Ghost's Fury Chapter 19: House Rules, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 19, everybody! This chapter is dedicated to our dogs who took over the bed as puppies and refuse to leave now that they're big dogs. D:

In other news, I'm curious if anyone knows what the hard-seafoam is. It'll get addressed in Book II again, but I wonder.

Also, we're definitely going to be seeing more of this and my other fics soon—I'm knuckling down on active fics this month, and a conversation the characters had has now jumpstarted some stuff and put other things in motion and Obake is just really going to have a frustrating time. ^^;

Okay, so teaching a dragon Nortakanic in his house was not a sentence Obake thought he'd ever consider. And the act of actually doing that? Forget about it.

And yet here he was, late on a rainy night, covering a handful of runes with a Night Fury, a dragon no one had ever clapped eyes on, teaching it runes via the ash in front of the fireplace. He was pretty sure his life had firmly hit surreal now.

But if Hiro's life had reached the same point, he didn't show it—still focusing on scratching out imitations of whatever Obake did, tongue between toothless gums as he concentrated. So far he had the runes for fish, his own name, and one very incriminating word down. Maybe he should have skipped that particular lesson.

But considering the dragon in question kept yawning and pawing at his face, that was probably going to be a problem for tomorrow. And seeing as how he was officially out of tea…bedtime was probably a good idea. Either that or making a pot of coffee, but he liked the concept of a soft-ish bed for once and coffee and tea were both at a premium. Actually, everything was—the cost of living an unsustainable lifestyle.

"I think that's probably enough for one day," he announced, wiping out the ashy runes and standing—ow, ow, stiff—wave Hiro's curious chirping off. "Some of us are not strictly nocturnal." Although come to think of it, were Night Furies even nocturnal? Hiro had been active during the day for the entire time Obake had known him…was he mimicking Obake's sleep patterns so he wasn't caught asleep? Didn't make much sense, that would have him sleeping while a threat was around.

Speaking of—bank the fire so the house didn't burn down (the loss of this place would have him sleeping more firmly in town, which he did not want), head upstairs…pause, turn, whistle for Hiro.

Hiro had been pawing at his face again—perked up at that, bounded over, momentarily slowed by the steps before he recalled how to scramble up them.

"Good boy," Obake told him, before making it the rest of the way to his loft. Not quite as warm as in front of the fireplace, or even the ground floor, but he'd rather have some wiggle room as far as fleeing potential intruders.

Although this was usually the spot that dealt with dragons first.

But speaking of the dragon in the room—grab a pile of scrap fabric he had thrown to the side with nebulous plans for later, dump them in a corner that was hidden by the bed, arrange them in a nest that looked big enough and had enough padding to keep Hiro from feeling the floor too much. Turn—huff at the dragon that was walking all over his bed.

"This one is mine," Obake told him, picking Hiro up and depositing him in the blanket-nest. "This one is yours."

Hiro huffed at it, turned around, padding it down and sniffing. Obake took that as a win, tugged his coat off and tossed it at the end of the bed, sat down and pulled his boots off (which intrigued Hiro, apparently)—

Barely had time to flip the covers back before Hiro hopped back up on the bed.

"No," Obake told him, putting him back on the blanket-nest. "That's yours. This is mine."

Hiro chuffed at him, looking vaguely accusatory.

Obake sighed, massaging his temples. "You're right, you're right…." That one aggravating irritant of a word that still made his hackles raise, hated the fact he was doing precisely what she had done—

What good is the word 'no' except as another limitation?

She was no longer around for him to prove a point to…but maybe he could prove a point to himself.

"We've established that you're a thinking, functioning creature of higher intelligence, correct?" he asked Hiro. "Then I tell you what: no limits. I had to deal with them my whole life—I don't wish them on someone else."

Hiro chuffed again—

Hopped up on the bed.

"Maybe one limit," Obake said, returning him to the little blanket-nest. Managed to get under the covers before the bed moved, Hiro crawling all over it before kneading part of it. "You listen well, don't you?"

Hiro chuffed again, flopped down and wallowed around a little before finally rolling to his side, then his belly, wiggled again before starting to make small snoring noises.

"You're an absolute disgrace," Obake muttered, rolling to his other side so he wasn't facing the dragon that had claimed half his bed—back to his back when he recalled that those ribs pained him when he slept on them. "If we get killed for this, I'm killing you first."

Hiro made a snuffling noise, but otherwise ignored him. Fair enough.

Now here was hoping he got a decent night's sleep with some dragon taking up most of his bed.

Honeysuckle huffed as she wended her way through the tunnels, appreciating the fresh water she was getting from the ice but not the fact that her tongue kept sticking to it. Reach her destination, wait for her cold mouth to warm enough to melt the ice enough to loosen it from her tongue, glance over her shoulder one last time before dropping the ice into the water, wincing at the loud-sounding plop that echoed out of the cove.

The good news was, no one liked this tunnel or this cove because of the deadly hard-seafoam that collected there, that filled up the stomach and killed whatever ate it, from dragons to fish. Trying to flame it off the ocean resulted in a horrendous stink, so the only thing that anyone could think to do with it was ignore it and hope it went away.

It never did.

But the good thing about the hard-seafoam was that it was the same color as Mountain-King's ice and hid it well while the ice melted—eating it was another way of getting rid of it, but that made their jaws and heads ache and their empty stomachs slosh unpleasantly…which reminded her, they really needed to sneak out fishing soon.

Later—and maybe easier once Mountain-King was fed and sated, that big ugly jerk. Swift-Strike had suggested bundling up the hard-seafoam into a large fish or maybe even a deer (a deer! She had only ever heard stories of those) and dropping it into his greedy mouth, but Healing-Talons wasn't really for anything that could harm someone and Greenscales pointed out that it would take a very very very long time for a stomach that big to fill up and starve him.

Besides, they had more pressing matters to attend to.

Huff, lick at her paws, lingering on her much-blunted claws—she had been working as hard as she could, but Healing-Talons had finally told her to take a break and let her claws grow back, much to her chagrin. But that was the state of everyone's talons, trying to dig through that ice—even Healing-Talons, whose claws were built specifically for ice and were thicker than her own.

They couldn't wait, though—Older-Brother had no food, had not had anything for days now, not fish not sun…hopefully air. Hopefully he was still alive she couldn't stand the thought of him being dead no—

Couldn't stand the thought of Little-Brother being dead either.

No—maybe things would turn out all right, maybe Older-Light-Fury would come back with him. Maybe everything would work out.

Sigh, flex her now-useless talons, turn and head back up the tunnel. Healing-Talons said she couldn't keep clawing at the ice, fair—so she was moving the chunks they could break, occasionally getting help from Gronkles who kept making it a point to bash that huge edifice of ice every time they did their 'races.'

She was noticing Monstrous Nightmares making it a point to fight near there and flame at the ice too—Older-Brother's helpful attitude coupled with how he had just been…bashed out of the sky for being terrified for his brother just hadn't sat right with anybody. Older-Light-Fury's constant wailing had kept undercutting Mountain-King's power, and now….

Everyone was trying to help, in their own subtle ways.

But the fact of the matter was, their progress was too slow. And they couldn't just flame it all because it could drown Older-Brother, or drop a chunk of boulder on him. No, they had to proceed with caution.

And in trying to avoid killing him quickly, they were risking killing him slowly.

No—no, she had to think positive—they'd keep working, keep digging…someone had to help. That was what Older-Brother always said—someone has to help.

She refused for that to become simply a memory.

The knocking on his door wasn't welcome, it was jostling him out of a good sleep, one which he hadn't had in a good long while, bed warm with what felt like a hot water bottle curled up against his chest.

Hold it.

Finally blink blearily awake, mind starting to click along at its usual pace—yes hello, there is a dragon curled up against your chest in your bed in your house and you seem to have no problem with this. You should probably have problems with this.

Definitely have problems with the knocking at his door, which mean trouble—launch out of bed, jam himself into his boots and coat—

"Wrr?" Hiro noised blearily.

"You—hide, don't come out until I tell you," he ordered, jostling Hiro into wakefulness, ear flaps up and a concerned look on his face—must have seen something in Obake's expression, because he dove under the bed without another squeak.

As for Obake—

Scrub at his face and brush his hair back as he staggered down the stairs, trying to kick his brain back into its usual high gear—note to self, warm beds made you soft-headed. For future reference, keep dragons out of it. Listen at the door, didn't hear any inane giggling or grumbling that would suggest ill fortune for him—

Open the door to see the bulk of Felony Carl filling it.

"It's really too early for this," he started—cut off at the mug of coffee Carl handed him.

"Actually, it's after ten," Carl informed him, making him nearly choke on his coffee. "Thought I'd tell you that Yama and Sparkles are still looking for you. Also, you have some orders."

"Kindly inform those two idiots that I can't exactly attend to blacksmithing duties if they insist on trying to kill me."

"I mentioned that," Carl said. "As did Calhoun. I think Felix wanted to mention it too since he ran out of nails, but you know how he is."

Terrified of his own shadow, and with reason, he supposed—being pressganged into the Yokai tended to have two effects: either people embraced the lifestyle quickly, or they panicked and rebelled (and died quickly). Felix, at least, had lasted a lot longer than most, but that was probably because he was firstly useful and secondly kept his head down.

"I'm not entirely sure where you've been or what you've been doing," Carl said as Obake took a drink of his coffee. "But I'd recommend continuing to do it—Sparkles has been furious at you ever since that thing with the wheel."

"Now see, I thought it was funny," Obake said, corners of his mouth twitching.

"They're still wanting blood—Yama ordered all dragons next raid captured alive."

Oog. That promised a lot of very unpleasant encounters in the kill ring, if he succeeded in getting a goodly number. "How many are left from the last raid?"

"Just a Gronkle—the rest are Terrors for the dogfights. But we're overdue for another raid."

True…the dragons usually didn't attack in the rain, probably because it made it hard to burn things, but tonight would probably be clear and fine pickings. "Thanks for the warning."

Carl handed him a basket. "Take care of yourself."

Close the door, put the basket on the counter, lock the door—listen, just barely heard someone asking Carl about Obake only for him to say wasn't there. Hmph. Look up at the loft—

Green eyes were peering down nervously at him.

"I think it's time we make ourselves scarce," Obake announced.