Chapter 3: Dragon-sitting Pt. I

"Zul! Help me out with that little guy!" Ignis cried out while carrying two baby Deadly Nadders tucked under his arms to their nests.

He finds Zul incapacitated on the ground by three baby Monstrous Nightmares, hopping and roughhousing on his doused back.

'How did it come down to this for us…!?' Ignis internally screamed as he looked at all the baby dragons scattered around the area before being tackled from behind by a baby Scuttleclaw's tough round head.


About an hour ago, a few miles away from the island's coastlines, early in the morning…

"Am I doing this right, Jade?" Ignis nervously asks as he carefully glides just a few inches over the ocean waters under the guidance and watch of the titan Timberjack.

"You're doing great, Ignis! Well done on your second try!" Jade roared in an exclaiming tone, gliding on a higher altitude beside him. "Would you like to try increasing your speed?"

"N-Not sure if I can— whoa! Do that yet," Ignis yelped as he avoided a tall rock stack with a barrel roll.

"Hm! Excellent barrel roll form! Even I cannot do that," Jade huffed.

"Thank you. But, maybe it's because of your size, it would be difficult to try that...?" Ignis nervously pointed out before quivering from being glared at by her deadpanning dragon eyes. "...Sorry, I said too much."

"Trust me, I am fine with my size. You on the other hand, still have lots to learn in this world," Jade bellowed sternly.

"Yeah, I get it, Jade. Maybe next time I should try to use my true form more often. To, you know, stretch my powers' limits? Yikes!" Ignis screamed as he spotted and barely avoided a spray of hot scalding water from a hostile Scauldron. "Whew."

"You almost lost yourself. Those water dragons could give you a bad scalding burn," Jade advised.

"Thanks for the tip. They're intimidating," Ignis commented before halting and hovering in midair. "I think this is enough for today."

"Very well. There's always another day and another time to spare for learning," Jade bellowed back, watching Ignis change his flight path towards their island and following behind him.


"Hey everyone! We're back!" Ignis exclaimed as he did a slam landing, spooking the Terrible Terrors that were sleeping and napping around the tree branches and then noticing almost all the adult dragons being absent for some odd reason. "Ummm, okay, where is everyone?"

"Hmmmm. Ah! I remember that they usually do this every now and then to search for food for their nests and then bring it back for their young ones, now that winter is coming upon us. That is the way it was done on our island," Jade roared and bellowed.

"What? Seriously? So who's looking after the young ones while they're gone?" Ignis wondered, scratching his head with his hand on his waist as he waited for something to happen.

"Heeeelp meeeee!"

Roaring in an agonizing tone, the blue juvenile Monstrous Nightmare named Zul, appears out of the trees and falls on his belly out of fatigue while having baby Scuttleclaws and Monstrous Nightmares clinging onto his back and wings, scrambling around the open area as he screams in pain.

"Holy smokes, Zul!" Ignis called out, running towards him before being stared at by the baby dragons on Zul.

"Iggy, run!" Zul roared before the baby dragons noticed Ignis from afar and got off him to start hovering towards Ignis.

"Oh archsage… yikes!" Ignis screamed before being snatched off the ground and brought up from the ground by two playful baby Deadly Nadders. "Hey! Put me down, you two! Or just release me! Hey!"

As his patience wears thin, Ignis then activates his dragonstone to reform his wings and manages to shake off the baby Nadders before catching them and tucking them under his arms. He quickly descends and then runs to Deadly Nadders' nest to put them back. And just as he was a few meters away from their nest, he turns his back to see Zul knocked out cold with baby Monstrous Nightmares playing on top of his juvenile body or chasing around him.

"And here I thought taking care of dragon infants was easy. In my world sure, but not this!" Ignis thought out loud before being tackled from behind by a baby Scuttleclaw. "Awwwghhhh, owwwww."

"How are you feeling?" Jade bellowed.

"Gee, never better. My spine feels so relieved from the rough massages these little guys dealt," Ignis sarcastically replied as he straightened and limbered up his spine and body. "Man, they are ridiculously energetic and at the same time dangerous. Aren't you afraid that they might come across those pesky humans that invaded our seas a few days ago?"

"Why yes. Which is why I am the only adult staying to keep watch over them, along with the other juveniles," Jade huffed and bellowed as she looked over towards Zul the Monstrous Nightmare, Nadia the pink Deadly Nadder, Greya the grey Gronckle, and Bull the purple Scuttleclaw.

"Man, it looks like you got your work cut out for you, but they seem pretty clueless on how to care for them," Ignis pointed out as he looked at the dragons trying their very best to appease the energetic little ones.

"This has been an ordinary occasion that went on in this island that is uninhabited from humans, or erm— from dragons like yourself," Jade bellowed and whimpered.

"Hmmm, it seems that we're in a bit of a pickle. There's gotta be a way to somehow get those midgets occupied to get themselves off of our backs for a while," Ignis thought out loud as looked at the rowdy glade until he saw some of the baby Nadders perching on small tree branches that snap the moment they relaxed their weight onto them, giving him a funny idea to try out as he recalled a funny memory with Fae and the other young dragonkin back in his world. "Huhum, Jade, I have a plan, but I need your help, and some of the others' assistance too."

Putting his plan into motion, he and the dragon gang—except for Zul— went deep into the island's forest, with Jade using her razor-sharp wings to swiftly cut down a pair of the tallest adult trees in half before bringing them down on the ground— with huge boulders that were carried by Grok to keep them from rolling away— at a certain cleared enclosure to make Ignis' idea a reality.

"Okay, let's get to work! Nadia, may I ask for a spike?" Ignis asks, seeing Nadia shoot out a barrage of three spikes on the ground before taking one out. "Thanks!"

He then wraps the two of the spikes together with some vines and a stick into a sharp bone axe while wrapping the last one with vines into a small shiv. Immediately, he gets his axe and tries cutting the base of the log, making only deep cuts on its front before getting on top of the log to also make deep cuts that formed different shapes at certain measurements and then soon does the same with the other logs, but with different shaped measurements.

"Whew, awgh man. That… was tough…" Ignis panted as he rested after one and a half long hours of ongoing work, sitting and leaning onto the log while sweating buckets under the radiant sun before feeling a cool shade from the heat under Jade's wide emerald wings.

"Iggy, are you okay? Just what are you planning to do with all this lumber?" Jade whimpered out of concern while shielding him from the hot sun and then looking at the logs she chopped down sitting around.

"I'm going to make something— really sturdy, really huge, and really fun for the little rascals. Still working on it, whew, right after I catch my breath," Ignis panted before staggering back up on his feet.

"I'm sorry, Iggy, but what you're planning is beyond my understanding," Jade bellowed in a confused and sad tone, for not being able to understand his ideas.

"Don't worry, I got it all under control," Iggy assures as he tries to diligently carve out the shape on the thick log with his tool.

"Looks interesting!" Nadia squawked out of curiosity, looking at the diligent Ignis.

"Thanks, but I still have lots of time to do this. And, well, I happen to be the only dragon with human limbs to work with," Ignis nervously points out while carving out the shape of the first log, making some sort of key piece based on its shape.

"Iggy, are you trying to cut out bits of wood, following the shape of the lines you've made?" Jade bellowed for clarification.

"Uh yeah, because since I don't exactly have hammers and nails, I'll have to make to with making pieces that could fit right into each other before patching them up with something to lodge'em stuck into pieces," Ignis explained as he is almost done shaving off a thin layer of wood.

From his explanation, the dragons then came up with their own plan, following Ignis' plan but taking the second log to stand up on its base with the carved out lines shown towards Jade's face.

"Guys, what are you doing over there? Guys? Guys!" Ignis screamed and dropped his tool out of worry as he went to see Jade about to do something with the log. "Whoa whoa whoa, hey! What are you—!?"

As Jade took a second or two to examine the carvings of the shape around the log's base, she folds her wings and raises her small razor-sharp upper hooks and then cuts down the wooden log's base according to the shape of the carvings. After that, she gently brushes off the cut wood and shows a somewhat shallow depression that fits the other wooden piece Ignis was handling, leaving Ignis in awe of Jade's precise cutting ability.

"Ah—eh—what!?" Ignis screamed in confusion, amazed by the precise cuts compared to his somewhat sloppy workmanship.

"This shall suffice, will it?" Jade bellowed with gleaming and excited eyes, getting a silent nod from the dumbfounded Ignis.

With that hurdle out of the way, Ignis continues to finish the finishing touch with his crude tools before trying to carefully join the two pieces together, making a huge trimmed wooden beam and then standing it up in the flat center of the crater he made upon his arrival long ago. He then puts wooden planks around the sides of the wooden pole, nailing them in place with the assistance of Nadia's sharpshooting spikes. To stabilize the base, other dragons gathered some heavy stones and gravel to make a stable foundation.

"Awwww yeah, it looks perfect!" Ignis exclaimed and scratched the backs of Greya and Bull. "You guys rock! Literally!"

"Glad that you're thrilled with this morning's work, but are you certain that this will endure the young ones' thrashing?" Jade whimpered out of concern.

"To be honest, I have no clue. I just tried this out from what I recalled back in my world. It's called a playground, but in this case, play perch?" Ignis nervously replied, shrugging his shoulders.

Now, with the "play perch" finished, the young dragons slowly took notice of the strange structure Ignis erected, but appeared delighted with it as some of them started to perch on the wooden planks that are sturdier than normal tree branches.

"Hey, the Nadders seem to love it!" Ignis exclaimed with a smirk, watching the little .

"It appears so, but do you think this will hold? Jade bellowed.

"Trust me, it will hol—"

*KABOOM!*

"Huh?"

Just when things calmed and cooled down, all their hard work was shattered into splinters from forgetting an extremely vital piece of information…

"Awwwww man, I forgot that they got flame tongues…!" Ignis groaned in frustration and facepalmed in his self-disappointment.

"Our play perch has gone up in flames, Iggy. All of that was for naught, and now the young ones have gone wild once more. Do you have any other better plans in mind?" Jade bellowed.

"...Is this the only wood you got around here? I think the problem here is the strength of the wood we have on this island. Guess we might have to venture out this time…again…" Ignis sighed and facepalmed in frustration.

—To be continued


A/N:

I apologize for the hiatus and a short chapter.

Got busy with other fics and also my college lectures are resuming again.

I won't abandon this fic though, because I love the HTTYD franchise and FE games too!

I thank all you readers for reading and standing by with me here.

Take care and God bless. Stay safe out there!

Short FYI: Ignis' appearance is like that of a teen with blonde hair, with bangs like Flynn Rider from Tangled, though not exactly charming like him (lol). Facial features are similar to Eliwood, except the blue eyes and red hair.