A/N:
Thanks for joining me again and thanks to Deadly-Bagle for betaing. Someone tell him to constantly poke me until I get caught up with writing again.
Toothlessgolfer, Thanks for dropping a line. Funny that you ask about Ruffnut and Eret…
Sterr, If ya made it this far, I haven't seen much of the show, but I had to Google the Futurama theorem. I'll be using magic instead of science in my universe, though, so no buffer bodies required. ;)
Epclaymore, yeah, I know, sorry about the wait. I'm trying to do a chapter every two weeks (while reading stories where authors post at 8x the rate in terms of word count lol). Let's just say I'm "mostly punctual".
Inspiration
"Hold!"
Hiccup's heart was racing. His blood was boiling. His entire body quivered with the rush of the hunt.
A rabbit was poking its head out from under a bush up ahead, and Hiccup wanted nothing more than to chase it and crunch down on it. He was already drooling, his mouth demanding tribute.
"Hold…" Astrid said again.
But the rabbit!
Hiccup whined. This was absolute torture!
However, he had literally asked for this. Whenever he was relaxed, which was almost all the time, he was fine, but the Night Fury could be quite rash when excited. Ever since that close call, when he almost hurt Astrid, he resolved that he would conquer the Night Fury. He would beat his instincts into submission no matter how much hammering it took. Astrid was greatly encouraged to hear of such aspirations, and when Hiccup asked her to help him develop discipline and control over his body at any opportunity, she had stared back at him with the most feral and sinister gleam in her eyes.
"Hold…"
But… But… Rabbit!
Hiccup spared her a quick flick of his eyes before focusing on the rabbit again. It was wary of his presence, but he was far enough away that it wasn't spooked yet.
"Sit."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Hiccup whined piteously as he quickly slammed his rear to the ground. The rabbit hopped around the bush for some more greens, and Hiccup's body automatically lurched forward, but he caught himself and forced himself to sit again.
"Good boy!"
He spared a moment to give her a flat stare, and she chuckled.
"Lay down."
This is agony!
Hiccup groaned as he forced his front legs to bend to settle on his paws and knees, tensed, ready to spring–
"All the way down," she said as she lightly biffed his snout.
He snarled at the hit but caught himself before snapping at her. A couple of red marks on her hand drew his attention, healing relics from a few days ago when she had gone a little too far and he'd snapped at her, barely nicking her skin. Fortunately, she knew better than to initiate such exercises while holding their child. Still, seeing the consequences of his failure to control himself strengthened his resolve. He gave the hand a little lick before lying flat on the ground.
She took a couple steps back. Sensing that she was about to release him, Hiccup tensed up.
"Hey, no cheating," she said. She then gave Hiccup an evil smirk that made him gulp. She couldn't… she wouldn't dare…
"Roll over."
Hiccup yowled in agony. He forced – himself – to roll – over.
There! Done! His eyes were still on the rabbit. Not only his eyes, but his ears, nose, and his sensor lobes pulsated to feel for any projections the rabbit was throwing off. It knew there was a predator nearby, but it was far enough away that it hadn't disappeared into its hole yet. Still, Hiccup's whining had put it on edge.
"No cheating, now. Ready…"
RABBIT! RABBIT! RABBIT!
Hiccup forced – himself – to remain – absolutely–
"Go!"
He was gone in a flash, his legs, head, wings, and tail working furiously to close the distance. The rabbit shot behind the bush for its hole. It was fast, but so was he. His headlong sprint tore through the bush and he swiped his paw–
Nothing! The rabbit was already in its hole. Hiccup poised over it, drawing forth some fuel to breathe out–
"Hold!"
Hiccup railed against his instincts to ignore her and forced himself to remain absolutely motionless. Every fiber of his being burned to continue the hunt.
You don't know how hard this is!
"You're right, you've made so much progress, best not push it. Go!"
A plume of fire erupted from his maw and splashed into and around the hole. Smoke wisped out, and with his sensor lobes dancing with excitement, he could track the rabbit by the panic it was wafting as it fled from the heat and choking smoke, seeking another exit–
It was over in an instant. He felt a great rush of satisfaction as his teeth crunched down around its head, but he fought to stop himself from eating any more. This was also part of the exercise, restraining himself from doing what he desired in tearing into the rabbit like a starving dragon, not that he was starved at all.
Hiccup trotted over to Astrid and repositioned the rabbit in his mouth so his teeth could bite down on the neck. She twisted and pulled to grab the rest of the body.
"Good!" she said, genuinely pleased. "You deserve a break. Next rabbit you see, just go for it, and we'll have dinner."
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Toothless grinned down at the mostly flat iron thing in front of him, or "pan" as the land-striders called it. It was resting on a bed of coals, the food sizzling happily.
It was his masterpiece.
Most meals were at the Great Hall, where a few cooked for all, and it was almost always a stew, but there were occasions in the past couple of months where Toothless could help out with preparing food at home. Dragons were designed for killing and destroying, but land-striders could do so much more. Where claws could only tear and shred, a hand holding a knife could cut things into slices, sticks, chunks, whatever he wanted. Such seemingly unnecessary control over things was strange, but he was really starting to enjoy it.
Usually, he was relegated to assisting Astrid or Valka: cut this, slice that, stir the stuff in the pot. While the notion of preparing food before eating it had initially frustrated Toothless, he had developed an appreciation for it over time. He found satisfaction in taking something and making it a better something. There was no doubt in his mind that this was because he was no longer a dragon.
There were a lot of rules to learn, though, like there was such a thing as cooking something too hot or too long. Harder foods took longer to cook than softer foods. Slicing harder things into thin strips made them cook faster. Leafy things were usually added at the very end, being both very soft and very thin. Not all slabs of meat were the same, even if they came from the same animal – a distinction Toothless had never noticed as a Night Fury as all meat tasted equally amazing to his dragon tongue.
A few days ago, Astrid had cooked a couple of whole rabbits over the fire, and Toothless learned it tasted really, really, really good. However, he had seen enough. Valka was dubious, but Toothless knew that he could prepare a whole meal all by himself. It was a simple matter of combining the bits he learned.
One thing he had learned was to do all the slicing and shaping of things before putting them over the fire, which also decreased the frequency with which he would cut himself. The tuber sticks were starting to soften in the pan, sizzling in butter – another one of those magnificent things only a land-strider would decide this world needed – and he had just added the carrot slices.
Four slabs of yak meat were cooking on the coals next to the pan. As a former dragon, he knew meat inside and out – literally – so it was with the most impeccable timing that he flipped the steaks after they got a nice char on one side. Even as a dragon, he could appreciate the taste of the crust on the outside of a steak, but he would never dare let it cook so long that the inside would become brown and ruined. He also poured some ale into the pan, which he had learned gave an interesting taste without "burning" him as had happened when he would drink it. Somehow, the heat removed whatever was in there that made him think, talk, feel, and act all funny.
When the steaks were done, he tossed into the pan some more butter, diced mint, and some sort of sprout he didn't know the name of, gave it a mix with a wooden spoon, and laid the steaks on top. Astrid then patted out the fire in Toothless' hair as she gave him some plates.
"Looks good, Toothless," Valka crooned.
As they sat down at the table, Astrid said, "Really, Toothless, not bad for a Night Fury turned Viking."
Firefly immediately lapped up the steak on his plate, swallowed without even chewing, and purred contentedly as he nuzzled Toothless. {You have my vote, Toothless, as the best cook in all of history.}
Astrid picked up a forkful of the vegetables and crunched on them – and then choked for a moment before downing an entire mug of water. "Well, I don't think anyone can say you didn't add enough mint or salt," she said.
Toothless smiled. "I see you always add some. If some good, then more better."
Astrid choked down another forkful and went to refill her mug. "Well, it's kinda like Terrible Terrors. There is such a thing as too much."
Toothless nibbled at the vegetables and grimaced. "I see what you mean."
Valka sliced off a strip from her steak and eyed the slice. "Well, you certainly didn't overcook the meat."
Toothless grinned as he carved a slice and ate it. The outside was crispy, but the inside was squishy and warm. It was like he had just pounced on his prey and started tearing out mouthfuls of meat while it was still kicking. "I think it good, and Firefly say it perfect," he insisted.
"He would say that about raw fish, and you know what happened when you tried to eat one," Valka said.
Toothless grimaced at the memory. He knew that the outhouse was a smelly place during a short visit, but that night was one he would happily forget if only his faulty land-strider mind would comply.
Astrid pecked a kiss on Toothless' cheek. "Still gives Valka a run for her coin."
Valka swatted at her and they both broke down laughing.
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Toothless sat on a grassy bluff, enjoying the feel of the breeze on his face in a way he never could as a dragon.
Down below, in the water, a ship was drifting out of the harbor. It was trader Johann's. He was a trader, and as such, he had been able to help with reading the various types of scratchings and marks on the walls of the cave where all this trouble began.
Traders, Toothless had learned, came into contact with a wide variety of land-striders from all parts of the world on a regular basis, so his proficiency in speaking multiple languages was simply a necessity. To augment the frail memory of a land-strider, Johann also had a stash of rare books on-hand that he called "dictionaries", and the offering of some tribute secured his time and interest in putting his resources to use.
That was something that Toothless found absolutely mind-boggling. Somehow, in their silly land-strider minds, they had decided that their slow and clumsy way of representing thought was too simple. Sure, words that could be chosen and arranged to represent thoughts to a very limited degree, he understood that quite well, but land-striders unanimously agreed that this was not nearly complicated enough. No, one language would be too easy. Well, it may be enough for one flock, or all flocks in a certain area, but another flock would speak and write a different language entirely.
Why? Well, life would be too simple if all land-striders could communicate with each other, and if there was one thing that all land-striders loved, it was complexity in every aspect of life. Maybe they would literally go insane if it was possible for them to communicate with other land-striders from far-flung lands. For creatures that required cooperation and teamwork for life's most basic survival needs, Toothless found it fascinating how land-striders always managed to push other individuals or flocks away.
Still, they were able to piece together the varied fragments of what was written on the walls of that cave. Fishlegs had diligently reproduced the scratchings, referencing his dragon's memory of what she had seen, and with some tribute to secure his interest in the matter, Johann was able to shed a lot of light on what it all said. His knowledge and books exceeded everyone's cautious hopes.
Some languages could not be understood, though, such as one that featured boxes, slashes, and dots that Johann said he suspected came from very far to the East. Another set of runes had the noteworthy feature that every rune was topped with a line, and many of them were joined by these lines. Johann said he had never seen such markings.
What could be read only reinforced what was already known, which was that light from the sky was needed to "refill the bucket"... or "refresh the stone" as the Latin scratchings indicated. It was also called "light of gods", but Fishlegs concluded that it must have referred to Sol, goddess of the sun. The more exposure the stone had to the sun, the better, and if things went well, it would only take a hundred years.
"Well, back to square one, I guess," Fishlegs groused.
"More like square dumb," Tuffnut said.
Ruffnut moaned. "Now I have to wait a hundred years before I can use that stone," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards where it was mounted on top of Firefly's house, "before I can use it to–"
Firefly growled.
"Okay, fiiiiine," she said, dismissing him with a wave. "I have to wait two hundred years before I can become a Zippleback."
She continued staring sullenly out to sea, and it took a while for her to realize that everyone was staring at her, perplexed. "Ya know, so Eret can't slip away from me again."
Everyone continued to stare in dumbfounded silence. "Well, if you must pry, my plan is to snag his leg with my Zippleback teeth, inject a light dose of venom into his legs so he can't run away, then drag him inside, just the two of us, where I will proceed to–"
Astrid smacked the back of Ruffnut's head. "Nobody cares about your weird fantasies."
"I dunno," Snotlout mused, "it'd be interesting to see how she reacts to learning that being a dragon would sorta ruin her plans."
Tuffnut stuck a thumb to his chest. "And I want to know how you could dare to do this dragon soul swap thing without your brother. Besides, Barf and Belch are two individual minds."
"Do you really want to be a part of whatever she has in mind?" Snotlout hissed
"Hey!" Astrid shouted. "Can we focus on the actual problem we have here."
"Wait, we have a problem?" Tuffnut asked."
"Toothless is in my husband's body!" Astrid shrieked.
Tuffnut shot to his feet. "What? Where?!" Astrid rolled her eyes and pointed. "I'm on it!" he shouted, and with that, he lunged at Toothless to flatten him against the grass.
Toothless sighed as he put Camicazi's training to use. The side of his hand slammed into Tuffnut's throat, and a fingertip poked at an eyeball, giving Toothless ample opportunity to casually stand up again.
"Owwwww!" Tuffnut choked out between coughs. "Hazing you was funner back when you were Hiccup instead of a dragon… man."
Ruffnut fist-bumped Toothless. "Dude I wanna watch you do that every day."
"Ahem!" Fishlegs coughed. "Back on topic, we're trying to figure out how to refill the bucket – or refresh the stone or whatever – faster. I have an idea. I read a book that talks about how, if we go far enough South, they have Summer when we have Winter. So, if we go down there every Winter, we'd have more daylight hours to recharge the stone."
"Wait, how is that a thing?" Snotlout demanded. "Summer is Summer, Winter is Winter."
Oh, that's easy," Tuffnut said, pacing back and forth, gesticulating with his hands. "We know the sun leans South in the Winter, and it arises but for a brief moment before setting again, but in the Summer, it hardly deigns to set at all. Therefore, if we go South, to where the sun is in the Winter, then it will be as Summer, but when it turns to Winter down there, it must wander North again, and so we must chase it up here again."
Fishlegs stood there, staring in slack-jawed wonder, before shaking himself back to reality. "Well, yes, precisely, but, well, I didn't know you were so well versed in the sun's migration patterns throughout different regions and–"
"Too many words!" Tuffnut moaned. "It was elementary, my dear Fishlegs, if one applies logic to knowledge."
"I dunno, though," Ruffnut said. "Let's say we knock it down to fifty years, if that's even feasible, but that means flying and sailing that stone across the world and back again fifty times, and hopefully not losing it even once."
"Hmm, that would be a big risk," Astrid mused. "Storms, raiders, or even just making a little mistake and misplacing it one time is all it would take."
"Well, any other ideas?" Fishlegs asked.
"What about a second sun?" Ruffnut suggested. Everyone stared at her blankly. "Ya know, if one sun takes a hundred years, two suns would take half that. We could make a thousand sacrifices to Sol."
Everyone stared at her in silence.
"Ya know, appease her, ask her to give us a second sun, or maybe four of them while we're at it."
The staring continued. "We'll start with Tuffnut. Ya know, sacrifice him. Nobody will miss him.
"Ahem," Tuffnut coughed.
Ruffnut deflated. "Oh, right, the gods would only take that as an insult. Good point."
"Hey!"
"How about finding a way to make the sun hotter?" Astrid suggested. "Ya know, like how Nadder fire burns very hot and quickly as compared to Nightmare fire that burns longer even though it cannot instantly turn some hapless trainee's ax into a puddle of slag." She elbowed Firefly suggestively and he shuffled his paws.
"Yeah, good luck with that," Tuffnut said. "You can join my sis on team burnt sacrifice."
"What about you, Hiccup," Fishlegs asked Firefly, who groaned and flopped over to his back. Toothless could relate quite well. Dragons were very good at flying, rending, crushing, burning, not forgetting everything all the time, but coming up with clever ideas and feats of imagination was best left to land-striders.
Toothless stared out to sea, deep in thought. He was in Firefly's body. He was a land-strider. His mind should be making such imaginative leaps, but he felt like his imagination was small and fading, just like Johann's ship out there.
His tiny little ship.
Almost just a speck on the horizon.
Really, it was completely pointless to look at it. Even if he was a dragon so that he could see it more clearly–
A thought suddenly sprang into his mind and held on it with vengeance. It was a stupid thought, a pointless one no doubt, but he decided to pursue it. He sprang at Fishlegs and, without asking, rummaged through his satchel.
"Hey, Toothless, what are you–" Fishlegs started to ask, but Toothless ignored him and triumphantly pulled out what he was seeking. It was one of those distance-viewer things that made small things look big, and far things look close.
However, when he extended the tube and held the small end to his eye as he had seen Firefly and other land-striders do in the past, he saw only blackness.
Fishlegs cleared his throat. "Lens cover."
Toothless looked at the device, perplexed, until he noticed a leather circle strapped over the large end. He unhooked one side so it fell away and tried to use the distance-viewer again. It took him a moment, but he found Johann's ship. As expected, it looked a lot bigger through the distance-viewer.
"That it!" he exclaimed! "This make small thing look big! Somehow make small eye more big, like dragon eye!"
For a moment, Fishleg's mouth resembled a fish gasping for air, then he started clapping and cackling giddily. "Toothless, you're a genius!"
"Yes, I am!" Toothless crowed.
Astrid's eyes went wide. "Ohhhhhh."
Toothless held the distance-viewer in front of him, fondling it reverently. "If it make small ship look big, it make small sun–" he started to aim it upward–
Fishlegs smacked his hand down. "No! You'll go blind in that eye for half a day and be seeing spots for the other half."
"Yes yes," Toothless said impatiently. "But not need eye look through viewer but stone. Make sun look big to stone."
Firefly and Astrid grinned wide. "Well, what are your thoughts?" Astrid asked Fishlegs.
He scratched his chin. "Hmm, I've bought some glass lenses off of Johann to play around with – that's what makes the distance-viewer work, you see. You can hold a lens to make a little dot of sunlight, burn holes through leaves if you're patient enough, or even start kindling on fire. The bigger the lens, the brighter the dot, the hotter it burns."
He suddenly smiled big. "This demands science! Hiccup, can you burn a patch of ground down to dirt? I just need a hand-sized patch."
Firefly complied, then patted at the ashes with his paw. Fishlegs bent one of the three little iron fingers holding the lens in place, threw himself at the ground, plucked up a single blade of grass nearby, and held the lens above it to make an intense dot.
"See?" he asked as everyone crowded around him. "Snotlout, your shadow is not helping. Thanks. Anyway, see the dark circle under the lens, around the bright spot? I think it's taking all the sun and putting it on that little point. Doing this with the gemstone wouldn't accomplish much since it's as big as this lens..."
"But if we get several of these things all making dots on the gemstone…" Astrid started to say.
"Or one big lens..." Ruffnut added.
"Or many big lens!" Toothless said excitedly.
Fishlegs stood. "I guess the theory is sound. We'd have to hold the lens in place…"
"Gobber can surely make some sort of thing for that," Astrid said.
Fishlegs nodded. "And as the sun moves across the sky, we'd have to adjust and readjust the lens…"
"One step at a time," Astrid said impatiently, her face positively beaming.
"So if we get a lens ten times as large as the gemstone, we'd refill the bucket in ten years."
"Or ten of these lenses, and we could do it in one year! Hiccup could watch and adjust this lens rig thingy all day, every day."
Firefly groaned at that.
"So, where do we get such things?" Snotlout asked. "Ask Johann if he has a lens to sell every time he comes to port?"
"Ah, that shouldn't be too hard," Fishlegs said. "The Hysteric tribe is known to have a bunch of tinkerers, and some of their smiths know how to make glass. There must be some pretty clever minds if they figured out that the world isn't flat even before we trained up some of them as dragon riders."
"That was pure luck," Snotlout said. "They have some silly ideas too, like this imaginary faraway place called, ah… murca or something like that."
"Well, it's worth a shot!" Astrid cheered.
"Yes," Fishlegs agreed. "That's where Johann sometimes gets his lenses. So, we get a lot of stuff to trade, fly on over, and see how big of a lens they can make."
"TO THE SKIES!" Astrid shouted. She then let out a battle cry as she turned to leap onto her dragon… before she realized that her offspring was in her arms, and he was now crying. She groaned. Even a dragon dam wouldn't leave her hatchling for several days.
"Ugh, so boring," Tuffnut said. "More flying somewhere to get a thing. Our adventures have been so lame as of late. I sure hope we get captured by dragon trappers or something like that."
Ruffnut knocked her helmet into his. "Shut up! I'm only two years away from becoming a Zippleback and gnawing on my one true love and–"
"Not want hear!" Toothless said.
