Back! Did you miss me? I've actually written up to chapter 11 (13 chapters in all) so I'm going to start posting these weekly until I run out of chapters to upload. So until next time, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Key:
"Norse"
'Human thoughts'
'Toothless thoughts'
"Draconian"
"Sign"
'You are right, we are not monsters. I can see now that neither are humans.'
Hiccup's eyes shot to the dragon in front of him. 'You just talked.'
The dragon chuffed again. From their voice, they were clearly male. That was one question answered. Now for the other.
'I did not speak. You heard my thoughts. Just as I can hear yours.'
That must have been what the weird drinking-each-other's-blood thing was. It made a connection between them. Hiccup bent down, began washing off his face and hands in the lake, continuing the conversation mentally. 'But… Why?'
Toothless used his wing to gesture to Hiccup's throat. 'I have noticed your scar. The way it shapes your voice. You can speak with us. By Connecting, I can teach you how to speak our tongue. You can help me bring peace to both our Kin-Kinds.'
That… was actually an amazing idea. Now that he had met Toothless, Hiccup knew that he wanted to learn everything about dragons. And he wanted to stop the war. If everyone knew what dragons were really like, maybe they'd stop fighting. There was only one problem.
'I can't speak Norse. I mean I understand it, but my mouth isn't the right shape.'
Toothless inspected Hiccup's mouth. 'I have spent a long time watching humans. Very little of their speaking comes from their lips. If you can make the sound, you can speak with them.'
Hiccup considered the dragon's words. He was right. It was just that Hiccup had never tried it. That was a lie. According to Gobber, he had spoken when he was younger. He had sounded like some sort of demonic beast and Stoick forced him to stop immediately. But if he practiced, learnt to speak Norse while he learned to speak to dragons, maybe he could, eventually, be able to talk –almost- like a Viking.
A cold wind blew into the cove. Hiccup shivered. Both looked up, realising how late it was. Toothless looked back at him. 'Go back to your Nest. I am sure they are missing you. We can talk more of this tomorrow. And please bring more food.'
Hiccup sighed, and walked towards to opening in the cove walls. Tying his mask back on as he went. He could have used the tunnels, but he hadn't used that section in a long time. Part of it might have caved or he could get lost. He'd explore later. 'They've never missed me, that won't change. I'll see you tomorrow and I'll bring more fish.'
Hiccup ran through into village and right into Gobber, literally. As Hiccup picked himself off the ground, Gobber -surrounded by sniggering teens- beamed at him.
"Hiccup! There you are! I was wondering where you got off to. Come on, we're having a bonfire dinner on one of the watchtowers. A tradition for the dragon training recruits."
Gobber pushed Hiccup over to the other teens, who in turn pushed him to the back of their group. He stumbled and fell into step a half a metre behind Astrid, who looked at him suspiciously, or maybe her expression was curious and that's just what her face looked like.
"Where did you go? What were you doing in the forest?"
He briefly considered telling her, showing her that there was no point to the war. Because dragons weren't what everyone though they were. Astrid was top of the class though. She had trained almost every day since she was born. She thought dragons were monsters and he wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. Maybe if he could talk. But he couldn't. So he couldn't tell her anything.
Instead, he signed "secret" to her.
She clearly wasn't happy with that. Her expression became incredulous before she huffed angrily and walked faster to catch up with the others. Hiccup let her.
Five minutes later, they were all crouded around a fire on the top of one of the secondary watchtowers. Gobber was telling them all a story that Hiccup himself had heard hundreds of times before.
"-And with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole. I saw the look on his face, I was delicious." Honestly, that was probably a lie. Hiccup couldn't imagine anyone enjoying a massive lump of fat. He certainly wouldn't. "He must have passed the word because it wasn't another month before another one of them took my leg." That was coincidence Gobber. nothing more.
Fishlegs, whom had been listening raptly to a story that definitely didn't deserve that much attention, decided to give them his very… odd input.
"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon?" No Fishlegs, it happened all the time. "Like, if your mind was still in control of it," Hiccup did not like where this was going, "you could have killed the dragon from the inside," Fishlegs, no, "by like crushing its heart or something." Fishlegs, that is both gross and biologically incorrect.
Snotlout decided that this point was the perfect time to be a suck-up.
"I swear I'm so angry right now. I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot." Please Snotlout, just stop. "I'll chop of the legs of every dragon I fight. With my face." He was going to eat their legs? Bite them? Hiccup decided not to put any more brain power into figuring out what went on in Snotlout's head. Probably nothing with a side of bootlicking. And maybe Astrid.
Gobber grunted and tore a wing of the chicken he was cooking, waving it at them. "uh-uh-uh, it's the wings and the tail you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away." Hang on. "A downed dragon is a dead dragon." …Wait.
Toothless couldn't fly. If he could, he would have left the cove as soon as he realised a human knew where he was. He only had one tail fin. On the other side though… that wound! He couldn't fly because he had lost one of his tail fins! He was going to die because Hiccup shot him down.
No, he wouldn't. Because Hiccup was going to help him. He had fabric and tools back in his hollow. He didn't have a forge but Toothless could breathe fire. He would find a way to make that dragon fly again if it was the last thing Hiccup did.
Decision made, Hiccup stood up from his seat and blended into the shadows, he couldn't risk anyone following him. As he ran down the stairs, he heard the faint sound of the other teens conversing. It was something about Tuffnut's left side. Whatever, at least they hadn't noticed his departure.
Barely anyone was still awake, so it was easy to run through the village without being caught. The lookouts were used to him running around on errands for Gobber at odd hours, so if any of them saw him, they wouldn't be suspicious.
Once he reached the forge, Hiccup took a candle from the wall and lit it. Carefully, he walked through the forge, trying not to trip over anything that Gobber had left scattered on the floor. He made his way to the back room, the one he used for his blueprints, schematics and inventions.
Placing the candle on the desk in front of him, he took his notebook out of his vest pocket and flipped it open to the page with Toothless on it. He saw where he had erased his left tail fin. Hiccup drew it back in. then, he flipped the page and began drawing something else. Schematics, he didn't have the exact measurements, he would have to go to Toothless for that, but he figured out what he needed, and how to make it work.
When he finished the design, Hiccup nodded to himself, collected the things he needed, and left to go to his house. It was possible Gobber wanted to pick something up from the forge, or would notice the light and heat. He couldn't risk using it, he would have to use Toothless' fire in the morning. He'd bring the dragon a whole basket of fish as payment.
The morning came quickly. Possibly because he stayed up so late. He had to sneak into the fish stores to get what he needed. Would be much more suspicious if he took an entire basket of fish from the boats than when he only took one.
He didn't know what Toothless liked. So, he packed at least one of everything. He took a basket from the wall and filled it. Salmon, Cod, Char, Trout, Gunnel, and to top it off, an eel that either no one noticed or no one could be bothered to throw out. Probably the latter.
Before he went to the cove, Hiccup stopped by his hollow. Crawling through the tree tunnel was substantially more difficult when trying to balance a basket of fish on your back. When he was in the clearing, he put the basket down and brought out his notebook to check what he needed.
He picked up an old wooden bucket that he had found on the beach once and collected everything he needed from various ditches close to the cliff walls. Ropes, string, enough metal that he could melt and shape it into what he wanted, a hammer, nails, and finally, fabric. He'd need to stitch pieces together, but it would work.
Once he had everything he needed inside the bucket, he picked it up with one hand and tossed the fish basket onto his back with the other. Now he could help Toothless.
See you next week! Comments are welcome and appreciated.
