Chapter 6, everybody! Stay safe, friends, and clean your scrapes better than Obake does.

Obake actually does cite the story of Icarus in canon, so it makes sense he's aware of it here. As for his relationship with Granville in this AU…it's a little different.

Also Felony Carl is the best character after Obake fite me.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

How To Train Your Dragon © 2010 DreamWorks

Obake woke up with the feeling that he had slept in and no real desire to change that status. Whatever was out there could wait, the bed was comfortable, he had warmed up a nice spot with his negligible body heat, moving would lose that heat and he did not want to lose it he was comfortable darn it—

But unfortunately for him, once his mind decided he was awake there was nothing he could do about it—already mentally tallying everything he had to get done today, straightening up the forge, restocking his kitchen if he could, trying some new designs that would not be ignored, preparing for the next raid…he was forgetting something, what….

He catapulted up, all drowsiness forgotten, ice water dousing his blood.

The dragon!

Vault out of bed, mildly glad he hadn't bothered with even his shoes last night, run to the window to check how late in the day it was—still before noon, he hadn't slept in too badly—run down the steps as fast as he could without tripping and breaking something, head for the forge using his usual I want to avoid people route.

His mind was already in its usual overdrive once he reached the forge and started straightening it up—someone had come in and made a halfhearted attempt, but this was his space, he knew what went where here—simple design for the wing splint, something it couldn't chew through like it seemed tempted to do with the current one—maybe something like a cape to keep it distracted from the injury, give it something else to gnaw on—and then get some fish, the ones in the pond in the cove wouldn't last forever—

Had the design finished and packed away in a bundle, hastily tamped down the forge, grab the bundle and run—bounce off a wall someone had put up where a door used to be.

…No, he realized, flat on the floor and blinking up owlishly as he dragged himself back to the here and now—he had run into Felony Carl.

Carl, meanwhile, was looking down at him, holding up a basket. "I saw the forge going, figured you hadn't eaten. Breakfast?"

Seriously? Did he look like he had time for breakfast—

There might be fish in there.

"Yeah sure fine," he said, scrambling up and taking the basket—Carl didn't let go.

"Momakase said you spent the last couple of days in the woods," Carl said.

"And you became my mother when?"

Carl shrugged, let go—Obake glared at him until he stepped aside, letting him take off at a briskish pace.

"What happened to your coat?" Carl asked.

"Again, none of your business!"

Glance back to see Carl shrug and move on—frequent glances behind afterwards to make sure he wasn't being followed….

And then kicking it into high gear as soon as he hit the woods.


His heart refused to beat in the right order on the way to the cove, stuttering and tripping over itself as it tried to infect the rest of him with blind panic—his mind was being no help whatsoever, suggesting the various ways things had gone so very wrong while he was gone—he wouldn't be calm until he was actually in the cove, looking at the dragon, he realized.

If it was still there. If it hadn't died in the middle of the night there could have been some unseen damage some bruising that didn't show up on those black scales it could have died of internal bleeding and your clever schemes and half-baked ideas are about to come back and bite you—

Reach the cove entrance, turn sideways as he slipped through, hugging the bundle to his chest and holding the basket behind him—the bark was still there, undamaged, there was hope—

Shoulder the bark out of the way—it landed with a thump, barely noted as he scanned the cove.

And scanned it again.

Empty.

No. Nononono it had to be here don't panic yet—

"Hello?" he called, stepping in, to the side, keeping his back to the rocky cliff face. Glance up—didn't see it anywhere on the walls. "Hello? Hiro?"

A little whine—he looked to see green eyes peeking out from a dark hiding space, realized that the dragon and his coat were in the lee of a leaning boulder.

"There you are," he sighed, unable to control the sag or expression of relief. Put the basket down, lift the bark back into place—"Come here, I have something for you."

Again with the whine.

"You're not stuck, are you?" he asked, eyebrow raised. He hoped not—it wasn't like he was like some of the others under Callaghan's control; comparatively, the only one in the village who was more of a fishbone than he was was Dibs.

The dragon shifted a little…finally minced out where he could see it properly, his coat sloughing off of it as it came.

And revealing the fact that it had chewed through its splint, wing now trailing uselessly as it tried to keep the bones from grinding against each other.

Another sigh, this one not of relief. "Yes, well, I expected this. Might as well do that first."

Bring the basket with him, remind himself after the first few brisk strides that he was going to have to be easy with the dragon, considering it started backing up at his approach. Get down on his knees, roll out the new splint, tug the basket over and look inside.

"Ah-ha," he noised triumphantly, spotting the oil wraps nestled next to a few tubers—those would be fine, he figured, despite his stomach reminding him he hadn't eaten since lunch (he had gone longer without eating, he countered back); the fish were a priority for the dragon, at least to keep it distracted while he put the new splint on.

Said dragon was currently sniffing at the new splint, gingerly shifting its weight to cautiously poke a paw at some part of it. Obake unwrapped a fish, hooked it in the gills, pulled it out. "Oh Hiro?"

The dragon looked up at his voice—perked up so fast at the sight of the fish that it winced at its jostled wing.

"Yes, well, that's why you need to be over here," he told the dragon. It tilted its head, prompting him to point at the ground in front of him. "Here, Hiro."

Now its head was tilting the other way, nostrils twitching, back feet shuffling. Ah, but he probably freshly smelled of the village. Plan, need a plan—

Back up a little before gingerly getting to his feet, trying to stay low and unassuming—not working, those ear flaps and nubs went flat as it flinched away—mince over to where his coat was, put the fish down, pick up his coat, shrug it back on.

A coat that hopefully smelled like dragon to the little creature.

Ears and nubs up and out, head perked as he came back over with the fish to kneel in his original position—his coat was faintly warm from the dragon, felt nice after having cold air nipping through his sweater since last night; his cold tolerance had never been high, was negligible at best after that dragon attack so long ago, that had nearly killed him.

And now, here he was, trying to coax a dragon into letting him fix it. Tie him to the mast and ship him off, he was certifiable.

The dragon, meanwhile, was still staring at him, wide-eyed—gingerly padded forward, wincing when it jostled its wing…ignored the fish in favor of sniffing at his arm. He leaned back a little as it came closer and sniffed at his chest and coat, regretting not getting something to defend himself with if his plan went south—which, to be fair, he had been expecting since he first formed it.

And now it was sitting in front of him, looking him in the eye, pupils wide as it warbled something that sounded confused.

"Yes, well I'm sure dragons have no concept of modesty, but people do prefer their clothes to be on themselves and not dragons," he informed it—especially when he had the sneaking suspicion that the dragon would have been fine without the coat while he had a deep chill still worrying at his bones. And since it didn't seem interested in the fish, he dropped it off to the side and picked up the first piece of the splint. "Now hold still."

What a laugh—he had to finally turn every piece over for its examination, show it how it went together, explaining the whole process. Not that he thought it understood him, but hopefully a steady stream of noise from him would calm it down enough for him to work. It worked, somewhat, considering it was starting to get more interested in the fish he had put aside.

He put the little bar down, picked the fish up—the dragon followed the fish—pointed with his free hand. "Lie down." This would be a lot easier if he could minimize pressure on the wing while he worked.

The dragon tipped its head at him. Ugh, how to do this…he had heard of people training dogs, but he didn't think applying pressure would be welcome—think alternatives.

Sit should probably come before lie down, but he didn't want to spend however long it took teaching this dragon how to sit while its wing bone was still misaligned. Move his hand from where he was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squinched shut like he usually did when faced with a problem that promised to be headache-inducing—saw the dragon watching him still.

Okay, maybe this would work—gingerly stand, pace around a bit, arms slightly out while he watched the dragon, who was watching him with something approaching concern; come back to where he was, sat down while saying "Sit." Point at the dragon, then down. "Sit, Hiro." Repeat the process when it got no more results than a confused-looking dragon.

Said dragon finally looked at its own shuffling paws, gingerly lowered its back end down before finally sitting down.

"Very good," he said, putting the fish in front of it—the dragon immediately snapped it up, swallowed it, made to stand—froze when he made a negative noise, watched as he pulled out the next fish.

"There's only two left—you get one when you lay down, one when I'm done with the splint." Blank look—ah, yes, right, he was trying to explain something to an animal. "Lay down."

It took another sun mark for him to actually get the dragon to lay down, and by then his stomach was starting to gnaw on itself—get the splint done, then you can eat.

He was having to continually put his hand on the dragon's back while he worked, having to tell it to lie still, working as fast as he could without slipping up and somehow making it worse—fortunately, Carl had seen fit to pack salve too, so he was able to maybe numb the area before getting to work.

It was still slow going.

"There," he sighed finally, buttoning the little cape before tying it to make doubly certain. "All set."

The dragon looked at itself, back at him—sniffed at the cape. Maybe he should have used dragon hide instead of animal skins, but he wasn't certain how it would react to the scent of another dragon species—

It stopped chewing at the bindings at his sharp negative noise—so maybe he could train it to leave said bindings alone. On the positive side, the part of the splint holding the wingbones together were metal, so no amount of gnawing was going to get through that.

Give it the last fish, go gather some fresh sticks to restart the fire—was going to have to wait until there was a good bed of coals to start on…dinner, dear me. Check through the rest of the basket…no luck, just have to wait again. Well, at least he had another pack filled with something approaching sensible items, although he'd have to be either going back to the village to get something to eat or rooting out something for himself out here. Considering how stripped bare the island was of resources, he sensed he was going to have to go for the former.

The dragon warbled at him as he pulled his notebook out.

"So the logistics of this scheme are a bit more convoluted than I had initially hoped," he told it. "At some point, we're going to have to fix that." We—ha! Since when did he do anything with anyone. He had learned long ago that the only person you could rely on was yourself—and even that was spotty.

And whose fault was that?

He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, got to work scribbling down what he had done so far—and then because the dragon was actually sitting still next to the fire, a sketch of it. He had moved on to listing what he needed to get and do before there was enough coals in the fire to cook the tubers, and then he had to break to get more wood—tuck the notebook into an inside pocket, get up, start pacing over to that little grove—starting to get picked bare, add bring wood in to his list—

Hrfff.

He looked in surprise to see the little dragon had followed him.

"Well!" he said, before he could stop himself—so this was working already! Or maybe it was expecting more fish. "I don't have anything else for you, you're going to have to wait until tomorrow."

"Hrffhrbble," the dragon huffed at him.

He ignored it in favor of picking up deadfall and heading back to the fire, feeding it and poking at the tubers…noting the dragon still watching him, like it was trying to make sense of his actions. Watching the stick too. Hmm….

Not the one he had, since he had no desire to start a wildfire, but one from his little pile—wave it around, watching the dragon watch the stick.

"Fetch," he said, tossing it away.

The dragon watched the stick go, looked back at him, ears and nubs out.

"We'll work on that," he said, going back to poking at dinner, rolling the tubers out this time. Would take a minute before he could eat them without causing himself grievous injury.

And the dragon watching him the whole time—he added an apology for his moment of silence seeing him with an eye slit open again.

"What?" he asked the dragon finally.

It chuffed at him but otherwise didn't react—still almost burn himself on dinner, might as well write down this new wrinkle.

And another one that had been plaguing him.

No idea the growth rate on this thing I might have a few months before Callaghan comes back but it might not be enough the wing might be healed by then but it might not be big enough to carry me—scrub at his head like he usually did when something stumped him, hiss when in his encounter with some dirt caked in the shorter hair on the side his fingernails scraped at something—

Realize when he brought his hand down that the tips had blood on it.

Gingerly go back to where the pain had spiked, realized that there was a thin scrape there, where it had bled and caked some of his hair with it—now the salve made sense, Carl had spotted that and intended it for him (again, the reason why he would have left him in charge over Yama). Of course, there was the little wrinkle of him having used it all on the dragon….Forget it, he'd had worse.

The dragon huffed again, shuffled closer, sniffing—oh great, blood. Okay, he could go with his first instinct and move away, but the dragon might perceive that as weakness and act accordingly. On the same token, he had no desire to lose any of his body parts, or let the dragon get the taste of human blood, and now its paws were on him and it was sniffing and oh no erugh—

"Off of me!" he hissed, pushing it back down. It warbled, tried again—he pushed it back down, pushing it away this time. Sure, that might undo some of his work in getting the dragon trained, but letting it figure out he was a tasty snack would just make that worse.

The dragon backed up, sat down, warbled at him again.

"Don't give me that look," he ordered, ignoring the puppy-dog eyes—oh great, so horrendous scaly beasts could make that face. Randomly, he thought that if the dragons had tried that before Callaghan took over, they might have gotten more food than they knew what to do with.

It seemed to be considering him, considered itself—turned a little so its injured wing was better facing him, continually glancing at him…licked the cape—nose wrinkled—looked at him, licked the cape a few more times, looked at him—put a paw to its head before licking the cape again.

He was going to have to remedy his estimations of the dragon's intelligence if it was doing what he thought it was.

"No," he said finally. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not be dealing with a dragon that's tasted human blood."

The dragon huffed, minced closer, licked at the cape again, consistently on the side of its injured wing…huffed again when he shifted away, perceived weakness be hanged.

"No, Hiro."

The dragon wasn't buying it, which led to an absurd slow pursuit around the fire, dinner forgotten—he couldn't go for any violent deterrent, he wanted this thing to like him, but he didn't want it to like him that much. Finally stand and walk away—bolt back to the fire when it followed, found that half of his dinner had been kicked back into the fire during the scuffle.

"Perfect," he muttered, along with a few more choice words as he sat down, rubbing at his face. Maybe he was lucky and the wound scabbed over again. Maybe the dragon lost interest.

A lick to the side of his head told him this wasn't the case.

"Hey!" he barked, tumbling sideways in his haste to get away—the dragon flailed back, tumbled, righted itself with an arched back—great, so that happened—

There was a tense moment, when they were eyeing each other warily….The dragon broke first, sat back, started licking the cape along its broken wing, pausing frequently to look pointedly at Obake.

"No, Hiro," he repeated. "I have no desire to end up a dragon's lunch."

The dragon huffed at him, stood, padded off. Great. And since the rest of his dinner had met the same fate as the other half, he might as well try for some sleep—or at least comfort, since he wasn't certain about the former with a dragon lurking about.

He was set up and building the fire up when he realized the dragon hadn't come back yet.

Panic made him check the exit—still solid, not clawed through or under—pace back to the fire, scanning the area…twin dots of light reflected the fire several feet away. So it was still here, just sulking. All right, fine, he could live with that. Go recline against the stone he had used…yesterday. Already it felt like a year. He was going to have gray hair before this was over, he was certain.

The sun had set and it was several hours before he finally dozed off—several hours he had spent keeping an eye on those twin pinpricks. They blinked on occasion, so they were definitely the dragon…maybe it was waiting for a sign of weakness before moving in.

That thought kept him alert for about another hour, enough time to question what on earth he had been thinking, staying here. He had gotten away with this that first night only because it was probably tired and stressed out enough that attacking him was a lower priority than sleep. Tonight, with it well-rested and full, it would be a problem.

What was he doing?

Lean back against the rock, rubbing his face, massaging his temples—this was a stupid idea, this was beyond stupid this was beyond idiocy why didn't he just tie himself to a mast and save everyone the trouble what was he even thinking WHY.

…Because if he stayed here much longer, he'd snap. He'd break, he'd scream so loud and long that it ripped him in half—he had ended up in the trap that he thought he had been so clever in avoiding, the limits he had been promised wouldn't be there had snared him anyway, were choking him so badly he couldn't breathe. The others under Callaghan were probably happy, sure—you could be happy when you were ignorant of the potential you were wasting, when your mind didn't spend every second of every day working overtime, filling your skull to bursting and driving you to distraction.

He remembered then, blearily, their old chief Granville telling him the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and fell to his death. He remembered his response—that Icarus failed because he didn't have the right tools for the job. He remembered her expression, consternated and disappointed that he had missed the moral of the story, that pride and arrogance and willful ignorance was more to blame than feathers set in wax.

Perhaps, currently, he was exhibiting all three of those traits right about now—pride dictating that he could tame a dragon, arrogance stating that he would tame a dragon, willful ignorance making him ignore the question of whether he should tame a dragon.

He didn't care—he had an out now, no matter how slim, and the knowledge of that was its own pain. He could get out, get away from here, and the knowledge of that chance suddenly made everything sandpaper scraping at his nerves, cracking his bones and twisting his insides. Or maybe that cut was infected, he was getting brain poisoning, and the whole thing would be moot in a few days anyway.

Either way, the idea of continuing to stay here, to spend the rest of his life under Callaghan's rule, made his throat close up and choke him—he was going to get out of here, get out from under Callaghan's thumb, or die trying.

Something rough and wet suddenly scraped against the side of his head.

"Hey!" he barked, flailing sideways—the dragon bounced away, back arched as it watched him warily. "I thought we were over this, Hiro."

The dragon gave him a stern glare before pointedly marching over—Obake put a hand flat on its head, holding it at arm's length.

"I said no, Hiro," he said sternly, arm trembling from trying to keep it at bay—even that small, and it was already stronger than him (although to be fair, that didn't take much effort).

That green-eyed glare brought another memory up, easy to do when he had been busy stirring the dust of the past—of him having an argument with Granville about the limits she had posed yet again

What good are limits when they keep you from your full potential? What good is the word 'no' except as another limitation?

Except this wasn't some kid frustrated at being turned away again—this was a wild animal, and he could very clearly see the end result of letting it do what it wanted.

And he hated the fact that that meant he was forced to see his youth from Granville's point of view, to see her point.

He finally relaxed his arm, let the dragon come close, but kept his hand on its head to keep it from rearing up.

"I can take care of myself, thank you," he said sternly, mentally trying to shred the frustration stirring up those old ghosts had caused. It was pointless to apply human logic and reasoning to an animal, they needed clear instructions without the opportunity for nuance.

The dragon sighed, leaned against him, rubbed its head against his chest before curling up against his side.

He considered it for the longest time…kept his hand rested on its broad head, arm along the spines on its back. Maybe this could work. Maybe he could pull this off—he just had to be patient.

He just had to execute enough common sense to keep his distance from the sun, at least until he had this figured out.

That, he felt, was Icarus' true failing.