The light fury exists (in this fic, I'm not sure about reality). She is Toothless' mate. And she doesn't have an official name. So, I'll either keep calling her the alpha's mate or give her an actual name. Guess what I decided?
Twenty years…
Twenty years ago, the dragons had left the overworld for this cavern in hope of safety and peace from those agressie humans. It had taken twenty years for humans to stumble upon them and once more adventure their peace. All in all, it could have been worse.
But it was still very bad.
An increasing number of dragons was gathering around the king's crystal, looking at the events from the many ledges the huge cavern offered. The six humans did not care much for those, having much closer concerns. Specifically, the enormous crystal that they were on, and the jaws of the dragons on it. They were trapped in a tight circle, huddling together for a shred of protection, and completely at the dragon's mercy. Of all the incredible marvels the hidden world offered, the dragons' teeth had caught the most of their attention.
For a particular night fury, this was the biggest challenge that his realm had faced yet. Luckily, he had gathered a close group of advisors during his rule. Old friends, new friends and one very close white dragon that together made up an almost unstoppable unit, one that he would trust with his life. Unluckily, these advisors were right now disagreeing with him on something that he was not ready to give up on.
"B-but we can't let them live. If they leave and tell others about where we are, humans will swarm us and kill us!" stated Rej, a young, small monstrous nightmare and one of Toothless' closest advisors. The blood red dragon had a 'dark past' that she refused to tell him, but had somehow given her an extremely useful, in-depth understanding of every single last dragon in the cavern.
"Rej, you don't have to be worried. I have lived with humans for six years. They are not as bloodthirsty as you think," answered the night fury in the sweetest voice he could manage, as the 'dark past' had also given Rej a constant need for reassurance.
"But if we don't get rid of them, what can we do?" asked Pinch, a young, small monstrous nightmare that had convinced herself of being one of Toothless' closest advisors and would always give him her opinion on everything. But the blood red dragon did not have a 'dark past' and could not help Toothless with his rule. Of course, Pinch and Rej were sisters, and so similar that it could be hard to distinguish them.
"Well Pinch, we can stop complaining like little hatchlings for a start," answered the night fury, his frustration making itself heard in his voice. The lack of a 'dark past' meant that Pinch did not have a constant need for reassurance.
The truth was that he did not have a good solution that would not risk harming dragons, and he hated that. From the moment that Stormfly had flown into his home cave and explained how vikings had reached the hidden world, he had known this would be a tough day. And he was already having trouble stopping killing from happening right here and now.
An overly eager scuttleclaw tentingly pointed at the humans with a claw. But before Toothless could intervene, he heard something from his side, notifying him of his offspring's arrival. Dart growled at it. and the dragon sheepishly returned to the back of the crowd. The night fury gave a proud grin. He had to admit, his daughter could be quite convincing. A source of chaos, but quite convincing too.
"How did this happen?" asked Dart while pointing at the group of humans.
"Hookfang, can you explain?" he asked the red dragon, who in his twenty years of rule, had also become an invaluable helper.
"The ocean current carried them. And they somehow managed to not notice it until their ship was less than twenty metres from the entrance. Ropes are the only things stopping it from going down further," stated Hookfang.
"After which, they needed help and climbed down here," said Dart with a knowing nod.
Toothless, Hookfang and a large part of the dragons present raised an eyebrow. "If you nearly get sucked up into a giant hole, do you go inside to see if there's anyone there?" asked the monstrous nightmare.
Toothless suppressed a sigh as his daughter answered with a decided "yes."
Somewhat awkwardly, Hookfang continued. "Anyway, wrong. We found them and brought them here for the alpha to decide what to do with them. And Toothless, I'm sorry to admit it but…" Toothless' incredulous look interrupted the nightmare. The alpha's heart got a little heavier.
"You too?" asked Toothless cheerlessly.
"We have to keep the entrance a secret," answered the red dragon matter-of-factly. Toothless shook his head.
A familiar, smug voice rose above the rest. "Do we, really?" asked Ruffrunner, who had with dignant steps placed himself in the centre of attention. "These humans can not harm us," he stated confidently. "Only humans returning in mass, with weapons and evil intentions can. So who are they and why are they here? Many of you have lived with humans for years. Step forward and try to identify them."
Toothless winced at what had just happened. His youngest kid had just given an order! He had stepped forwards, and acted as the alpha, despite having no power. There was no way anyone would accept that…
Hookfang, Stormfly and a dozen other dragons who had lived on Berk did as his son had told, coming closer to get a good look at the humans. Even his mate did so, sweeping his back with her tail as she passed him. "Well, I know Hiccup and Astrid," she said while giving him an innocent smile.
Toothless couldn't do anything other than stare incredulously at his youngest son. The nightlight walked around the inspecting dragons proudly, looking like someone who had ruled over others for all his life. Thinking about it… Toothless was proud. Ruffrunner had made a good decision. And sure… the others had only listened to the nightlight because they believed he, as the alpha, would tell them otherwise but…
"Have a look too, dad. No reason to waste time," said the nightlight while looking impatiently at him. In a moment of panic, Toothless did as his son ordered.
But as he passed by his offspring to get a closer look at the humans, he gave the nightlight a quiet warning. "Do not give orders to me ever again. We will talk about this later." Toothless smiled smugly as fear swept across Ruffrunner's face. He didn't stop walking forwards though. The night fury had received an order, and he would follow it. Educating his son would come later.
But oh, it would come.
As he pushed his way through the crowd and caught once more sight of the humans, Toothless felt awful. In their quest of identifying them, the dragons had formed a tight circle with less than a metre between their jaws and those poor strugglers.
"Spread out! You're scaring them!" he roared, back in control.
The witnessing dragons widened the circle, and he finally got to examine the vikings. They were six, with four men, a woman and a little kid that looked to be about ten years old. This one was staring at him, his gaze neither angry nor afraid but simply full of awe. In fact, all humans were watching him, but only the kid didn't seem scared. The woman, likely the kid's mother, was wrapping her arms protectively around him and being in turn shielded by one of the men. And as he looked at this individual, Toothless thought he recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man. A dragon trapper who's first action had been to try capturing the night fury and selling him to Drago. That had been twenty years ago. But the alpha also remembered how the dragon trapper had later turned against Drago, and in an unexpected sequence of events helped save the dragon riders. "Stormfly, am I wrong or is this Eret?" he asked.
The deadly nadder had now passed twenty years in this cavern, working as his close advisor and proven invaluable. The night fury thought about how it was incredible that in that time, the deadly nadder had changed-
"Eret?" said Stormfly after looking at the human in question. She and the target looked at each other for a few tense seconds before recognition finally set in. And at that point, the two smiled. From there, it took approximately half a second until Eret's face had been thoroughly bathed by Stormfly's tongue. The screaming coming from the vikings only stopped as Eret displayed that, while being the most disgusted he had been in the last twenty years, he was unharmed.
The night fury found it incredible that in that time, Stormfly had changed by absolutely nothing.
"Stormfly! They may be dangerous!" he barked in warning.
The deadly nadder completely ignored him, her yellow eyes locked on Eret. "Oh, I had such a blast playing fetch with you." Eret laughed at the blue dragon's antics. "Toothless, I know you're deciding between murdering him or not, but… don't?" asked Stormfly hopefully.
Toothless gave the nader's eyes a long and hard stare, until they sheepishly dropped to the ground. The night fury loved Stormfly's playful and carefree attitude, but sometimes he wished she'd just grow up.
"Stormfly, is Eret someone we can trust?" asked Toothless as clearly as he could. The last he remembered of the ex dragon-trapper was positive, but that was twenty years ago. Luckily, he also had Stormfly's totally not biased opinion to help him decide.
Yup. He was doomed.
"Yes, definitely. He won't tell where the entrance is to anyone else," said the deadly nadder matter-of-factly. Toothless gave a small sigh of relief.
"In that case, we will just get rid of the other five," stated Hookfang confidenty. Whatever was left of Toothless' patience took a big hit with these words. He didn't recognize the other vikings but this didn't mean that they deserved to die!
"I'll personally murder anyone who puts a claw on them, you included! What if Snotlout was in there?!" he roared. In reality, Snotlout being among them wouldn't really have been an argument against murder… well, not that strong anyways. But Hookfang seemed affected. And so were the others, it seemed. They were staring at him, their faces filled with… fear.
Maybe the alpha should not threaten murdering his subjects, he thought.
And just as Toothless was nearing his limit, a white wing was laid onto his back. The familiar smell of earth and seawater filled his nostrils. His mate's body warmed him up, and he relaxed in muscles he didn't even know had been tense. He turned his head to his side, making Light enter his field of vision. And mesmerizingly stared into those baby blue eyes and at that reassuring smile with no desire to stop. But they were in the middle of something, so after some (probably longer than it should have been) time she cleared her throat and broke the contact. The light fury pointed at the crowd of dragons with a claw.
"You're the alpha. You know what to do. Now, how about you take those beautiful eyes off of this sparkling beluga whale and pay some attention to your subjects instead? I think they want to know too," said Light, who had been the love of his life in the past twenty years.
Light, don't call yourself a sparkling beluga whale ever again, thought Toothless. But she was right. He knew what to do. How?
He would not kill them. And if he would, it would merely delay the problem until the next time a ship appeared. What would they do then? Kill that one too? And keep going at it until the end of time?
Or more likely, until humans came up with something too powerful to kill.
There was only one option left. They had escaped this cavern in the hope of peace and safety. And it was what they would need right now.
"We will allow them to sail home," said Toothless as he braced himself for the storm of protests.
"You're crazy!" declared Hookfang.
"You're going to get us killed!" roared someone else.
"You're irresponsible!" barked a third one.
"You're an outdated individual who's regressive views are the cause of the downfall of modern society!" roared a fourth, though the last part of the insult was rather breathless.
"Maybe you're right. But I am also something else", claimed the night fury dignantly. "I am the alpha."
It took all of his self-control to avoid finishing the sentence with 'bitches.'
A low growl came from Hookfang. "We will do as you say. But what about us? Why do you care so much for humans and not for us?" Toothless growled quietly.
"Dad," said a particular white nightlight, who had just reappeared from somewhere, and presented himself to the alpha quite impeccably, safe for a slobbery fish's tail hanging from his jaws. "I examined the viking ship. Guess what I found?"
"Could possibly it be fish?" replied Toothless with absolutely zero sarcasm in his voice.
"That viking ship is full of it, it's almost as if they brought them here just for us!" replied his son.
"You stole it!" was his daughter's almost immediate response, and the two started arguing.
As Toothless thought about how this might mean the ship was a fishing boat, Rej leaped over the rapidly heating argument and motioned that she had something to tell him. As he really needed his advisors, Toothless left Light's side to listen to what the other female had to say.
"Everyone thinks that you let the humans off too easily. Can't you punish them, somehow? It doesn't have to be killing, but… something would help. They came here after all…" whispered Rej into his ear. The night fury nodded understandably.
Toothless then felt a second pair of jaws pressing onto his other ear. Without even looking, he knew it was Rej's sister who was about to tell him what she called 'important information', which the night fury knew as 'your personal opinion.' "Also, the reason why people protest is because they aren't afraid of you. You should do some kind of display of force to prove that you're always right," whispered Pinch into his other ear. Toothless sighed and started explaining the one thousand of reasons why ruling by fear wasn't a desirable long-term solution. He didn't want to. But since it made Pinch happy, and by consequence Rej, he did it anyway. The alpha had to care for all his subjects, even the most annoying ones.
He then had the realisation that Pinch's advice wasn't entirely useless. He could use her tips as clear guidelines of what not to do.
After that, the three of them separated and Toothless went back to Light, nuzzling her side. And right then and there, with his snout practically breathing in his mate, he found a solution. He needed to find some kind of punishment for the vikings to increase popularity within his subjects, and there was fish on their ship.
"I want you to carry those humans back to their ship. Free fish for anyone who helps!" roared the alpha. And sure, most dragons didn't want these humans to live. Sure, the dragons received free fish anyways. But they were still dragons, which meant that any sentence containing the world 'fish' would forever be met with great enthusiasm.
There was something more he could do to give the impression of a punishment. "Stormfly, remember what you said about playing fetch with Eret?"
"Can I?" asked the nadder excitedly, her eyes lighting up at the suggestion. The night fury turned towards Eret, who was looking at their interaction curiously. A part of Toothless thought that what he was about to do was cruel. As he stared into the tall viking's eyes, that part was rapidly forgotten.
"Have fun!" exclaimed Toothless as he lifted the ex-dragon trapper by the collar and threw him off the crystal. The vikings were screaming, but alive. The dragons who had called him crazy a minute ago were now chuckling. And Stormfly, who had leapt after Eret the moment he started falling, was having the time of her life.
"We're here!" barked Dart as she spread her wings and made a graceful landing on the small fishing boat. The little human on her neck took a few moments to calm his breath before gently petting the nightlight's scales. The kid's eyes were wide in admiration and his heart was beating faster than it had done in a long time. He had just flown! Ridden a dragon!
Moments later, four other humans were dropped onto the deck in a much less gentle manner. The woman immediately rushed towards the child and took him into her arms, and let out a long sigh of relief.
Lastly, Stormfly made her entrance, accompanied by the screaming of the ex-dragon trapper that she held in her paws. Many would assume that this meant that Eret was easily frightened as he was screaming while being carried, which none of the other vikings had done. However, the main reason for the screaming was the nadder's commitment to completing every aerial manoeuvre known to dragon kind, without letting go of Eret.
Finally, the nadder landed, and after both the dragon and the human displayed their gratitude (through a free hair licking and a promise to transform the dragon's hide into boots, respectively,) the two separated. And though Eret wouldn't admit it for a very long time, he had actually enjoyed the activity.
For now, the dragons were happy. They had eaten fish. They had punished these humans who had posed a risk to their cavern. And as such, they had accepted letting them go, fishless but alive. Unfortunately, the universe itself seemed to disagree with them, the stream of water going towards the hidden world as opposed to it. Luckily, a particular nightlight knew of a solution.
"This will be tiring," whined Ruffrunner while perching on one of the rocks near the ship's anchor. Pouncer also seemed displeased. Dart seemed ready to slash them both with their claws.
"Ruffrunner, I will tire you more if you don't cooperate," barked Dart in irritation. "Pouncer, being helpful might actually make you less disgusting to females." Ruffrunner and Pouncer nodded in resignation and entrancement, respectively.
"Will you act or do I have to do it myself?" asked Toothless in irritation. He was pleased with his offspring deciding to drag the boat out to sea themselves, but not with them spending that time bickering instead of acting. He looked at the fearful, hopeful faces of the humans on the ship, who seemed to have understood they would not die. In that moment, those faces turned ecstatic as the nightlights took off, grabbed the anchor in their claws and with powerful beats propelled the ship away from the waterfalls as the caring, majestic and noble beings that they were-
Dart looked back and considered them not quite fast enough. "Weaklings," she barked despitefully.
"Shut up," mumbled Ruffrunner, equally despitefully. "I want to sleep."
"Stop talking. There is something I need to think about," mumbled Pouncer while trying to visualise the females who would find him irresistible after this effort of his. In particular, their tiny, tightly packed scales that made up the right skin next to… But doing so while flying was already hard enough without his sibling bothering him.
A low, threatening growl made itself heard and the three turned their heads to see a very aggressive looking night fury flying right besides them. His offspring gulped and quickly focused back on their task. Toothless nodded and went back to warily watch over the humans.
While tense and ready, the night fury couldn't deny that those three could be quite unstoppable together. Powerful downstrokes with the wings nearly vertical propelled them forwards, and the three seemed even synchronised, moving the boat far faster than he would have guessed. Though he wondered how they could spare the breath for the constant bickering they did while dragging the boat.
For the humans on the boat, this was truly something they would have never expected. In fact, the whole day had been unexpected. But this time, fear did not completely overwhelm all other emotions. Among the small group, Eret, son of Eret, son of Eret was on the ship's front, mesmerizingly staring at the three dragons pulling the ship and marvelling at the various sounds they made. "Do you know what they are saying?" he asked his father in his high-pitched, ten-year-old voice.
Eret, son of Eret, chuckled. "I really don't," he answered. The ex-dragon trapper turned towards the only woman on the ship, who was equally in awe at the beasts pulling the ship.
"They must be saying really wise," stated the woman before giving Eret, son of Eret a kind caress. "You have taken us to wonderful. I made the right choice marrying you."
The tall viking smiled. "Oh, Helgasomewhere…"
The ship's captain had just survived what he believed was certain death and couldn't stand the awfully joyful behaviour of his three passengers. The proud member of the Berserker tribe, was a man of few words. He gave a low, hollow grunt at the three, making them freeze. Then a pleased grunt at them becoming silent.
Now mildly fearful for their lives, Eret, son of Eret, Helga, and Eret, son of Eret, son of Eret, looked at the dragons without talking. Unfortunately, the curious sounds coming from them had stopped after a grunt from a nearby night fury, that incredibly was not the most unbelievable thing they had seen today. The small fishing vessel was pulled well clear from the currents, to where its sail would steadily pull them away further. The dragons left shortly afterwards, and the captain wasted no time in setting the ship back towards Berserker island, his mind spent for the day.
But on the vessel, one mind was still active. Helga had seen dragons before, back when dragon raids were still a thing. But seeing dragons like this, seeing them spare humans and then help them… Dragons were such intelligent, caring creatures, and she craved to know more about them. Unfortunately, dragons were gone, and had been so for twenty years. Gone to no one knew where.
Well, she knew now. And despite how illogical it was, she wanted to go back there.
Many dragons perched on the rocks next to the waterfalls and watched as the boat got further and further. After all, such events were in no way common. The last boat visiting had been Hiccup and Astrid ten years ago, and most dragons didn't even know about it.
Toothless and Light stayed on the rocks the longest, until the viking ship was nothing but a speck on the horizon. It was only midday, but the night fury felt tired. He sighed happily. His decision could prove a mistake in the future, but right here, right now, things were looking good. He allowed himself to close his eyes, and pressed his body against the white dragon.
"You have done the right thing," she whispered.
"I just hope letting the humans go won't have lasting consequences on the lives of the inhabitants of the hidden world," whispered Toothless back.
Letting the humans go would have lasting consequences on the lives of the inhabitants of the hidden world.
Light, the light fury? Super original, I know.