, was he turning into a dragon too? Was Alvin? Hiccup looked down at himself. He looked fine, unchanged. But concern niggled at the back of his mind:
The last few days, apart from minor malnourishment, he'd been fit as a fiddle.
If it was some sort of sickness, he should have had earlier warnings, some sort of symptoms.
Why did I collapse coughing on the docks?
Hiccup thought about it, but he couldn't think of any possible reason why he collapsed coughing. Any reason, that is, except the one he so recently discounted as impossible. The one he'd hoped was some method of Alvin's of breaking prisoners, or something.
Magic.
He hiccuped out another sob. Toothless circled around Hiccup, crushing all the drawings in his circle. Carefully, he wrapped himself around his distraught boy, covering him with his wing. Hiccup continued to cry, but he felt comfort from the presence of the only friend he'd ever really had.
Loki damnit all. Why are you toying with me like this?
Toothless, concerned for Hiccup and with no further way to show his support, licked the boy.
"Agh! Really? S-stop. Just stop. STOP. I-I c-can't-"
Toothless stopped. Hiccup curled up tighter and continued to cry.
-SwT-
I have no clue how much of my scratches regarding Her Sapling understood. I was certain, though, he knew about the Tinywing-once-human. When he made the second set of markings and I filled in the mark-over, he stumbled back afraid like he had been when we first met in the mountain-vein covered space with the stone walls, when there had been a mountain-vein claw and years of fear between us.
Then he began shaking and leaking water from his eyes, like when he was interrogated by the alpha of the island of rock. Unsure of how exactly to help, I tried licking him.
Lick your wounds, right? Emotional wounds are like physical ones… probably.
Sapling was… not amused. He barked at me, hissing, then barking louder. I pulled away, again uncertain. I was so unused to dealing with emotion. What- what had him this upset?
Sapling leaned away, leaking water into the dirt. It hit me then, suddenly. I did this. What kind of monster was I? I upset him as much as that evil, evil human did. The ground was right in taking me from the sky. I was a worthless, good-for-nothing-
Sapling uncurled, leaning back into me and curling up again. Completely at a loss, I sat still.
He shook and leaked water from his eyes for nearly two hours. The shadow cast by the cove's sheer walls stretched longer until none of the grassy floor stood in direct sunlight.
Eventually, he calmed. Still hissing air through his nose, he stood. He looked different, perhaps sickly. His standing posture was unsteady and his chest didn't seem as wide as before. He didn't seem to notice, though.
Then he began walking off.
Where are you going? I asked.
He didn't answer. Stumbling a little as he walked, he made his way over to the water's edge and sat down, pulling out his strange object of flat white leaves he made black markings in. Staring intently at the water, he began to make more scratches on another flat leaf.
Cautiously, I came up behind him and watched him make marks.
With a few strokes of the stick, the form took shape. He was drawing himself, as he looked reflected in the water. Eventually, he finished his own form and moved on to me, looking over his shoulder. The resulting image was a hauntingly accurate reproduction of our reflections, and I-
I turned away, disgusted with myself for upsetting him. What use was I, unable to communicate properly?
Why- why did he mark me in the allegiance circle images as his alpha? I wasn't an alpha; I wasn't even a regular dragon. I was flightless. I was useless in ground combat. I was useless.
Behind me, he barked in a way that seemed language-less, a humorless imitation of human laughter. Then he whispered a few words in the human tongue.
Noticing my absence he looked up from his reflection, turning to look at me. I didn't meet his gaze, preferring to hide my shame in any direction other than toward his piercing eyes.
No, I wasn't his alpha. If anything, he was mine.
-SwT-
Stoick didn't sleep that night. He wasn't even aware of the time passing. He sat in his hut, staring at the letter, only moving to stoke the fire as it slowly died away. Each new log let it flare to life again, but then it would die away. Again and again. Each new log adding more ashes to the pile.
When does it end?... Does it end? Could Hiccup, and Val before him, have found another way?
He was finally broken from his reverie when Gobber came knocking on the door, looking for him.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Stoick! It's Gobber. People in town 'ave been askin' where you've been. Didya even leave yer house taday?"
Stoick didn't answer. He stared into the fire. He didn't even need to read the letter anymore, he'd memorized every stroke.
"Stoick, you might be the chief, but that doesn't mean I don't know m' way past m' own latches. I'm comin' in there if you don't open this door!"
Nothing. Stoick just couldn't figure out what to do, what to think.
"Fine, fine," Gobber complained. There was a series of clicks as Gobber switched prosthetic hands, then a clunk as something slipped into the door and lifted the latch. Gobber pried the door open, stowing whatever latch-picking hand he'd used in a pouch on the back of his belt. "Stoick, for cryin' out loud, it's nearly midday! Johann's been waitin' on your blessin' to leave dock, an' he's gettin' all kinds a' impatient too. Wasn't it you who was rarin' ta go searchin' for the lad and his dragon last nigh…"
Gobber trailed off as he took in Stoick's defeated frame, and the small piece of paper in his massive fingers.
"Hiccup…?" Gobber asked, leaving the rest of the question unspoken.
Like a statue coming to life, Stoick slowly nodded, letting his best friend take the note.
Gobber read the note over. "All we do is tell the village not ta attack 'is dragon? Pretty sure we already do tha'..."
Stoick's head whipped around in surprise.
"... If I remember the entry on Night Furies in the book of dragons, it went something along the lines of 'Hide and pray it does not find you.' Seems like we already wouldn't be attackin' it."
Stoick opened his mouth, jaw working a few times like a fish out of water. "I'd be the first Viking chieftain… ever… to order his men not to attack a dragon for a reason other than retreat." His voice sounded hoarse, unused as it was for hours.
"Eh, there is that," Gobber admitted. "Bu', on the other hand, er… hook… whatever, you'd have this mess with your son sorted out in a few days, maybe less! Who knows, the dragon might even help out with fishing. You heard Bucke' and Mulch fawnin' over the thing. 'Raining fish'? A half dozen Vikings wouldn't be 'alf as useful as a dragon on our side."
Stoick grunted. "Is it on our side, though?"
"Wha' do you mean?"
"I mean, when a raid happens, what then?"
"... Oh. Righ'. Hadn't thought o' tha'."
The two thought in silence for a few moments - one standing, one sitting.
"Stoick, I think there's only one good way to find out what's best."
"... What's that?"
"Try. Find another way, like Val always said."
Stoick shut his eyes, trying block out the painful memories. "She was killed by the beasts, Gobber."
"Doesn't change wha' she would've wanted."
The silence stretched on for another long moment.
Gobber set the piece of paper on the steps to Hiccup's loft. "Well Stoick, up and at 'em. You might've had a bad night, but you've still got chiefing to do. Johann is still waiting on you to send 'im off, and I'd rather not see his 'ticked off' prices, Eh?"
The humor swept by the stoic chieftain ineffectually.
Gobber sighed, but brightened as the chief slowly stood. "Tha's it, Stoick!"
The two walked slowly out into the light of late midday. "What would I do without you Gobber?"
"Eh, end up in an emotional spiral spurred on by several webs o' political intrigue from which you're unable to recover in time to save the village?"
Stoick sighed and shook his head. "Probably."
-SwT-
Stoick's council sat before him, the light of the setting sun shining through the open front door onto the wall. Each had read the letter. Mulch wore an expression of expectant anticipation. Bucket looked vacant and confused, as usual. Seabreath - added to the council due to extenuating circumstances - was remaining characteristically calm. Spitelout was fighting back a hopeful grin. Gobber, having already read the letter, was expectant only for the conversation.
"So," Stoick stated, summing up the situation in one word. The other men nodded. "Seabreath, Gobber informs me that the Book of Dragons entry on Night Furies already has a recommendation not to engage. Is this the case?"
Seabreath muttered something before he responded. Stoick caught the words "Ingermans" and "walking book of dragons." Then the Ingerman spoke aloud, "Yes, that's the case. Given his ancestry, though, I think he's more qualified to speak on it."
Stoick shook his head. How did he keep forgetting Gobber was the great-great-grandson of Bork the Bold? "Right, of course. So, what do you all think?"
Spitelout launched in first, his opinions from last night having mysteriously reversed after reading the note, (especially after reading its final post-script.) "I say we accept the dragon. Bring Hiccup home, let this whole mess be over with. Who knows, this could be great for… peace, or something!"
Mulch commented next. "I agree. We'd be able to fish far more effectively if the dragon could just stun them all for us."
"We could?" Bucket asked. Mulch elbowed him. "Oh, right, yes we could. Can."
"You know I'm all for getting my apprentice back, Stoick," Gobber commented.
"To a vote then," Stoick said, somewhat more grudgingly. "All in favor of a ceasefire against Night Furies and the return of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third to Berk, say aye."
Three "aye"s rang out. An elbow pressed into a hip and a fourth voice said "aye" twice.
"Then it's settled. At dinner tonight, we'll announce the change to the village," Stoick said. He sighed. "I'll write the return letter to my son, now."
-SwT-
Hiccup looked at Toothless, who looked positively dejected about… something. Then he noticed the sky. "Dang, it's getting late," Hiccup muttered. He stood from the water's edge.
He hoped he was imagining it - surely he was imagining it, it wasn't possible - but his legs and chest felt gangly, a little malformed. Please don't be turning into a dragon, please don't be turning into a dragon.
With the sun nearly set, Hiccup had to get out of the cove to retrieve his dad's reply. To do that he had to escape Toothless' overprotective… ness. Since Toothless was more lethargic during the day, Hiccup's plan was to escape while the sun was still up.
In the cove, at least, the sun was no longer up.
Toothless blocked Hiccup's path the moment the dragon figured out where the teen was going. "Oh come on Toothless! I'm trying to sort this whole mess out! I can't do that unless I can talk to my dad, with the letters we're sending each other."
Toothless chuffed. Hiccup sighed.
"Fine, I'll figure out how to get you out of the cove, so you can follow me. Don't attack anyone or anything, okay?"
The dragon, still barely able to understand even a few words of human speech, chuffed.
"Y'know what, whatever. I'm just going to figure out how to get you out of here."
Hiccup turned around and looked at the walls of the cove his overprotective dragon wasn't making off-limits. The walls were sheer, bending inwards toward the top to make climbing directly impossible. Cracks in the walls ran vertically, not horizontally, so breaking off a section of wall to just climb up wasn't going to work. Even worse, plant roots grew down and around the sections of wall that looked unstable, providing even more support.
Although…
Across the cove, one root structure reached from the bottom of the cove all the way to the top. There was a section of root that - if Toothless could get a grip on it - he could use to jump all the way to the top of the cove! Excited, Hiccup ran around the cove's lake and over to the base of the root. Off to his left, a rock more than twice his height provided a perfect place to jump off toward the root. On the root itself, one section sloped inward, toward the wall and away from the vertical. If Toothless grabbed on there, then pushed off toward the section of cove wall just slightly lower than the rest… Yes, this could work!
"Toothless!" Hiccup called. The dragon came over, slowly, still looking wary and upset. Hiccup picked up a stick, drawing a quick sketch of the section of wall he thought Toothless could climb. Then Hiccup drew arrows, suggesting a path up. Toothless watched without much interest until he compared it to the wall above them. He looked up at the wall, then back at the drawing, then back at the wall. "Think it'll work, bud?"
In response, the dragon bounded over to the rocks, suddenly seeming to escape whatever had him upset. After a moment to prepare, he leaped up toward the root structure. With a bit of scrabbling that scratched away a lot of the bark, he was safely attached to the root, halfway up the wall. "Yeah!" Hiccup shouted. Toothless crowed with achievement, then leaped off the root toward the wall.
He missed, slamming neck-and-chin first into the rock wall of the cove. Hiccup's smile wilted.
Hiccup ran over to where the dragon hit the ground. "It's okay bud, we'll-"
The dragon shrugged off the boy's comforting hand and stood, growling at the sheer rock. Before Hiccup could say anything more, he'd bounded off the rocks again, landing on the root with another scrabble of claws. Rather than jump off the root again, Toothless continued to crawl his way up the root, using his claws for support. Hiccup's smile returned.
Before long, the Night Fury made it to the top of the cliff and looked down on Hiccup. He crooned, clearly happy to be able to be overprotective of his human outside the cove. Hiccup laughed out loud, then ran around to the crevice on the far side of the cove - followed above by his now more-free best friend.
Since Hiccup had found his way back to the village the day before, he was able to guide the two of them there much more quickly than he'd gone the night previously. When they reached the edge of the tree line, Hiccup paused.
He turned to his scaly friend. "Toothless, stay. It's sunset, the night isn't fully out yet. Someone might see you."
Hiccup took a step away from the tree line. Toothless followed.
"No, Tooth- oh for crying out loud." Hiccup walked back into the tree line. Toothless followed again. Using a stick on the ground, Hiccup drew a line with Toothless on the side further into the forest and himself on the other, closer to the village. "Stay. There. Don't get seen."
Hiccup turned back around and was about to break the tree line when the back door of his dad's house opened, and his dad stepped out. Oh. Oops. The reply letter hadn't been pinned up yet. Thank Odin his overprotective dragon was being… overprotective.
Hiccup waited as his dad pinned a piece of paper to the door with a dagger. His dad looked back at the tree line, failing to spot the hidden teen and dragon, then went back inside the house.
Hiccup broke the tree line, sprinting down the hill to the back door. He grabbed the dagger and the letter off the door, then ran back up the hill. Toothless was right behind him every step of the way.
When they were back inside the tree line, Hiccup turned to the dragon. "What did I just say about staying?"
-SwT-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
"Astrid! Woah, chill, it's just us." Tuffnut said as he looked at the battle-ax embedded in the arena gate next to him.
Ruffnut, on the other side of the ax, giggled.
"What… Are you… Why… You don't just go opening gates without saying that you're there!" Astrid reprimanded.
"Jeez, sorry. Won't happen again, mom," Tuffnut snarked.
"What are you even doing here right now?" Ruffnut asked.
Astrid deflated, her aggression leaving in a huff of air. "I wanted somewhere to train. Normally I'd do that out in the woods, but the adults are all terrified of Hiccup and his stupid, Loki-spawned Night Fury. It's just so… not fair!"
Tuffnut and Ruffnut shared a look. Tuffnut spoke, "What, do you want a dragon of your own?"
Astrid gave him an incredulous look. "It'd have to be Ragnarok - or worse! - for me to become friends with a dragon."
Ruffnut shrugged. "If not the dragon, then what's the unfair thing?"
"It's… It's just… Hiccup! And a dragon! Like, who or what in Hel's realm even came up with that? And the adults' reaction to it!" she dropped her voice, trying to imitate the accents of Berkian adults, "Ach, you young kids, we said we're startin' dragon trainin' two days after the next dragon raid and we're stickin' to that, even though there's a big scary dragon on our island we're all afraid of! We're just going to not teach you all how to defend yerselves against it!" Astrid coughed to clear her throat of the weird accent. "It's just so… unfair!"
Tuffnut nodded sagely. "I know exactly how you feel. There was this one time Ruffnut and I were stealing bread from the bakery, and they totally knew it was us. Then Stoick said we didn't get meals at the great hall until we stopped stealing from the bakery."
Ruffnut joined in. "But if we kept stealing from the bakery, we'd be totally fine for food, right? So we did, then Stoick went and put guards up at the bakery!"
Tuffnut feigned hunger, groaning and stumbling back and forth. "It was like so unfair! We didn't get to eat for two days!"
Astrid shook her head at the twin's tale. How on Midgard has the chief not shipped them off yet? "So what are you guys doing here, anyway?"
"We wanted to see some of the dragons!" Ruffnut answered. "Waiting for the next raid is so boring."
Behind the twins, a squeak of alarm sounded, followed by retreating footsteps. Astrid stopped whoever it was in their tracks with a quick shout. "Fishlegs! Let me guess, you're here because you're sick of waiting for training as well?"
Fishlegs, standing at the top of the entrance ramp, eeped again. "Well, no. I mean yes. If the arena is in use I can come back another time…"
"It isn't. Not since the twins showed up. Come on in," Astrid said, approaching the gate. Cautiously, the rotund teen joined the group at the bottom of the ramp.
"So what did you plan to do here?" Tuffnut asked Fishlegs.
"W-well, the Book of Dragons has descriptions of various dragon noises like growls and roars, and I-I wanted to see if I could identify the dragons through their cage doors from the descriptions of the growls and… uhh… that. Yeah."
"So boring stuff," Tuff commented.
"How about you join us for not boring stuff?" Ruff asked.
Fishlegs squeaked, clearly terrified of the twins' idea of not boring.
Astrid pulled her ax out of the metal gate, leaving a slight gash in the grating. "Whatever. You three have fun getting yourselves killed. I'm going home to get some rest."
Variations of, "Bye Astrid…" followed her out the gate. She huffed in annoyance. One of the twins was probably going to let a dragon out of its cage and get hurt. At the moment, she didn't care. It was their fault, and their class was getting smaller all the time anyway. First, Hiccup went missing, then Snotlout got accused by Mildew of trying to murder the heir. If one of the others got hurt now, it'd probably just be continuing the damn trend. For once she actually wanted a dragon raid. Bring on the fire, bring on the scales. Afterward, she'd finally get dragon training and get to be off the stupid fire brigade.
As she re-entered the village, she looked up at the chief's house. There wasn't much activity around, except over at the steps of the great hall. Everybody was headed up to dinner now.
Then she saw it. Movement. Something huge and black following something small, pink and brown toward the back of the chief's house. Hiccup and his Night Fury!
She took off at a sprint toward the chief's house. There was no way she'd let that traitorous bilge-rat get away from the village this time!
-SwT-
Gunnar Hofferson wasn't worried that his daughter hadn't shown up at dinner. She'd stayed out late practicing with her ax many times before. No, what worried Gunnar was that, because she wasn't at dinner, she probably was out practicing, specifically against what she'd been told. After finishing his own meal, Gunnar took his dishes to the "to-be-washed" pile, then turned back to the room.
The Thorston twins, who'd been at dinner earlier, had disappeared, probably off to cause some mayhem the village would have to clean up. The only other person of her age group around was…
Mr. Hofferson approached the table the Ingermans tended to use. "Excuse me a moment, Seabreath. Can I speak to your son?"
Seabreath Ingerman nodded. "Of course."
"Fishlegs, have you seen my daughter around?" Gunnar asked.
Fishlegs swallowed a huge bite he'd taken out of the chicken leg he was eating. "Yeah, yep. I saw her leaving the kill ring just before sunset."
"She was at the dragon arena? Why?" Gunnar questioned.
"I dunno. I was on a hill reading the book of dragons, and nowhere near the ring."
Seabreath and Gunnar shared a look of confusion at Fishlegs' specific emphasis at having not been at the arena.
"Yes, I definitely didn't…" He dropped his head toward his food and muttered the next few words: "...violating direct orders from adults…" He raised his head again. "...go to the arena to stop the twins from trying to see one of the dragons. That is something I did not do."
Oh. The twins. Of all the stupid and irresponsible things they could've done… Wait…
If Fishlegs stopped them then, which he was implying he did (without outright saying it,) then who was stopping them now? Gunnar looked to Seabreath, who seemed to have had the same thoughts. "Seabreath, go find the twins. I'll explain the situation to the chief."
"Aye," said Seabreath, as he rose from the table. Fishlegs stared at his three half-eaten plates of food. Seabreath patted him on the shoulder. "Good job, son. We'll handle this from here."
Fishlegs nodded and seemed to brighten a bit under his father's praise. Gunnar turned away, searching out the chief in the crowd of feasting Vikings.
-SwT-
Stoick used a chicken leg to push his food around his plate. With everything going on, and his son's life hinging on the boy's ability to make peace with a dragon, the chief didn't feel very hungry. Sometime before all the Vikings in the room left to sleep, Stoick had to tell them all as their chief to not attack a dragon.
Not. Attack. A dragon.
He pushed his fish across his plate with the chicken leg, then pushed it back.
"Chief Stoick!" a voice called over the din of feasting Vikings. Stoick looked up and found Gunnar Hofferson standing next to him. "Stoick, I think the twins are breaking into the dragon arena to see a dragon."
"How do you-"
"Fishlegs told me and his father. Seabreath is already on his way to stop them."
Stoick turned in his seat, looking past Gunnar. "Gobber, get to the arena. The twins-"
"I heard Gunnar. On it Stoick!"
"Stoick," Gunnar continued, "That isn't all of it. Astrid's missing."
Stoick's frown, seemingly ever-present since his son's return, deepened. "Astrid goes training through dinner all the time. What's different now?"
"I told her to stay in town until the situation with Hiccup was resolved."
Oh. "Where was she last seen?"
"Fishlegs said she saw her leaving the arena just before sunset."
Just before sunset… Oh no. Abruptly, Stoick stood, sending his chair clattering to the ground. Kicking his chair out of the way, he pushed through the crowd to the entrance of the great hall. Gunnar followed in his wake. The chief shouldered his way through the doors, the heavy oaken panels barely slowing him. He turned off the path and strode toward his house, Gunnar continuing to follow. Passing his front door, he came around the back.
Where he'd stabbed the reply into the door with a dagger, all that remained was the cut in the wood. On the back steps were a pair of dusty, bare footprints. Stoick looked in the direction the broken blades of grass led back up the hill.
Gunnar stopped to stare at the footprints on the back step as Stoick followed the tracks up the grassy hill. Where the tracks met the forest dirt, they became far more obvious.
All three sets. One dragon, one barefoot human, and one booted human.
"What in Thor's name…" Gunnar whispered.
-SwT-
A/N:
Sundown! Intrigue! Action!
=Anonymous Replies=
kgfggjsbenrtlr:
Thanks!
Secret:
Well, in this AU, learning Dragonese isn't so much learning as just knowing how. In the first 19 chapters, there are zero humans that understand Dragonese at any point. (Note that this is a transformation fic. Hiccup becomes a dragon before he learns Dragonese.)
Norse, on the other hand, is a standard language. It's just a matter of figuring out the sounds, as Toothless is slowly doing. Making the sounds is much harder, though, and probably something only a human-turned-dragon or human could do.
There are plenty of Norse-learning antics in the sequel, Torn Wingbeats, though!
-SwT-
Thanks for reading!
