[Brother,] Toothless said late one night a week after the Eel Pox was taken care of by Gothi's remedy. [Sharpshot said you could tell the Fire-spiraler told his father about that human hatchling?]
Hiccup looked up from where he was writing and drawing in his journal. He blinked. "Human hatchling? Thuggory?"
[The loud one that lied about you and hit you when you were younger.]
"You do know he's a year older than me, right?"
Toothless snorted. [Dragons don't define age by these things you call years, brother. Dragons age in seasons and stages. A hatchling can stay a hatchling even though they have an adult body just because they continue to act like a hatchling.]
"So, when they act older they're not called hatchling anymore?"
[Aye, just like Snotlout. When he grew up and started acting like a proper youngling, we stopped calling him a hatchling.]
Hiccup snorted then snickered. "Well, calling Thuggory a hatchling might be insulting to all hatchlings."
Toothless and Sharpshot chortled.
"But yes, I've been able to tell intentions behind the Old Tongue noises you all make for a while now." Hiccup shrugged. "I never really thought much about it, but I'll catch that a warble, squawk, chirp, or chitter means frustration and another means laughter or happiness. I just thought it was because I could observe you all, but then heard dragons speak in the Old Tongue and not see them and could still tell what they are feeling by the sound. I still don't know what is actually said. Just what is felt. And I may be completely off the cliff with it."
Toothless and Sharpshot looked at each other then back to Hiccup. Both tilted their heads. Toothless warbled something and Hiccup snorted.
"You sounded as if something amused you."
Toothless blinked then looked to Sharpshot. Sharpshot stared at Toothless for a couple heartbeats then turned to Hiccup.
[He was talking about Sneaky's tale,] Sharpshot said. [About Snotlout acting silly while sick.]
Hiccup snickered. He had heard that tale from Sneaky, Iggy, and Buttercup and heard the version Gyda knew from her homeland. Both similar though Gyda's had a Terror nipping Snotlout and then knocking him down the Great Hall stairs because Snotlout gripped its neck and slung it to make a point. Hiccup did not like the abuse to the Terror in Gyda's version, but he did find the Terror's retaliation hilarious.
[You really knew I was talking about something I found funny?] Toothless asked.
"Yep," Hiccup said then frowned. "Am I not supposed to?"
Toothless grunted then shook his head though Hiccup got the impression it was more that Toothless wished to clear his head then to answer the question in a negative.
[Humans can't understand the Old Tongue. They never have. Their ears and minds were never made to understand the noises we make. That's why magic was involved in the formation of the Common Tongue. We have to pitch our voices so that the magic translates the noises for you. At least that is what the elders of my old nest always said.]
Hiccup tilted his head. "Does the magic then translate our words for you?"
[Yes,] Sharpshot said. [That's why we have to translate for you if a dragon was not taught the Common Tongue. The magic involved in its creation activates when we are taught to pitch our voices and allows us to understand your words.]
"You have to be taught to pitch your voices?"
[Yes,] Toothless said. [The elders say the pitch is usually higher than normal.]
Hiccup frowned again. "Does it hurt you?"
Both Toothless and Sharpshot grinned.
[So like you brother to worry about that,] Toothless said. [Ease yourself. We are taught how to pitch our voices so that it does not hurt.]
"So, wait, if humans lost the ability to hear the Common Tongue why was it still being taught to the dragons?"
Toothless tilted his head. He sighed. [There is a tale all dragonkind elders give for it exists for all species and its because of what happened in that tale that the Common Tongue is still taught by most dragons. Some have decided it was a burden that would never be used again and stopped.]
"May I be told the tale?" Hiccup asked excited to learn more about the dragons' past.
Toothless smiled. [Before Civility Laws were formed, dragons acted just like the fallen queen. Arrogant, selfish, ruling their nests without care for the members of the nest. Dragons were above such sentiments. At least those back then they believed they were. Dragons as big as that fallen queen, and even bigger, could command their nests to fight in vicious wars and did so. All of dragonkind teetered on the verge of extinction because their actions.]
"Could command?" Hiccup asked. "Like the power you all say is in my soul that commands the nest dragons?"
Toothless sighed. [Brother, your power is both similar and far different than what the elders said those dragons wielded. Your voice can command but something in it stops it from being like that fallen queen. She wielded her voice without care brother, just like the dragons of old. You care though. You love us. That's the difference. She lost what it meant to love. You've shown it from the very beginning when you freed me instead of killing me. And you continued to show it when you fed me and befriended me and made a tailfin for me so I could fly again.]
"I love all the dragons in the nest," Hiccup said. He shrugged. "Some, like you and Sharpshot, more than others though."
[And that is why we know following you, even with this unknown power, will not lead us to destruction,] Toothless said. [That fallen queen came close to destroying what Civility Laws were put in place to protect. All of dragonkind.]
"If the dragons back then thought they were above caring and love, how did Civility Laws get made?"
[The story goes that the alphas who commanded with their voices each believed they should be the Alpha of all dragons and that's why they pitted their nests against each other. After one such battle, one alpha's nest elders were severely wounded. He, as was typical of dragons then, left them to die. My old elders said a small group of humans lead by a male with fire in his hands found the dragons as they were near to the humans' territory. Instead of killing them, the humans nursed them back to health. The elder say the magic inherent in dragons reached out to the magic in the humans and connected. The love and compassion in the humans tempered the arrogance in the dragons and the arrogance in the dragons strengthened the confidence in the humans. The elders say those humans and dragons flew the winds as one.]
"The rider bond Gyda told us about?"
[Yes.]
"So, it was formed due to magic? And dragons have magic in them also?"
Toothless chuckled. [Brother, our breath attacks are magic. Yes, there is a gas that build and can be ignited but there is magic involved in the making of that gas and the resulting breath attack. You have noticed that Elder Gyda can use fire, frost, and lighting and dragons can also wield similar breath attacks? That Elder Gyda can create illusions of what is not there and Illusion-scales can do similar? Her barrier is something we can not do but the elders in my old nest said that was given solely to humans.]
Hiccup frowned. "But not all dragons use fire, frost, or lighting. Thunderdrums use a concussive sound."
[Still magic, brother, or did you think a water-based dragon can shout that loudly while still under the water? It would drown when the water rushed into its opened jaw.]
"So, the Scauldron's super-heated water?"
[Also magic. Or it would drown also. And if there was a fire in its belly to heat that water, well, do you not put water on fires to put them out? And did Gobber not say a dragon with a wet head cannot fire?]
"All dragons wield some form of magic?"
[Just for our breath attacks. Other abilities we have are purely because we were created to have them, like my kinds ability to use sound to navigate, Stormfly's ability to sling spikes from her tail, which Ringfire and all Rock-tunnlers can to do that as well.]
"So flying isn't magical?"
[Uh, no. That deals with the way our bones and bodies are made and how we use our wings to interact with wind currents.]
Sharpshot snorted. [Though given that humans tend to give a different meaning to that word at times, flying could be considered magical in that regard.]
Toothless chortled. [Well, brother did have a magical flight after Astrid apologized and I stopped the lesson.] Toothless looked at Sharpshot and gave his gummy smirk. [And I hear the mating flight can be considered magical too.]
"Won't that be something you find out as well, brother?" Hiccup asked, smirking.
[Last time I checked I was not the one courting a female, dear brothers.]
Sharpshot snorted. [Could have fooled me with how viciously Moondust defended you from that Fire-spiraler and laid so close to you after you threw up that water worm.]
[She was just defending a nest member, Sharpshot and she was sitting beside our alpha to comfort him.]
Sharpshot cackled. [Now who's the blind one, brother?]
"Hiccup," Stoick called from the bottom of the stairs. "Ye boys get some sleep. Ye supposed ta be visitin' them Changewings in the mornin'."
"Aw, Dad, we finally got to pay Toothless back for all that teasing."
"Tease'm in the mornin' son. Ye three need sleep."
"Fine, Dad."
Hiccup was certain his father cackling as the man walked away from the stairs.
Kirika: Hehe, not much of a romantic date considering Fish had to be there for propriety sake and they were telling her what happened on Eel Island. And Fish will be a great elder