As he sat there, drawing in the sand, Hiccup took the time to wonder what the heck was wrong with him. For fifteen years, he had wanted to be a Viking like everyone else. Like his father. Despite the stupidity of the average Viking, a Viking was what Hiccup wanted to be. Not even an exceptionally awesome Viking, he would have settled for being an average Viking, and done so happily. He would aim to be the best Viking ever, of course, but he would have settled for average. Therefore, when he set his sights on killing a dragon as the feat to offset his sarcasm and reputation in the village, he decided on a Night Fury, the only dragon no one had ever seen.
He supposed he had done that, at least. Seen a Night Fury. Not that he could tell anyone, but he had seen one. Multiple times. In fact, there was one not thirty yards away from him right now. Not that he was looking in that direction, of course. The reason he couldn't tell anyone about all of this was simple. When he had found the dragon, wounded and trapped in his bola, he was fully intending to remove some vital organ and present it as proof of his deed (because there was no way he could carry this thing anywhere, let alone all the way back to the village). The problem was before he did anything, he had looked into its eyes. He had looked into its eyes, and seen a very familiar fear and despair. At that moment, he had realized it wasn't in him to kill a helpless creature, especially one who seemed to reflect himself.
That was all well and good, and the creature had returned the favor by not killing him after he released it. In retrospect, not the smartest move. Although, after realizing that he couldn't do the one thing that would redeem him in the eyes of the village, he hadn't had and still didn't have much to lose.
His thoughts turned to slightly more recent events. He wanted to earn the trust of this dragon. Why he wasn't sure. The only reason he could name was guilt. He was sure there had to be other reasons, but he couldn't identify them. It was ironic though, that he trusted this dragon enough to turn his back on it. He didn't trust any of the villagers enough to tell them about letting the Night Fury go, and he definitely didn't trust any of the other teens. Except maybe Astrid, though that might be more due to other qualities than trustworthiness.
Hiccup began to draw a new picture. Absentmindedly, he considered the face of the dragon in question. Halfway through, he heard a gurgling groan from something on his right side. He knew what it had to be, but continued drawing as if he hadn't noticed. Every time he had tried to get close to the dragon it had fled. This time he would let it decide how close it wanted to be. He finished the drawing, the Night Fury by his side occasionally making noises of interest. As he finished, it got up and walked out of his peripheral vision. He heard a loud crack, that of a tree snapping, and turned to see exactly what it was doing.
The dragon (he had to find a better name for it than just Night Fury) had snapped a young tree off at its base, was dragging it back over to Hiccup. He watched in awe as the dragon proceeded to draw a nonsensical squiggly line around him. Satisfied with its line, the dragon added a single dot with his tree. Then it changed its mind and decided to continue the line, smacking Hiccup with the branches of the tree as it passed him. Hiccup was too amazed to notice. The dragon stopped again and seemed to be finished. Hiccup stood in the center of the vaguely circle-shaped path of the lines. He looked around in confusion, trying to see if the lines made a picture when all seen at once. As he stepped forward in an attempt to better see the whole thing, the dragon suddenly growled. Hiccup froze and looked down to see that he was stepping on one of the Fury's lines. He raised his foot. The dragon relaxed and purred. Intrigued, Hiccup lowered his foot. More growling. Raised his foot. Purring. Lowered his foot. Growling and threatening posture. Raised his foot and stepped over. The purring resumed.
Now understanding what the dragon wanted, Hiccup focused on getting out of the tangled maze of lines around him. As he stepped backward and weaved through the lines, he forgot where the dragon was standing. Therefore, he was quite surprised to back almost into its chest.
Hiccup turned and tentatively looked the dragon in the eye. It seemed calm. He slowly raised his hand towards it, and it growled softly. He remembered what he had decided earlier. He was going to let the dragon decide. He lowered his head and looked the other direction. And he raised his hand. Trusting the dragon not to remove it at its leisure. And the dragon lightly pushed its nose into his palm.
He looked at it. The dragon's eyes were closed. As he watched, they opened, and the dragon snorted. He had just enough time to notice its pupils narrow before something happened.
In an instant, he had a splitting headache. It was as if a group of Vikings had decided to practice their hammer skills inside his skull. It was so bad his vision doubled, and he fell to the ground. Thankfully, the pain mostly faded after a few moments, though he still didn't feel right. Instead of a blinding pain, it was now more of a dull throb in the corner of his head.
As he regained his senses, he noticed something. The Night Fury had also apparently collapsed. He shakily stood as the dragon stirred, moaning softly. Hiccup worried for a moment that it had been hurt worse than he had by whatever that was. He was relieved that it also seemed to be shaking off the effects quickly. "That was weird," he said as he stood up.
'Agreed'.
Hiccup blinked. He hadn't heard the voice with his ears, he couldn't tell where it had come from. But he had still heard it. He was about to dismiss it as a hallucination when the dragon bolted upright. He might have been more concerned if he hadn't been distracted by something in his own mind. That little pocket of dull pain had disappeared and in its place was something... foreign. He concentrated on it, and it expanded to fill his vision.
He could still see the cove, but it was different. Through his rising panic and curiosity, he struggled to understand what was different about it. He was pretty sure he was seeing it from a different angle, and he was now looking at a different side of the cove. The colors were a bit more vibrant, and it seemed much brighter out than he thought it had been. He realized now that he could hear far more than he could a second ago. With this, he wondered about his other senses. Hiccup realized that he could smell way more than before, most of which consisted of scents he had no name for. Intrigued, he mentally checked on his sense of touch. What he found was both strange and familiar. He could still feel his own limbs and body, though he could not see them. However, he could also sense another body, the one he presumed was the rightful owner of this strange perception. At this moment he realized what he was seeing. He was seeing and hearing, and smelling, the cove through the senses of the Night Fury.
The moment he realized that he panicked slightly. Would he be able to return to his own senses? He focused on himself and was immensely relieved to see the alternate perception shrink to the original corner of his mind that it had inhabited. However, he was unable to make it go away entirely, though at this size it was almost imperceptible.
These discoveries and strange new senses had only taken up a few seconds of time, and in that time the Night Fury had been still and silent. Hiccup stared at it and noticed that it was hyperventilating. "Are you... alright?" he asked, concerned despite the situation.
The dragon screeched and jumped several feet into the air. It twisted midair in order to land facing Hiccup, and the look on its face was one of abject shock, with pupils thinner than Hiccup had ever seen. They stood like that for a moment. A small, startled teenager and a large, alert black dragon, staring at each other with identical expressions of shock.
Little did Hiccup know that it was about to get much weirder.
'This is not what was supposed to happen!' Hiccup heard this statement distinctly, and the tone was one of confusion and bewilderment, tinged with more than a hint of fear. Having just investigated the strange new corner of his mind, Hiccup easily traced the origin of the voice to the pocket of foreign sensations. Foreign Night Fury sensations... He stared at the dragon.
Hiccup decided to let the logical, detached section of his brain take over for the time being. "What do you mean, supposed to happen?" he asked aloud, not really directing the question at the dragon. There was still a chance this was the work of some third party, and he wasn't-
'I mean that you shouldn't be able to access my senses, or even know I can access yours!'
Well, there went that theory. He was definitely hearing the dragon... think, he supposed, though he was pretty sure he wasn't hearing its every thought. Wait. Not it. Given the voice Hiccup could hear, definitely a 'he'.
Hiccup decided to refocus on getting answers. "Why shouldn't I be able to do this. Wait, scratch that. What is this, and why can I hear. A. Dragon!" By the end of this question, Hiccup was back to panic and didn't want to be here anymore. He was pretty sure the shock of the situation was wearing off because he was becoming increasingly aware of how wrong all of this was.
The dragon padded over to him and butted its head against his chest while swiping its tail behind him to both trip him and cushion his fall. When he looked up, the dragon was staring back at him from slightly above and in front of him. He noticed in some distant corner of his mind that its pupils had expanded again, though not quite as wide as they had been a few minutes ago.
'Calm down. You don't see me panicking.'
Despite the situation, Hiccup felt like he had to point something out. "You were a second ago. You jumped five feet straight up."
The dragon snorted. 'That was shock, not panic.'
"Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I think my panicking when something weird shows up IN MY HEAD is a perfectly normal reaction."
The dragon chuffed softly and rearranged himself and by extension Hiccup, who hadn't moved off of his tail. They ended up with Hiccup leaning against the dragon's side, its tail curled back around to rest the end across his outstretched legs. Whether or not that was to keep him from bolting in fear, Hiccup wasn't sure. He decided to ask.
"What's the tail for?"
The dragon stared at him. 'To knock some sense into you if you start panicking again.'
Hiccup gulped. "Duly noted." They sat in silence for a few moments. Hiccup felt he had to break it. "So... what exactly is going on?" He was doing his best to quash the spreading tendrils of fear and panic, and get some answers while he could think coherently.
The dragon let out a long sigh, which caused the side Hiccup was leaning on to deflate slightly for a moment. 'That would be a really long story. The short answer is, I used a mental trick on you. It did more than it should have.'
Hiccup didn't like the sound of that. "What was it supposed to do?"
The dragon snorted in irritation. 'It was supposed to give me access to your senses, nothing more, and it definitely wasn't supposed to let you hear me in your head, or access my senses.' Hiccup really didn't like that. "And when exactly did I give you permission to commandeer part of my brain? That's not something you do without at least asking first!"
The dragon snorted. 'It's for your good as well as mine, and how was I supposed to ask? I didn't know what we are doing now was even possible. I couldn't even understand you speaking before this."
Hiccup considered that. "What do you mean, for my good?"
'Well, besides the unintended side effect of us communicating, I wanted to tag along with your senses to make sure you weren't going to change your mind and betray me to the others of your kind.'
Hiccup blinked. "How would that be good for me? Or you for that matter. You wouldn't be able to stop me..." He hesitated. "Would you?"
The dragon stared at him, pupils slightly narrowing. 'No. But I would be forewarned.'
"And how would that be good for me?"
'I would be able to stop you from killing me, something you had just proven you didn't really want to do. Think of it as me protecting us both from the consequences of your actions.' Hiccup snorted. "You know, you're quite full of yourself."
'It comes with being one of the most deadly dragons in existence.' the dragon said, not entirely serious.
Hiccup wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. On the one hand, the claim was ridiculously self-centered, and he would have gladly poked holes in it with his sarcasm. On the other hand, maybe taunting a massive fire-breathing reptile with more than enough arrogance might not be the smartest idea. He let it pass as another thought struck him. "That reminds me, do you have a name? I can't just keep referring to you as 'the dragon' or 'the night fury'.
The dragon gave him a strange look. 'You know, I'm not sure I do. I can't remember. Actually, I can't remember any names." His eyes narrowed. Hiccup felt bad. This was obviously upsetting the Night Fury.
"Hey, I can give you a name. At least until you remember your real one."
The Night Fury's pupils returned to their expanded state as he exhaled. 'I think I would like that. But be sure it fits my dangerous and magnificent appearance!' he said, puffing his chest out and looking as regal as possible, though the slump in his wings implied he still wasn't very happy.
Hiccup grinned. "When I think of something, I'll let you know." As he said that, he casually glanced at the sky. And realized that the cove was getting dark. And remembered that he was supposed to meet the rest of the dragon-training class on top of the watchtower after sundown. The cove was a good forty-five minutes from the village. And it was sundown now. "Oh man. I am so gonna be late. I've gotta go!" Hiccup scrambled to his feet and turned to face the dragon. "I'll come back tomorrow with more fish. It's the least I can do after kinda trapping you here..." He trailed off, wondering a bit too late if the dragon knew he was responsible for the bola. He hoped so, because if he didn't before he definitely did now. Luckily for him, the dragon only shifted and laid back down.
'This should be interesting. I'll see you tomorrow.'
Hiccup didn't stop to take in the dragon's parting words, as he was far more interested in making it back to the village before it became too dark to see. He realized as he made his way through the underbrush that he had accepted conversing with a dragon fairly easily, past the initial shock. He supposed it helped that the dragon wasn't dismissive or rude like... well, everyone else in his life. The refreshing feeling of conversing with someone who didn't remember the various infamous actions of 'Hiccup the Useless' seemed to override the source of said conversation.
By now, it was almost completely dark out, and Hiccup knew his time was running out. He resigned himself to being late. Hopefully, Gobber wouldn't mind. As he moved back towards the village and his normal life, he considered a very unusual question. What to call a Night Fury. He immediately ruled out anything noble or imposing. No need to further inflate that ego. He needed something that truthfully described the dragon, but didn't encourage his arrogance. The problem was, he couldn't think of any feature of a dragon, much less a Night Fury, that wasn't scary or noble. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Then he remembered. The dragon in question was capable of retracting his teeth. When he did, he looked silly. That worked. Retractable teeth...
That's what he would call him. Toothless. That decided, Hiccup resumed his quick traversal of the forest. He still harbored the faint hope that he would make it to the watchtower on time.