NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of Night
A/N
I may have lost the plot for the last chapter; you get this chapter as my angry rebuttal at the laziness of my past self.
End A/N
Chapter 13.
As Hiccup, Toothless and Shadewrath waited in serene silence, letting the world go by as they peered around slowly. Stormfly kept a curious eye at all times and Edward kept his eyes fixed on navigation as he reasoned that the more dramatic times had passed.
Their calm was interrupted by a slowly-collecting black cloud that initially was thrown around, at the whims of the wind, before coming together into the shape of a man or, more accurately, a god.
Toothless was as happy as could be expected at the appearance of the creator of Night Furies; the esteemed being's presence was a blessing by itself. However, his initial excitement departed quickly as soon as he saw the serious look on the God of Night's face.
After Toothless gulped in anxiety for what was coming, the man started speaking.
"Would you care to explain what happened a few minutes ago? Why do you two, such noble beasts of my creation, fall to the sins of murder so quickly?" The God of Night asked, his regal nature keeping him calm even as internally he despised these actions.
Toothless' eyes opened wide in surprise; he'd reckoned that Hiccup would have some misgivings about Shadewrath and him killing an enemy leader, but the God was unexpected and also promised to be a lot less forgiving.
"My Lord, we were acting on compulsion rather than reason. We are sorry to have disappointed you." Toothless said lowly, keeping his eyes on the ground in reverence as he asked for forgiveness.
The god, standing still, gave a little nod.
"Of course, I doubt that you would ever fall to this evil willingly. You are right to assume I am disappointed, sadly I have to admit that, but I think you can do much better. To make sure you improve over time, you will be watched over at all times by…" the God of Night spoke, showing understanding, but still the underlying tone of sadness.
Toothless closed his eyes for a short time, praying that whatever consequences of this crime wouldn't be too severe, before raising them as though he would win over the god with his puppy eyes.
"… Hiccup" the God finished, still in the same tone, but Toothless could have sworn that those words had some joy behind them; such was the effect of his worst fears becoming almost void.
Hiccup, Stormfly and Edward all stood in confused silence, each for their own reasons.
Now knowing the God's decision, Toothless was in the mood for some gratitude.
"Thank you, Night; I am more than happy with this course of action." Toothless replied with joy; his previous subdued pose disappeared as he lost his previous worries.
Night gave another nod; his authority was slightly tainted with his affection for the Night Furies.
"I would agree with you; I could have been far harsher, but what does that achieve? Most likely my children hate me and the joy of being a creator is lost. Of course, I'll still need some reparations," the God of Night acknowledged, before casting his eyes to Hiccup, "I trust you to let the Dragons learn their lessons; it's up to you to work out what that entails." He stated, still as calm and serene as ever.
Hiccup would've loved to join Toothless and Shadewrath, since he had heard the news, in celebration. But, he was uncertain about what the God of Night would expect of him; he had, after all, put him in charge of two Night Furies, now more than ever. So, instead, he gulped with anxiety in preparation for his uncertain future.
And yet, with all this worry, he still wanted Toothless and Shadewrath to be happy, so he accepted.
"I may not be the best at this task, but I shall do my best, o God of Night." Hiccup announced dutifully.
Night smiled warmly; everything was coming together better than he could've hoped for and he was thankful to Hiccup for his acceptance.
Meanwhile a man was patrolling a pier, surveying each of his ships. The reason for his special attention was simple; each one of them had to be kept in the best of conditions for hunting dragons. This was of particular concern since Viggo didn't seem to be bringing home his fair share.
He supposed this may have been due to a random shortfall in the population around the island Viggo worked around, but his contemplation was interrupted by a messenger,
"Drago, Sir! Viggo has been found dead. His body seems to show signs of burning and water damage. The burning damage is worrying; Viggo knows how to avoid dragon fire, something must have taken him-" The messenger rattled off, before being interrupted by Drago.
"Stop your rambling! I came here to inspect ships, not listen to a man speak in gibberish!" Drago shouted with clear impatience.
There were a few moments of silence as the messenger adjusted to these new parameters. "Viggo's dead, probably caused by dragons." The thin man said.
Drago was quite surprised and shocked, but it was a very brief surge of emotion before he grew an irritated face again. Obviously, to his perception, Viggo must have gotten too confident, went for too many risks and a lucky dragon must've killed him.
"Well, this is inconvenient, but surely this is rather inconsequential." Drago said, using his leadership to try and make this man feel weak for this 'useless' piece of news.
No such thing came from the messenger; he was used to dealing with such attitudes.
"I would have to disagree; we found some kind of chemical in his waterlogged clothes; something that burnt yellow when we exposed it to the air and didn't have an odour." The messenger responded, gaze hard and unmoved by the Viking in front of him.
Drago had to laugh; this messenger really thought this would somehow be more impressive?
"I don't know how you think that's supposed to concern me; some chemical acts a certain way, so what?" Drago said, internally hysterical at the hopeless show of defiance of this messenger.
The messenger in question hadn't revealed his best piece of information; he gave a small smile in the corner of his lips as he gave the ultimate deal breaker for the dragon hunter leader in front of him.
"There's only one chemical we know of that behaves like that." he said gleefully.
Drago was about to silence him completely, like the mindless, rambling buffoon that he thought this messenger was, but the messenger kept going with determination.
"Acetylene, and the only dragon that we know of that uses that is…" he continued.
Drago was in the uncomfortable position of silence; normally he dealt with smart-alecs like this by sending them away, but the conversation had just gotten interesting.
"… the Night Fury." The messenger finished, letting his smile infect the rest of his mouth
Drago finally responded positively; getting a delicious sense of ancient fear as his hand found his weapon and his blood pumped a little more forcefully through his veins. He closed his eyes to relish in this feeling for a moment, before looking at the messenger again with a malicious grin.
"Now you're talking. A Night Fury will most definitely be a worthwhile prize; prepare the fast ships and get ready to sail to Viggo's island." Drago said as a response/order for the messenger.
The island of Berk was in sight for the people and dragons on board Edward's ship. Many crewmembers, still on high alert after Viggo's escape and interception, finally took their chance to rest as they now regarded themselves to be in safer waters.
After giving his advice, the god of night dispersed in a similar way to how he'd first appeared.
Without the presence of Night, Toothless and Shadewrath felt liberated to show Hiccup their gratitude for his accepted responsibility; Toothless wanted to go first, but a lick interrupted him.
From someone so large as Shadewrath, the tongue practically engulfed Hiccup and left him as a drool-covered, bewildered body and he became a source of humour for everyone on deck to see.
After a short period of shock, Hiccup sighed with resignation, "I thought this kind of thing was behind me. Obviously not." He muttered, shaking the saliva off his hand.
Slowly the laughing died down to a giggle, then it faded gently into the background. When Toothless recovered from his personal moment of mirth, he started talking to Hiccup.
"You've taken a lot of responsibility for us, thank you for your generosity, it means a lot to me." Toothless declared, every bit as thankful as his words suggested.
Hiccup gave a smile as an answer; it was heartening for his friend to show respect, especially after he had felt some indecision beforehand.
"So, what now?" Hiccup said, wondering what the others would say; he wanted them to say that it was over, that there weren't any more obstacles to peaceful coexistence.
It was optimistic.
"Try to stop the Dragon hunters; Viggo most definitely isn't the last one." Shadewrath replied. Hiccup was surprised that the 'wild' Night Fury knew something; he had lulled himself to believe that Shadewrath actually knew things, a belief he was quick to remove with respect for him.
"Thanks, that will be our next target." Edward declared, confusing Hiccup some more.
"Edward, already? I was thinking we may need to rest first." Hiccup asked curiously; he hadn't expected this direct response to his question.
"I guess you can, we'll patrol the waters and look for and deal with other dragon hunters." Edward stated bluntly.
Hiccup was slightly worried about what Edward would do with any dragon hunters they found, so he decided to query him for this.
"So, what are you going to do when you find something? You don't seem to have the equipment suitable for well… peaceful takeover, sorry to say," Hiccup said, getting nods from Stormfly, Toothless and Shadewrath in agreement.
"We can take over a ship without violence, don't worry about that; we may have a lot of cannons on board, but my men are perfectly capable of subduing any of the Dragon hunter's men." Edward said, belief of success heavily present in his tone.
Hiccup relented, for now, pursuing Edward's actions. Instead, he turned to the dragons and told them something they would be pretty happy to hear, especially now that the sun was falling below the horizon.
"I think we're done here. If you want we can fly home?" Hiccup asked the others, who quickly gave their replies of agreeance.
Toothless took the opportunity, of the short time before flying, to inform Hiccup on behalf of both him and Shadewrath.
"Hiccup, later on I'd like to speak to you, perhaps with Shadewrath as well…" He started, with a slight residual tone of anger present in his voice about referencing Shadewrath.
"…if he wants to, I guess, he doesn't have to. But I think that we need some more time to thank you and perhaps talk about the future?" He finished, with a suspicious gaze towards Shadewrath.
"Sure, I don't think I'd ever turn you down; you've been my friend for a very long time. I'd be happy to talk to you both in private." Hiccup replied, unsure why Toothless was acting so strange around Shadewrath.
A boy sat down watching the fleet go past his small island; the sides were weird, covered in metal things and he had never seen the entire thing. His curiosity paused for a moment as he felt the glancing effect of what his mind somehow identified as the God of Night.
After this revelation, it didn't take long for him to seek out his friend; a black subspecies of Night Fury with white parts around his eyes and chest to tell him.
"Puffin!" he shouted, to get the Fury's attention.
The dragon in question roused from his sleep, turning his armoured head towards the boy.
"What is it, Arrow?" He said in curiosity; the excited nature of the boy made him wonder just what was going on.
"I… I felt something… can't explain how, but I think it came from the 'God of Night'" He said, hoping he wouldn't be wasting the Fury's time.
To his encouragement, the Fury perked up quite significantly.
"Night? Really? Where?" Puffin said with astonishment.
Arrow quickly gestured for him to follow and Puffin chased him with anticipation for what he found.
He arrived to see the last of the ships passing by. Arrow helped explain what had happened.
"One of those ships, I felt something coming from it." he said, regretting his lack of his specifics while he struggled to make sense of it for himself.
Puffin nodded and gave the parting ships an intrigued gaze.
Hiccup was left without much to do on board Edward's ship. He knew, at least, that they weren't going to stay on this ship while Edward went on, but now? He wasn't so sure.
"Toothless, Shadewrath? Do you want to stay here? or-"
"Let's go," they both said in unison, before Toothless continued.
"I don't know about Shadewrath; he's a mystery to me right now, but I want to get back up in the air; ships aren't that exciting." Toothless said, appealing to Hiccup to accompany them.
"Sure thing." Hiccup replied, he didn't even need the encouragement; he would follow Toothless and Shadewrath as easily as they followed him.
"Well then, what's there to wait for? I'll see you in the skies!" Toothless announced, launching himself with passion straight up into the air.
Shadewrath seemed to hesitate for a long period. Concerned, Hiccup decided to be a bit more vocal about his previous suspicion.
"Shadewrath? Is something wrong?" Hiccup asked with a worried face and careful tone.
Shadewrath gave a quick, curt nod.
"It's… embarrassing to admit, but currently me and Toothless aren't on the best of terms." Shadewrath admitted.
Hiccup gave a sympathetic "oh…" as he realised why Shadewrath had been acting so strangely. "What happened?" Hiccup asked. He hoped to find out and fix whatever was going on between them; Hiccup wouldn't allow his two dear friends to be enemies.
Shadewrath sighed in his low, amplified voice. "It would seem as though I'm a stranger to him, one that he might dislike as well. I suspect this might be one of the reasons that he's so jealous. I can't blame him on the second part, though, I guess I would also be pretty annoyed if someone tried to take away my friend."
"Oh." Hiccup said, hanging his head and feeling a pang of guilt that he was the source of his friend's problem. "I thought you'd known each other for long enough. Well, I guess I can only say it's lucky we're talking later. For now, just remember I love having both of you as friends and I'll cherish you both for as long as I live, even if, and this is an if, I find a 'normal' friend. Maybe Astrid, but I suspect she still isn't that fond of me. I'm sure we can work this out." Hiccup said, going off on a personal emotional tangent, but still his message to Shadewrath was clear.
"Thank you, Hiccup."
"Don't worry about it, I want you both to be happy. Anyway, we should join Toothless; he might be wondering why we're taking so long to join him."
Shadewrath agreed rapidly and he took off immediately to go to Toothless. Hiccup took a while to shapeshift, an action he had gotten quite used to by now, and flew after him.
Stormfly and Edward were the only ones left on deck and, for a moment, they gave each other looks, thinking that perhaps they would somehow manage to talk together like Hiccup and Shadewrath before Stormfly shook her head from that stupid notion and flew off to join Hiccup.
Snotlout had flown back to his house by this time, not even lying to himself about how this might just be another attempt to woo Astrid. Annoyingly for him, Astrid seemed to still have her previous thoughts about Hiccup as she jumped off Hookfang and looked towards the skies.
"Seriously, can you stop thinking about Hiccup for one second, Astrid? Surely he'd drugged you or something; like, why do you even care about him? He's just a runt who can get scales and has two dragon friends who are the only reason he isn't already dead! Obviously I'm way better than him." Snotlout said, with slight disappointment in his tone at the strange behaviour of Astrid.
Astrid fixed him with one of her death stares, slightly weakened by his surprising logic, but then lost it as she tried to come up with good reasoning.
"I… It's just… he's friendly, understanding, and interesting… when he's not affected by that… I don't know how to say it, mental disorder?"
"So, you like someone who has multiple personalities, one of which is a dragon apparently, and you still feel that's alright?"
Astrid was resilient and her gaze hardened again.
"Hiccup may be going through something odd at the moment, but that isn't a reason why I can't like him. He's got values."
"Look at you, you're in love with him already" Snotlout jabbed.
As he should have expected, he got a well-deserved punch to the jaw before Astrid walked off, wanting to be away from his childish display.
Hiccup eventually caught up with Shadewrath and Toothless. As he settled into a steady flight between them, Toothless gave him a cheeky smile.
"Well, look what slow-terror finally decided to show up?" Toothless joked.
Hiccup, who hadn't seen this kind of thing from Toothless for a long time, was lost for words, earning him a round of laughter from Shadewrath and Toothless at his expense.
Collecting himself, Hiccup was in disbelief.
"What do you mean? I didn't expect you to be the jokester."
Toothless face calmed into a content smile.
"I figure you need the humour, so much time spent fighting and being serious. I'm tired of it and I reckon you are too."
Hiccup nodded, thoughtfully; Toothless was right, he hadn't heard anything remotely humorous since one of the times he met Gobber.
"You're too right, haven't heard something try and succeed to be comedic since Gobber."
"Not the twins?" Toothless asked, aware of their trickster nature.
Hiccup laughed, "I said try and succeed to be comedic, the twins are just like that normally."
Toothless gave a quiet "Ah" before retiring temporarily into a smiling silence.
Shadewrath had been quietly listening the whole time, taking notes about how Toothless acted with Hiccup after having the slight suspicion that maybe it was the way he acted that got Toothless wary. When their conversation faded he began to take notice of the area they were flying over.
"Hey Hiccup. What do you feel about flying as a Night Fury?"
Hiccup snapped out of his flying trance to turn to Shadewrath, wings fluttering slightly as he balanced against the sudden change in air flow.
"Ah, well how do I put this? It's magical, simply magical first off; to take the skies is something else, something I couldn't have foreseen in all my dreams and it's… even better than I possibly could've thought." Hiccup said, elation clearly seen on his face.
Both Toothless and Shadewrath were happy to hear this; they had similar thoughts about flying themselves.
"But it's not all fun. I've lived as a human, in a human village, for a long time. A part of me wonders if I'll ever be truly considered human ever again and that's… somewhat depressing when I think about it, sad to say." Hiccup muttered, guilty that he had to tell such a sombre truth.
Their joy faded slightly, but not much.
"I'm sure you can get used to it. The village accepts you, you still have a human form… isn't that enough?" Toothless asked, hoping Hiccup would forget.
"Not really; you may not see it, but I'm distrusted amongst the villagers. They don't trust me, both because they know what I really am and… because I'm not fully human; it's better than being dead, but it's easy to mark me out as different when I have darker skin, some scales and even Loki-damned dragon eyes when I'm in 'human' form. Pretty hard to miss."
Toothless scowled and Shadewrath gave a curse towards humanity. But, Toothless was used to getting what he wanted; who could resist a threat from a Night Fury?
"Then they should stop being so rude at your handsome parts! They may be the most stubborn humans I've ever seen, but I'm no stupid pet, like they seem to think; I can scare the fear of Night into them until they listen, easily!"
Hiccup was encouraged by Toothless' assurance, allowing himself to laugh, and Shadewrath did similar.
"Well, that might work. I don't think there's anyone, even Stoic, that could say no. Just try not to get into too much trouble; I don't think dad would like it too much if you roughed up the villagers." Hiccup replied.
Drago had finished adding a significant number of dragon traps. He considered taking his Bewilderbeast, but reasoned that it wouldn't really help; the Bewilderbeast would be hard to keep track of on the move and it would take a while for him to start exerting alpha control over the Night Furies, during which time they could escape.
The outline of Berk marked the start of the Night Fury's landing run. They glided gently down into the centre of the village; an act that didn't faze them that much after Toothless' defiant words.
A couple of villagers gave them suspicious looks, especially at the size of one of the members of their party, but they got an angry gaze of equal intensity from Toothless and Shadewrath. Surprised, they left them alone for a while.
Seeing the villagers unwilling to mess around with them made the Night Furies escorting Hiccup, since that's how they saw themselves now, very happy.
"It looks like they learnt their lesson, that should go towards paying you back for you helping us." Shadewrath said, earning some respect from Toothless for his clarity on Hiccup helping them as well.
Wondering what he would do, now that they were in his village and there wasn't any specific tasks he was entitled to complete, Hiccup pondered for a while before coming up with a solution.
'I think Toothless and Shadewrath wouldn't mind a clean/massage, they've earned it a thousand times over. Then I could go to Gobber and see if he's working on anything interesting.'
Stormfly touched down behind them, prompting Hiccup to add another thing to his list.
'Might want to care for Stormfly as well, can't remember the last time Astrid said she'd cleaned Stormfly.'
He waited for Stormfly to come up, for convenience, before telling them his plans.
"So… would you guys like a wash?" Hiccup said, slightly uncomfortable asking, especially to expect to give such a thing to Shadewrath.
To his relief, the resounding answer was "Yes!" so he went to the nearest cleaning area and got ready to rinse, lather, and scrub the dragons; getting the equipment and turning back into his human form.
Shadewrath was first, curious of the way humans might actually wash. He was fortunate, although he had to wait a while, that Hiccup set up and lit a fire under the water storage to warm it up; such a gesture was not shown by the villagers to any other dragons, a fact that saddened Hiccup, especially since he'd designed these spots with an alcove specifically placed for fires.
Eventually, after a short time of waiting and Hiccup venting oxygen onto the fire to help it burn hotter, the water was warm enough to comfortably wash a dragon; a fact that Shadewrath learnt pretty quickly as the water poured over him.
His initial surprise faded quickly as he felt the joyful sensation of the water warming him to the core. Such a sensation was alien to him after a long time in the wild, but he loved every bit of it.
Then Hiccup contributed his hands, covered in primitive soap, towards cleaning Shadewrath; massaging every inch of skin thoroughly to push out the residue, only easing up slightly around the spot he knew would send Shadewrath to sleep.
Even with Hiccup's care not to activate the hard-wired sleep spot, Shadewrath was still struggling with consciousness; every part of his body felt like it just wanted to sleep, relax in the loving, caring hands of Hiccup, even though their difference in size was astonishing.
Toothless could honestly admit to a twinge of jealousy just watching Shadewrath luxuriate under the caress of Hiccup; it had been a long time, but not through any problem of Hiccup as a person, since Toothless had been cleaned and so he was eagerly awaiting his turn alongside Stormfly, who was feeling some interest herself at the same time.
Hiccup had finished going around the head, so he started going down the neck, enjoying the current bliss of the dragon underneath him. He went along the top first and was quite surprised, stopping, when he pressed in a spot and Shadewrath's spine opened up into two.
After a quick check on Shadewrath to confirm he wasn't in pain, in case this wasn't supposed to happen naturally, Hiccup was left in awe, still massaging, at the secret he had just found. Toothless answered his own curiosity as he came up to Shadewrath, jumped on carefully and ran his paw along the valley between the spines.
After his examination, he caught the attention of Hiccup and motioned to his own neck. Hiccup understood pretty quickly; carefully and expertly diverting one hand to apply that same motion to Toothless while still being careful not to interrupt Shadewrath's current massage too much, since he now took personal responsibility for the smile stuck on Shadewrath's face.
A similar thing could be seen with Toothless as his spines split up in response to Hiccup's touch. Toothless was astonished at this secret that had literally hid under his skin.
"Hiccup, are you seeing this? Can you even believe this?" Toothless said, with excitement.
Hiccup nodded and grinned, even though his eyes were still glued to Shadewrath to continue the cleaning/massage.
"I mean, imagine me in the sky with this! I was already good, but this could make me even better! I can already see an improvement to my combat turn." Toothless imagined, making Hiccup's smile expand right until the moment he said "combat".
It may have been a while, but as he kept pouring the warm water over Shadewrath's large neck, Hiccup could feel shivers through his spine as he recalled his revulsion, his horror at what they had done.
"I thought you said you forgive them, Hiccup." Night said.
At this, Hiccup momentarily introduced his own face to the cleaning effort, before pulling back up. By this point, Toothless and Stormfly could sense something was wrong.
"Hiccup, are you okay?" Toothless asked.
Hiccup waved him down, trying to get them to forget about it; he wanted it to be a personal matter that Toothless, Stormfly and Shadewrath would never have to know about; his burden to bear.
Toothless sensed that it was a personal matter and declined to ask more; jumping off Shadewrath's back and resigning himself to watching, as well as messing around a bit with his splitting spines.
Saying that turning down Toothless was painful to Hiccup would be an understatement; his only solace was that it would probably be worse if he just said the truth; such a thing would be soul-destroying for Toothless, if he still believed that Hiccup harboured a grudge.
In fact, if it really did help no one, Hiccup would willingly forget it ever happened; instead he would just go on with his promised goal of making sure it didn't happen again.
"I'm just dealing with some personal things at the moment. By the way, Shadewrath, do you like what I'm doing right now?"
Shadewrath's purr was all he needed to answer his latter question, but Toothless was roused by his mention of 'personal'.
"Hiccup, you don't have to keep things personal; I'm here for you whenever you want to ask. We are friends, right?" Toothless wondered.
Hiccup was stumped for a while, slowly finishing off the top of Shadewrath's body. Eventually came for a solution, presenting it after telling Shadewrath to lie down and roll over to give his underside the attention.
"Of course, we're still friends, Toothless! The reason I'm keeping this to myself is for your benefit; I would definitely talk otherwise." Hiccup responded honestly, hoping he would understand.
Toothless nodded in acknowledgement, his fear about being estranged from Hiccup was proved false. He was still curious, understandably, since after a person knows about a secret they will most certainly pursue it.
"I understand, Hiccup, thank you for the confirmation and I'm sorry I had to ask." Toothless said, guiltily.
Hiccup shook his head, refusing that Toothless would have to feel bad for his personal troubles.
"It's fine Toothless, what kind of useless friend would I be if I can't tolerate you asking a simple question?" Hiccup replied, purposefully belittling himself to shift Toothless' attention away from self guilt.
Shadewrath had heard parts of the conversation, but he was in bliss and didn't want to be interrupted by what sounded like bad news.
Stormfly watched with intrigue, both listening to the interesting conversation between Hiccup and Toothless as well as keeping an eye on the masterful attention Hiccup was giving to Shadewrath.
Astrid had caught sight of the trio of returning Night Furies, not that it was hard to do so, and made her way over the place where they had landed.
Toothless finally calmed down, forgetting his earlier confusion. While still waiting for Hiccup to finish washing (he was currently doing the underside of Shadewrath's wings), Toothless thought it would be nice to give a kind gesture.
He came up beside Hiccup and pushed his snout into his side; an act that used to and still did give Hiccup glee. While his head was still giving Hiccup a friendly nudge, Toothless talked again.
"Hiccup, you know that I want to be friends forever with you, right? I hope I haven't said anything to put that in jeopardy."
"Of course, I mean you didn't declare it before, but if that's what you want then I'm perfectly happy to call you my friend forever." Hiccup replied happily, pretty certain things couldn't go better than having your best bud admit to such a binding affection. Shadewrath, still in pleasure, and Stormfly both seconded Toothless' admission and Hiccup was more than happy to accept their admissions as well.
'Okay, well now I don't think it could get better.'
'I wouldn't say that; you still have enemies, the world isn't peaceful yet.' Night advised.
'Well, could you just give me this moment? I'll deal with them later, with my friends' Hiccup said, kinda wishing Night didn't have to interrupt. Still, the advice was useful.
'Sure, it's not like I want you to feel bad.' Night amended.
With that out of the way, Hiccup resigned himself to the moment; Shadewrath was already gleaming like a black diamond, Toothless and Stormfly would be next and he was also content in the knowledge that they liked him and he liked them a lot.
'But surely that's not normal, get a human friend like- oh shut up Hiccup!' he reprimanded himself.
At that moment, Astrid came in, following the sound of their mixed-language conversation. She was about three steps in when she realised what Hiccup was doing.
"Hiccup, is that… are you actually using the cleaning equipment?" Astrid asked, honestly confused why he would be using it right now.
Hiccup shrugged, "I've wanted to use it for a long time, just been too busy with other things" He said, finishing off the underside of Shadewrath's other wing, moving on to the belly and secondary wings.
Astrid nodded thoughtfully; it made sense that Hiccup would care about his dragons more than the others would.
"And do you remember me earlier? You were in some kind of personality problem; I talked to a hateful dragon in your body, it seemed like."
Hiccup was about to respond when his dragon psyche came to the foreground.
"You are not welcome to insult me in my presence, foolish warrior." Dragon-Hiccup said, before Hiccup's normal self came back.
"Sorry. No, I don't remember you; I just remember something happening and then nothing. I also just noticed something; I had a moment of blackness, did he come back?"
Astrid nodded and Hiccup could only sigh.
"Well, you'll have to bear with me; I need to finish cleaning Shadewrath first, but I don't like having this strange presence in my head, I'll try to get rid of it, if I can." Hiccup said, not used to the idea of having multiple consciousness, but he wanted to get rid of this annoying consciousness.
Astrid gave a third nod; hopefully Hiccup could stop being affected before it was too late.
She wasn't aware of the sudden mental shift as Hiccup finally confronted his dragon-like self; he still kept washing as his body went into autopilot. Inside his mind though, Hiccup finally got to speak to the annoying version of his consciousness. He expected that it would be angry, but instead the first words he got were of apology.
"Sorry, Hiccup, I can see that my involvement has brought you only misery. I sought to help you survive and gain status but, by my honour, I shall be at your command." His psyche admonished. Hiccup took a while to take in his new location, his dark mindscape, and dragon-Hiccup's words.
What surprised him, though, was that he didn't feel like this was something he had to get rid of; this personality, although initially detestable, seemed to be capable of being helpful. Thus he made his decision.
"You are forgiven. As long as you don't mess with my friends, then I would love to have you as a … mental friend. Gods… am I going crazy here?" Hiccup said, his initial calm diminished by the realisation that he was talking inside his own mind.
The alter-ego of Hiccup… smiled? It was hard to tell with the way he did it on his Night Fury face.
"I am eternally grateful for this favour Hiccup. I shall endeavour to aid you in the future." Dragon-Hiccup said, respectfully. He wasn't done speaking, though.
"Before I leave you, for now, I would like to warn you about the other personality that inhabits your mind; he may be more human than me, but his arrogance is… irritating. Anyway, goodbye for now." He said, before letting Hiccup regain consciousness.
He found himself finishing off the last of Shadewrath's tail. His confusion at the missing memory of the time that had passed was only increased when Astrid's voice came through.
"Hiccup? I don't want to interrupt you while you work, and I appreciate that you're doing a good job, but can we speak?"
Hiccup turned to her, lacking the words to speak for a moment.
"Sure… Sure. What do you want to say?"
"Do you know that I like you?"
End of chapter
5900+ words! By the end of the A/N it might be over 6000.
Done during a long journey; please be aware that the style of writing may change dramatically throughout this piece; either due to tiredness or lack of social contact.
I may have mentioned this somewhere else, but I've developed a short plan for Hiccup gone half fury; it isn't comprehensive, but it's a start.