Disclaimer: Not mine, if it were mine I'd be working on a screenplay for a sequel, rather than this bit of self-indulgent fun.
Chapter 12
The two humans, accompanied by a dragon, walked down the corridor. It was dim, but now that the dragons were tame and allowing people within their pens, there had been an increase in traffic. Someone had installed sconces with torches to keep the space from being completely dark. They were spread apart though, leaving huge shadows.
Avric led the way down the passageway to the very end. There were doors there that were huge. The locks on it were equally impressive. There was a smaller, human sized, door as well as a hatch to send food through set into the enormous ones. Hiccup gave a low whistle.
Avric nodded towards the doors. "Impressive isn't it?"
"How big is this dragon?" Hiccup asked warily.
"Apparently it wasn't a youngling, but it was still growing when my Great Grandfather captured it. It had already been far bigger than a Monstrous Nightmare, so he wanted to be sure the pen would hold it. Gods only know why he didn't simply kill it. It wasn't so much making the pen as much as it was walling off the end. It's a huge cavern about half the size of the arena. I haven't seen it but I'm sure it's grown."
Hiccup nodded as he considered the information. Avric removed a key ring from his pocket, placing one of the keys in the lock of the small door. He opened it, gesturing Hiccup to enter. The young man walked through, looking around him. He heard Toothless make a quiet whine behind him. It was a huge chamber, there was an underground lake taking up at least half the space. Holes drilled through the rock like in Toothless' pen illuminated the space. Otherwise there was nothing. He took a few cautious steps forward. A faint splash made him look at the lake. There was a spot where ripples had formed. There was a pause.
Suddenly, a huge head burst through the water. It reared up on a long narrow neck. The head was wide and mostly smooth except for two horns that curled like ram's horns on the sides. Its teeth were large, serrated and terrifying. The dragon screamed at Hiccup, placing a huge claw on the shore beside the lake. As it heaved its bulk from the water Hiccup could see that it was about a third the size of the Queen Dragon, maybe a little smaller. It was built lighter though, slim, and while it was hard to put the word delicate to something as big as it was, compared to the last giant dragon Hiccup had seen, it was almost dainty. It was still a very respectable size. It's body was more serpentine than like a mobile side of a mountain like the Queen had been. It flared the wings it had unfolded from its sides. Its coloring seemed to be a deep, dark blue, inky looking on its back fading to a sky blue on its belly and underside of its wings. It had smooth, almost unnoticeable ridges down its back and partway down the now lashing tail.
Hiccup bolted to the side as the dragon released its flames. The blue-white fire hit the ground behind him, creating a slick rime of frost on the ground. He stared. Ice, it breathed flames of ice to kill. Fishlegs would be thrilled to know he thought randomly. The dragon released another blast of the icy fire as Hiccup dodged again, the fire hitting the water of the lake creating a small ice flow. He continued to move quickly, darting this way and that as the huge creature inhaled to create its blast of ice, doing his best to stay alive but not doing anything that would read as an attack to the large dragon. It screamed at him with every miss.
Finally the rampaging seemed to slow. Hiccup had noticed that tendency. If you could survive the initial display of temper the dragon almost always calmed down, at least a little. If you attacked them or otherwise provoked them, then they never reached the calm stage. He had theorized with Fishlegs that the rages were a display to show their power. Perhaps other dragons would flee if they saw the display of a stronger dragon, while the equally powerful or stronger ones would attack. It always seemed to confuse them when a small scale-less human didn't do either. It stalked towards Hiccup slowly, watching him. He noticed the dragon had webbing between its talons and its long tail had a fin running the length that took over where the ridges ended and went the rest of the way. This dragon seemed to be created to be equally comfortable in the air or water.
As the dragon stalked towards him, Hiccup went to meet it. He was careful not to stare directly at its eyes, not wanting to challenge it in any way. It was only now that the dragon had quieted to a low growl that he noticed Toothless' shrieks. The Night Fury's shoulders were too wide to fit through the small opened door. He clawed madly at the metal frame, wanting to be with his rider. Hiccup hoped Avric had moved away, as Toothless in this state could smack him with his wing or send him flying with a thwack from his tail into the stone walls of the corridor.
"Easy, Toothless," Hiccup called, not wavering in his attention to the huge beast in front of him. "Calm down, before you agitate it into a fury again. You don't want to see me turned into a solid block of ice, now do you?"
He heard the dragon slow his frantic clawing and hiss. Hiccup's mouth quirked in an odd smile. He had a thump of some sort coming from Toothless in the near future.
The giant dragon was completely clear of the water now. The dripping water didn't obscure the beautiful scales of it as it stepped into one of the patches of light. Faint patterns could be seen, like with some fish scales. The long tail lashed, hitting the side of the pen frequently creating a deep, pounding smack. Hiccup was sure his ears popped with every hit. He slowly reached out a hand towards the beast. It was near enough he felt its surprisingly hot breath for a dragon that flamed ice against his fingers.
As his hands touched the dragon's damp head he could swear he saw surprise in the dragon's eyes that there was no pain involved. Hiccup was pretty sure the larger kinds of dragons gained intelligence as they aged. He'd noticed the smaller ones among the breeds tended to act more like ignorant children. It had taken forever to train some of them to not flame inside of a house. Whereas the larger ones tended to observe everything, and picked up on rules quicker. The Terrible Terrors were brainless no matter how old they were. It was one of the reasons he was sure Toothless was far older than him. This dragon, with it's huge bulk was quite possibly the second oldest he'd ever seen. It turned its head to get a better look at him. Hiccup smiled at it and began to scratch at the chin, moving up along the jaw until he was beside its head. He rubbed beneath where the horns protected, talking to it continually. He assured it he meant no harm and only wanted to try to understand it. Whether it responded to the words or the tone, the dragon relaxed. Not quite to the point of lying down, but the huge tail stopped flicking so violently.
"I think it's okay," Hiccup called lowly to the doorway, not wanting to startle the dragon and have to start over.
He heard a hiss and a snarl followed by "Move back you damned stubborn beast! I'll open the large doors if you move your scaly hide out of the way!" There were faint scuffling noises followed by the thunks of locks that hadn't been moved in a long time being opened. This was followed by a screech as long shut doors were opened as well.
Toothless bounded through first, heading straight for Hiccup. The Night Fury immediately imposed himself between Hiccup and the other dragon, wrapping around the boy. He growled at the larger dragon, rubbing his head against Hiccup's midsection, his wings flaring out to block the view of Hiccup to the other dragon, doing everything but carving the runes for "MINE" in Hiccup's forehead with his claws. Fortunately the huge dragon was either not threatened by the smaller or not impressed with his actions as it didn't move away at all. It only lifted its head a bit to get a better look at the intruders, snorting softly. Toothless, seeing that the other wasn't going to challenge his claim, then turned his attention to Hiccup. Once he had assured himself that the teen wasn't hurt he reared back and smacked Hiccup across the head with one of his wings. Hiccup scowled at the dragon, rubbing his head. "See, I'm fine." He stated.
"What do you call this one?" Hiccup asked as Avric made his way, slower than Toothless, to where Hiccup stood surrounded by dragons.
"My Great grandfather called it a Doomfang." The Chief replied, seemingly impressed as he looked the now calm dragon over.
Hiccup nodded, facing the dragon again. It was and impressive name for an impressive dragon. Even if it had been smaller when it had been captured he was sure it had been the doom of a number of warriors in said undertaking.
"I had wanted to learn your ways of working with the beasts from your own hand. Since you will be starting from the very beginning with this one, do you mind training me as well?" Avric asked.
Hiccup's whole face lit up at this sign of acceptance from the Chief. His own father had dug his heels in, fine with being around the dragons, but refusing to learn to really work with them until he was almost the last Viking in the village not to have learned from his own son.
"Gladly, Chief Avric." He told the older man as the two dragons watched. The larger one curiously, the smaller mistrustfully.
A/N: I remember the Doomfang being freaking huge from the books (I think its eye was the size of a sled) and I think it had ice instead of fire. This isn't meant as a true to the book form of the dragon. I was as true to the books as the movie was. ; )
