Dragon Treasure: Enter the Sanctuary (rough draft), a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: The Vast family moves to the dragon reserve.
A/N: I wrote this YEARS ago, but only just now got around to typing it. X'''D
o.o.o
Between the endless trials and the adoption requirements and all the paperwork it apparently took to move an endangered dragon species between countries, Hiccup was fourteen years old by the time he and Toothless finally set foot in Kenya for the first time.
He was actually already familiar with several of the reserve's staff members, thanks to long-distance communication. He couldn't immediately come out to greet them, though.
Toothless, although he had been acclimatized to vehicular flight in preparation for the move, was still stressed from the long journey halfway across the world. Then when the cargo hold was opened, the environemnt was so different that Toothless refused to come out for about fifteen or twenty minutes, even though the door of his cage had been left open. He spent that time crouched with Hiccup safely under his paws, sniffing, eyes narrowed, plates flicking, tail slowly undulating. As he analyzed the unfamiliar smells and sounds and sights, Hiccup tried to reassure him by stroking his scales and murmuring to him and singing or humming softly, eventually dozing off to prove that there was nothing to stay on guard about.
At last, Toothless rose up, nudging Hiccup onto his back where he could be reassured by the secure weight of his treasure. He stepped delicately out of the cage and approached the closest human, the woman who'd won the first lottery. She stood still, avoiding eye contact and carefully controlling her breathing as the Night Fury inspected her. She couldn't repress a shiver of delight when he licked a scent-mark ("not-a-threat") on her hand, but the dragon had already turned away to inspect the next newcomer.
The lottery order was quickly dispelled as Toothless grew more confident and started choosing newcomers to inspect according to his own interest. Nearly all the Sanctuary staff coudln't help squeeing over finally getting to meet the Night Fury in person, more welcome to them than any celebrity. Then they tried to tear themselves away from the dragon and sheepishly greet Hiccup, who smiled knowingly. "He's the best." It didn't even sound like a boast.
The boys were surrounded now by the delighted staff, who were as warmly accepting as if Hiccup and Toothless had always belonged there. Toothless basked in the attention, petted and caressed and cooed over as his admirers grew emboldened by his calm demeanor. Hiccup, on the other hand, never left his friend's back, and gradually flattened himself closer and closer against it even though he kept up the chatter with a shy smile. Eventually, much as he liked the positive attention, the crowd and the noise grew overwhelming for him, and he hid his face against the dragon's scales. Toothless folded his wings to hide his human and gave a light growl, telling the strangers to back off.
"Ohh, I'm sorry, Hiccup," one of the women said sympathetically as she retreated. "We sort of swarmed you, huh."
"Four years of experience and training went completely out the window," a young man laughed. "I've never seen a dragon act so comfortable with so many strangers touching him and yapping at him like that! He's like a dog."
"Toothless is the only dragon we've seen who grew up in constant close proximity to humans," Valka said. One of her theories was that dragons, if handled properly and when taking their larger size and more dangerous natural weapons into account, might have the potential to be as fully domesticated as dogs. She had never committed the idea to paper because she didn't want the notion to become widespread, but the theory implied quite a lot about dragon intelligence and their ability to relate to humans.
"Toothless, come here," Valka called, beckoning. The dragon ambled after her, following her with Hiccup still on his back and pausing when Valka opened the gate to the habitat that had been prepared for him.
He warbled with interest. It was an outdoor space with a one-room house for Hiccup that was big enough to fit the Night Fury inside as well. There was a pool for drinking, fishing, and swimming, connected to the larger stream that had been diverted to all the habitats in this area. There were boulders and grass and dirt, a couple of small trees, and plenty of potential sleeping spots. The habitat could be completely enclosed if necessary, but at the moment, half the roof was retracted, and both the gate which led inside the building and the gate which faced the reserve's roaming land were wide open. Every effort had been made to accommodate the Night Fury and his treasure in whatever arrangements ended up suiting them best.
Hiccup sat up straight, staring open-mouthed out at the reserve. This was the first time in his life that he (and Toothless, for that matter) was seeing, with his own eyes, such a huge expanse of land with almost nothing manmade to spoil the sight. Toothless was staring as well, plates perked, tail slowly lashing, wings stretching out to their fullest. Hiccup lowered again, this time clutching athletically rather than for comfort.
"They're going to run," Valka remarked.
"What?!" Stoick exclaimed.
"Should we-?" one of the Sanctuary staff started to ask, but that's when the dragon took off. Toothless galloped as fast as he could for the first time in his life, bellowing with joy, Hiccup whooping on his back.
"HICCUP!" Stoick shouted after them.
Valka patted his arm. "Hush, dear, it's all right. They'll be back, let them stretch their wings."
They did come back, almost an hour later. Toothless came running straight into the building, tracked down Valka, and barked at her urgently. She pulled the weeping Hiccup off the dragon's back and cradled him in her arms. "Mom," he sobbed, "Mom..." When he had calmed down enough to answer questions, she asked in concern if anything had happened, or if it was just his feelings.
"We were running...we were running, running, there was so much of it, it never ends, if we hadn't come back we would've lost you, there's nowhere to hide, nowhere; they can...find me..."
She comforted him and put him in his cabin, where he hid with Toothless for about twenty more minutes. Then boy and dragon crept shyly out of their habitat and started exploring the human building. As Toothless busily made a long series of "Maybe safe for Half Of Me" marks, trailed by a couple of aides recording and never failing to delight in every single one, Hiccup examined the various rooms and asked what they were used for.
"Well, this is just a supply room, we keep extra equipment here...this is Meatlug's habitat, she's a Gronckle, but she's out on the reserve at the moment; most of the dragons are, actually...another supply closet...this is a monitor room, we come here to monitor camera feeds and keep an eye on tracking devices, that sort of thing..."
The staff begged Hiccup not to bring Toothless with him into the areas open to the public, because there were not enough policies and protections in place to handle interactions between a member of the public and an actual dragon. Since as far as Hiccup was concerned, Toothless being barred automatically meant that Hiccup was barred as well, the boy lost interest. He wandered into the kitchens, where the cooks were too delighted with the curious Night Fury in their midst to protest his unhygienic presence as much as they should have.
Twilight was falling by the time Hiccup and Toothless had wandered back toward the block of habitats their new personal 'aerie' was in. Twilight was when many of the diurnal dragons would return home for the night. A large percentage of the Sanctuary's staff gathered in the monitor room, watching eagerly to see how semi-wild dragons would respond to a domesticated dragon-and-human pair. (Stoick was the only one rigid with anxiety rather than excitement, torn between a natural desire to whisk his sons to safety and his wife's delighted grip on his arm.)
Hiccup and Toothless happened to have wandered into the habitat of a Nadder named Stormfly. Toothless was bristled and uneasy, immediately recognizing from the scent-marks that they were intruding on another dragon's personal teritory. Hiccup chirred at him reasuringly, having never seen another dragon in person before and not realizing that he was trespassing.
Stormfly arrived. Immediately, both dragons went into intimidation displays, wings spread and backs arched and teeth bared.
"MY aerie-!"
"MY other half-!"
Hiccup dropped to the ground. Both dragons looked at him uncertainly. "You are so cool!" Hiccup chirped. He started to wriggle forward, but the Nadder squawked in alarm and danced out of reach. Hiccup sprawled out on his back, completely exposing his vulnerabilities. "I give my whole body to you, I trust you with everything I am, I am very so much not a threat to you." No dragon in her right mind could violate such an offering.
Still, Toothless flared his wings again. "If you harm Him, I will kill you."
Stormfly stood over Hiccup, dipped her head, and carefully closed her fangs over the boy's torso, lifting him a little as she eyed Toothless challengingly. "He gives himself to me as a gift! His gift to give, not yours; his heart may belong to you but his body belongs to me, HAH." But she wasn't stupid, and her grip was very gentle. It occurred to her that challenging a protection-terrified nightwing hadn't been the smartest thing to do - she couldn't afford to spill a single drop of this little creature's blood, but he was so very soft and squishy in her mouth, it was difficult to not hurt him. She dropped him again with a little thump.
Hiccup, apparently taking this as permission, started petting and cooing at her. She ruffled her wings nervously at the stranger's confident access to her, and Toothless laughed that she could be afriad of such a harmless creature as his precious thing.
Several other dragons were now crowding around the outside boundary of the habitat, the rest of Stormfly's 'troop.' The Zippleback, unable to tolerate the breech of protocol anymore, broke protocol himself to reach in the head named Belch, grasp Hiccup by his clothes, lift him outside, and deposit him on the ground in properly neutral territory. "You have TWO HEADS!" Hiccup exclaimed. "You're even cooler!"
The boy was immediately snatched up by the Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang. "My interesting thing, hah."
Toothless came raging out of the habitat. "MINE MINE MINE MY OTHER HALF MINE!"
Hookfang leaped away, taunting him.
"Ow!" Hiccup yelled, finally alarming the spellbound humans watching. But he sounded more annoyed than anything else, and when he pounded his fists against Hookfang, the Nightmare narrowed his eyes but did not react aggressively. "Put me down! You're hurting me." Hookfang dropped him. "Oof." At the faint scent of blood, Toothless attacked the Nightmare in a frenzy. Hookfang responded with a roar of delight.
The others, including Hiccup, ignored the fighting pair; Meatlug barked in dismay and started licking the boy. She nudged his shirt up out of the way so she could clean the shallow cuts on his chest, then rolled him over to do the same for his back as the Nadder and the Zippleback continued reading his scents. Hiccup submitted quietly, accustomed to being medically treated in dragon fashion. "I'm okay," he told the Gronckle, scratching her head. "He mostly just got my clothes, see?"
One of the researchers watching the video feed said softly, "They're so much more physical with him than they've ever been with a human stranger."
"They're treating him like a foreign dragon," another said breathlessly, "not like a different species at all."
Totohless and Hookfang both suddenly came galloping back toward Hiccup. Hookfang had the advantage of flight; with one soaring leap, he landed beside the boy, scattering the other dragons. Hookfang roared and spread his wings and loomed over Hiccup. "My interesting thing!"
Toothless screamed with rage.
Hiccup roared up at the Monstrous Nightmare. "RAAAGGHH!" All the dragons stared at him in surprise except for Toothless, who narrowed his eyes and crouched low in readiness for whatever his other half was planning, tail lashing.
Hiccup spread his arms in an aggressive pose as if they were wings. "I don't like it!"
Hookfang roared at him.
Hiccup roared back and bit the dragon's neck in a declaration of dominance.
The other dragons all burst into dragon laughter. Toothless continued glaring, wings spread to back up his other half's declaration.
Hookfang stared incredulously, then reached to pull the little creature off.
Hiccup slipped away before he could get hold of him and threw himself at Hookfang again, this time managing to grab the dragon's horns. Hookfang experimentally waved his head back and forth.
"I dominate you!"
"No? No, look, I am stronger than you, you can't subdue me."
"Doesn't matter! I win! I do not submit; I win!" The little human's behavior was so outlandish that, coupled with the fact that he wasn't angry and seemed to like and be curious about all these dragons, Hookfang decided to take it with good humor. He lay down and whined playfully. "I pretend to submit to you~"
Hiccup wrestled with him, undaunted by the immense difference in their size and strength. "I pretend to dominate you~"
Toothless trotted up and pulled Hiccup away, standing over him and vocalizing sternly for a long time. "THIS THING BELONGS TO ME." He bathed Hiccup in "Half Of Me Precious Thing mine mine mine protect Him from any threat" scents. He stood over him again, demanding acknowledgement from the foreigners.
All four of them crouched down and purred in acknowledgment. Then, mischievously, all four rushed at Toothless, marking him (and Hiccup by proxy) with "OUR INTERESTING THINGS!" scents before he could stop them. He irritably tried to groom the scents away as they all retreated, laughing, to their aeries.
"That was sooooo cooool!" Hiccup sang, spinning around in circles with his arms spread and his head tipped toward the night sky. "Dragoooons! I looooove dragons!"
Inside, everyone who'd been watching the landmark event was cheering. "Whoooo, we're pulling an all-nighter tonight!"
"I'm changing my master's thesis!"
"What? You've been working on it for two years."
"I don't care!"
The only ones not going wild with joy were Valka, who was fidgeting sheepishly, and her husband, who looked furious. "I WANT TO SUE YOU."
"But...you won't, will you...?"
"NO. BUT I WANT TO. I SHOULD."
Hiccup came romping toward them with Toothless on his heels. "Dad~! Mom~! Did you see that?"
"I did see it," Stoick stormed, grabbing Hiccup and yanking up his torn shirt, kneeling down to anxiously inspect the damage. "Are you all right?! They hurt you, didn't they?!"
"I'm fine, Dad." Hiccup's chest, stomach, and back were covered with teeth marks, but only a few had broken the skin, and those few only showed as tiny bright red spots; none were actively bleeding. "I'm fine, Dad."
Stoick glared at his family. "We are going to have a long talk tonight about boundaries."
"Can we eat first?" Hiccup asked. "I'm hungry."
Stoick paused. "Yes. Dinner first, then the long unpleasant talk."
"Okay." Hiccup signaled "Come with me" to Toothless and then ran to the kitchens, arms spread like wings. "Dragoooons! I love dragoooons!"
o.o.o
A/N: Again, I wrote this whole one-shot in a notebook years ago, when I was still into HTTYD, but the notebook sat around in a box for a while. Now that I'm finally in a position to wrangle my life into control, one of my projects is typing up the boxful of notebooks and papers filled with old fanfiction and notes. I do plan to return to my old HTTYD WIPs eventually, with Carried Off highest on the list. It's just that I'm currently still caught up in my current fandom [Batman], and have been struggling with some things in real life.