Dragon Treasure: The One Thing That's Right(rough draft), a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: A captive Night Fury hatchling befriends the four-year-old boy who has been locked inside his cage.
o.o.o
Ever since the dragon hatched, he has known only confusion and pain and anger and fear. He senses that none of these creatures are the mama he knows he's supposed to have, none of these horrible creatures take care of him or love him. Something is wrong with his world, he doesn't know what it is, but he knows that something is missing, and that it's not supposed to be this way.
There's food. There's pain and there's confusion/anger/fear, and there's food; nothing else. The food is the only thing he likes, the only thing that helps him to a little bit forget how wrong the world is.
He hates those creatures, those monsters. They confuse him and hurt him and hate him; he wonders if they're crazy and dead inside even though their bodies are alive. He hates them so much that sometimes his outrage overpowers even his hunger, and he will lunge and scream and bite and try hard to expel that hot something inside of him that wants to be let out. He wants their bodies to become as dead as their souls, then maybe they won't hurt him anymore.
There's something behind him, something alive, he didn't notice it in his fury and he bumped into it. He whirls around and squawks in fear, one of them is here inside his aerie with him, very small but so close, it will hurt him before he can hurt it...!
He hides. As he hides, he smells and he watches.
The small monster thing is frightened, too, just like he is. It's male, so it's a him; he's not trying to hurt the dragon, so maybe he's not a monster.
o.o.o.o.o
Small Scary Thing is not going away. He is huddled miserably in a corner of the aerie, shivering.
The dragon approaches cautiously, curiosity and boredom finally overcoming his fear. But he inhales only one sniff when the creature bolts, squealing in fear. The dragon growls and pounces, pinning his target so that he can investigate the small creature properly. The thing is still shaking and mewling under his paws, smelling tantalizingly of fear, but the dragon will not eat this thing. He sniffs the fur on the monster cub's head which feels so pleasantly soft on his nose, and he sniffs the pale fragile flesh, and the racing pulse, and also the very dead plants and human stink of the cub's not-skin coverings.
"Scary, don't...don't, no...no..."
The dragon has never heard sounds like these before. The cub's high, clear voice is so different than the rumbling growls of the adult male monsters, or the rasping whines of the few females. The dragon makes a curious croaking sound - and is surprised when the not-monster cub clumsily repeats it.
"Interested."
"Interested."
"Surprised!"
"Surprised?"
"Inquiry?"
"Inquiry."
"Approval."
"Approval."
The dragon purrs, liking this new toy. He licks what he can reach of that pale fragile skin, renaming the creature, then curls around Interesting Thing to share warmth. The not-monster cub has stopped shivering.
o.o.o
Hadley has no coherent thoughts for a long time, his heart is so consumed by pain. Betrayed and abandoned, trapped in a dragon's cage with no one lifting a finger to help him, they might as well have buried him alive.
A soft touch. The dragon is here, looming over him, about to devour him.
Terror seizes Hadley's limbs and sends him scurrying away. The dragon will catch him, it will eat him, its fierce teeth will sink into his flesh...
It catches him. Hadley screams in terror, struggling, but he can't get away from those eyes, the claws are digging into him, he's going to die, huge green eyes staring at him-
It's not eating him. It's sniffing and sniffing, occasionally licking, but those teeth aren't biting him. It wants to know more about him. It's deciding.
"Scary, don't," Hadley manages to say with his limited vocabulary, which is underdeveloped from two years of almost never being spoken to. "Don't, no...no..." 'Please don't kill me,' he would say if he knew the words. 'Please don't kill me, and I'll be your friend; we won't be lonely anymore.'
The sound the dragon makes next is not scary. It's talking to him. Two years, half his life, of being ignored and eating spilled food off the floor and a few times spilled drugs because they looked like or were laced into food, two years of sleeping on filthy floors and being dragged around by his dead-eyed mother like a tiresome piece of luggage, two years of staying quiet and out of sight so they wouldn't hurt him the way they did when they weren't ignoring him...
This dragon is talking to him, this dragon is looking at him and seeing him and might not hurt him. Hadley's heart yearns toward the benign attention like a flower turning its face toward the sun. He wants to talk back to this dragon but he doesn't know what it's saying, so he imitates the noise it made as best he can.
It makes another noise and sniffs at him again. He repeats the noise and inhales the dragon's scent, which is unlike anything he's ever smelled before and is a lot nicer than what he's used to.
The dragon purrs. Hadley has met cats before; he knows that purring means they're happy. This dragon is happy and will not hurt him. Hadley reaches up to pet the dragon like he would pet a cat. Its hide is dry and tough, not soft and fluffy at all, but it's warm. Hadley giggles at the tickling sensation when the dragon's tongue bathes his skin.
The dragon no longer pins him down; it curls around him so that he's cradled against its body. It's so warm, he doesn't even need a blanket now like he did before. He falls asleep.
o.o.o.o.o
The boys wake up at the same time the next morning. The initial misery they both always feel when they regain consciousness quickly gives way to hope this time, as they see each other and remember that there is a new thing in the world that's interesting and warm and won't hurt them.
"Guh morrin," Hadley says, very vaguely remembering the pancakes that often went along with that phrase, but not at all remembering the grandmother who used to tell him 'Good morning' as she served those pancakes.
The dragon licks the same kind of greeting on Hadley's face, making the boy giggle.
They both yawn and stretch. The dragon ambles over to a certain smelly corner of the cage to urinate, so Hadley follows suit. Then, curious and playful, the dragon lightly bats at his new toy and sniffs him and chases him. Hadley smiles widely as he flails back and runs away, and laughs when he's knocked down and licked.
The sound of heavy footsteps approaching strikes dismay and fear into them both. They scramble up and huddle together at the back of the cage.
Drago Bludvist, their master who owned one of them from birth and now owns the other as well, glowers at them for a minute. "...Still alive, I see."
The dragon suddenly lunges, snarling and flaring his wings and lashing his tail. "STAY AWAY from My Thing, you that I hate must stay away away away from this thing that I very much like!"
Tears are sliding unnoticed down Hadley's face. Someone is protecting him. Someone has rushed between him and danger, and is demanding that the danger go away. He loves this thing, the only right thing in his world, he loves this friend who protects him, and he knows without conscious thought that he will just as readily defend his new companion when his own turn comes.
Bludvist contemptuously flings a bucket of fish into the cage. "Well, dragon trainer. Let's see if you're able to start earning your keep. Eat that - you'll get nothing else - and then I'll be back." He stalks away.
When the dragon is sure that the monster is gone, he tears into the meal.
Hadley hesitates. He has eaten garbage before, he has eaten drugs, he has eaten things that were contaminated or undercooked or starting to rot, but he's never bitten into a raw fish. But his friend is devouring the things with gusto, and soon there will be none left... Hadley reaches out and takes hold of a fish.
The dragon automatically snarls, defending his precious food; Hadley immediately lets go and staggers back, betrayed. Then the dragon recognizes him and remembers that there is one creature in this world who is not an enemy, who is even a friend.
The dragon cringes and whimpers in apology, but the boy continues cowering. The dragon picks up the fish and shuffles close and lays it at his friend's feet. Hadley still won't touch it, but when the dragon croaks beseechingly and nudges the fish closer, Hadley finally believes the apology. Subconsciously thinking that maybe he was punished for trying to grasp the fish with his hands like a human, this time he kneels down and lowers his head and closes his teeth on the fish.
It's unpleasantly slimy and squishy and smelly. Hadley chews and swallows, and looks unhappily at the rest of the unappetizing meal. He's eaten worse before, but he didn't like it, and he doesn't like this either, but there's nothing else to eat and he is so hungry.
The dragon knows instinctively that not all dragons eat their food raw, that some like to cook it first. He sees that his friend is unhappy with the fish but he can tell that the boy is hungry, so he carefully takes the fish in his mouth and tries to cook it.
He is very young, only a hatchling still. He can't shoot properly yet, much less cook, and the fish ends up black and crumbly and inedible to an ordinary human. But the stiff brown flesh beneath the shedding black exterior, its nutrients now lost, at least tastes better than the slimy raw squishiness had, so Hadley eats it.
There are two more fish left. The dragon undercooks one to hot goo and then burns the last one to a crisp again, but Hadley manages to get enough into his stomach to curb his hunger.
They will be together for the rest of their lives. The dragon will have plenty of time to practice. By the time he can cook his other half's meals to perfection, his name will be 'Toothless,' and the boy known as Hiccup will have forgotten his birth name. They will both have lost much for the sake of their bond, but neither of them will ever regret it.
o.o.o
Author's Notes: If you haven't already, please vote in the new poll on my FFN profile - I'm going to revamp my interpretation of Hiccup & Astrid's relationship, and I'd like to know what my readers think of my current interpretation.
Today I worked at the job that gives me a lot of time to write. I finished what I could of my albino Night Fury FC's real story (couldn't figure out how to end it), wrote all of The One Thing That's Right in one sitting (I've had the idea for a long time but didn't get a chance to actually write it until now), and started a semi-AU idea that I've been thinking about for a while. I typed up this story and posted it the same evening when I came home. XD I love that job (bridge caddying), I wish it was a real job instead of just an as-needed thing...
(I also wish that so many bridge players wouldn't keep asking me what I'm writing. X''''D Most of them know that I'm not a student anymore. I guess they might just be pleasantly surprised to see someone scribbling in a notebook for fun instead of glued to a cell phone, and I'm fine with being teased about writing a "diary" or "love letters," but I hate when they ask and genuinely want to know the answer. X'''''D I'm kind of embarrassed to be a writer, and definitely embarrassed to still be a fanfiction writer at my age...I can barely admit that I'm writing fiction, and I never tell them that it's fanfiction [though they've probably never heard of fanfiction]... ^^; )