Heyup lads and lasses supersandman here once again, sorry for the late publish but life is a bitch sometimes. Anyone that suffers from depression, anxiety or lack of self confidence can say.
Is that why you haven't been to the gym in a while?
*sigh* yes wade that's one reason.
Guessing the other is that you're too lazy to go.
Hey! I resent that!
Whatevs homie
Sometimes I don't know why I put up with you wade.
Because you watched my movie...thrice, at the cinema and fan-boying it over the sequel
Hope cable sticks his gun up your butt.
Ooh kinky
Urgh! Anyway lets get on with the lang awaited chapter. Hopefully it'll make some sense.
Bet ya a fiver that there's another cliffhangerYou're on!
Chapter 14-secrets revealed
"No turning back" Hiccup repeated to himself once again, as he looked around the ring of the arena nervously.
Hiccup admitted he was nervous, not because of the dragons, far from it, he's interacted with dragons before in the wild with ease.
No he was nervous about these dragons because of this arena.
Looking around at all the faded scorch marks in all directions, the damaged chained dome and even the dried blood on the grounds whether human or dragon Hiccup didn't want to know.
This was a place any dragon no matter how tough they were would be scared, even Toothless.
He then turned towards the five occupied stone doors that held the training dragons.
From what Gobber told him before all this they contained one of each basic dragon found around Berk.
Gronkle, Nadder, Zippleback, Terror and finally the Nightmare.
Hiccup thought this through, the Nightmare would be the most difficult, their hot temper even in normal situations is bad, but a scared one, yikes!
Same can be said for the Zippleback except they use their gas as a sort of fog for both a warning and escape.
Gronkle may be built like a rock but when they're scared, they eat and that could just be as deadly.
The Terror even for it's size can still bite and most time won't let go.
Which left the Nadder, not called deadly for nothing, spineshots, sharp claws and a fire that can melt rock easily.
But Hiccup knew that this Nadder may recognise him as a non threat and the one that tried to save her.
He made his plan in his head as to handle this, but before he does follow through this who looks up at Gobber through the dome whose waiting for the boys instructions.
"Ready when ye are lad"
Taking a deep breath Hiccup begins the talk that might not work but has to try.
"Gobber, I want you to keep a promise and swear it on big Bertha"
The old blacksmith knew it must be serious if Hiccup is making him swear a promise on his favourite catapult, but knows the boy won't let it go until agreed.
He sighs and nods for Hiccup to carry, knowing he's not gonna like what's being said.
"No matter what happens in here, no matter how I handle things or the danger Gobber, don't interfere, don't shout and for the love of Thor, don't tell anyone else happens here, you got that?" he finishes waiting for the panic from his mentor.
And boy was he not disappointed.
"Wh-what?! Lad ye know what you're askin me?! Te let them beast have you without backup, protection or even a weapon?!"
But as Gobber looked back at the young man in the arena, he was shocked to see no fear, no regret, not even a hint of uncertainty.
He saw determination in Hiccups eyes, his body language showed confidence and the smirk upon the young man's face said it all as he replied to the two limbed Viking's outburst calmly with only two words.
"Trust me"
Gobber once again sighed, as usual Hiccups stubbornness will win this one, Gobber has known him all his life, he saw the boys handiwork and determination thousands of times and never ceases to amaze him, and all because of one thing.
Hiccup never gives up.
"Okay lad, I don' like it but I trust ye, so how ye want to start this? The Terror?" he asked, waiting for Hiccups answer.
The boy however shook his head as he looked at the stone doors again.
"The Nadder"
"Are ye sure lad?" Gobber was a more concerned that he'd pick that one dragon, no one had even got near it since it arrived.
But Hiccup simply nodded.
"It's the newest out of all the dragons so the less tamed"
Gobber was hesitant but remembered Hiccup to trust him, so shrugging as he pulled the lever to the Nadder cage and watched nervously for the outcome.
Hiccup meanwhile kept his own nerves calm as best he could, he knows what to expect from this.
As the doors fully open, he listens for the familiar noises he was expecting.
A click and a whistling sound.
He springs into action as he dodges the spines coming towards him.
He dodge another lot rolling out of the way to the left, then the right. Several times this happens all the while Hiccup keep focus, he knows what to do.
He's seen Nadders do this before, they like to test out their opponents before coming head to head with them.
Eventually the projectiles ceased and he waits as the Nadder walks out of her cages in full view of him.
He watches her body language, she's scared, the arena still holds the smell of death. Hiccup could understand her situation.
He wished she didn't have to be here but it was that or instant death.
No, he didn't like it, but he will get her out some way some how.
Hiccup gets back to focusing on the Nadder as she starts to look around nervously for the first sign of a weapon but quickly gets confused, there was non in sight. Just a small human standing there watching her.
She starts let curiosity get the better of her as she slowly approaches him, sniffing the air around her.
She smells the foul odour of something that hasn't bathed in over a year coming from outside the arena to see a two limbed human picking his ears with a metal claw attached to where his arm used to be.
To a dragon who prides herself on her beauty, she shudders before averting from that smell to another.
One slightly familiar.
Nature, clean, a familiar smell of soot and one that jogged her memory.
The scent of a Night fury.
She looks in the direction of the young human, a boy, one she saw just before capturing, one who stopped the big human alpha from killing her, granted it landed her in here and yes she was angry for a while, but she really couldn't blame the boy despite being human.
She kept him in her sight as he slowly approaches with the only thing in his hand is a fish from the nearby bucket.
Hiccup meanwhile was trying to keep calm, not easy when being eyed up by a fire breathing flying lizard that can also throw deadly spine at you at will, but as the two make it to the centre, he makes the crazy yet bold move of offering her the fish to show her he means no harm.
She sniffs the fish for anything that might be off about it before taking it in one gulp.
"Hey there girl" Hiccup gently says as he slowly moves along the Nadders scaled body all the way to the spiked up tail.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you, although I doubt I could anyway from what everyone else has said about your fierce attitude" he chuckles while smoothing out the spines one by one all while hear the Nadder do a throaty laugh at what he said bringing a smile to his face.
'And the people call them mindless?'
After he was able to touch her scales, he got the bucket of clean water from the other side as well as the rest of the fish for her to eat while he proceeded to clean her down all the while complimenting her on her beauty knowing playing to her vanity will keep her happy.
"There we go girl, we can't have your beautiful colours to get now do we" this got him a purr from her as he finished cleaning her down before letting her have a fly around the arena to dry off and stretch her wings, all under the worried eyes of Gobber who couldn't believe his eyes as Hiccup handled the Nadder with ease before herding her back into her pen to which she cooperated, promising to be back the next night as well.
Once she was back in he looked up a slack-jawed Gobber staring at him.
Rolling his eyes, Hiccup then told him to release the Gronkle as he prepared his own buckets for this one.
Various rocks, particularly granite.
Again from studying dragons found Gronkles to be quite docile when not threatened and rather live on a diet of minerals instead of fish.
And once again the bulky dragon flies out of its cell ramming anything in its way.
Lucky enough Hiccup was prepared, he dodged out of the way from the oncoming attack but always stood calmly until the dragon wore itself out.
Gronkles are good for head on attacks and taking hits but constant offence on their part plays havoc on their stamina and this is where Hiccup knew when to carry on with his plan.
Dodging one ram after another that came his way, Hiccup watched as each time the Gronkle started slowing down.
Eventually, the bulky dragons tiny wings gave out as it fell with a thump on the flow, bringing up dust everywhere.
Hiccup breathed a sigh of relief, he knew that a dragon is easier to handle once tired and luckily boulder classes such as these are no exception.
Hiccup takes one of the rocks from the bucket he brought and tossed it towards the exhausted dragon.
The Gronkle itself looked up to see the object chucked towards them and to who the sender is only to see a small human.
Curious just as the Nadder was as usually there would be a huge burly and very smelly human wielding a weapon that usually greeted them but now just an underfed human youngling with no weapon in sight.
'Maybe this is why the Nadder didn't sound as hostile towards the end' the Gronkle thought to themselves as Hiccup smiled.
"Go on there, I'm not gonna hurt you" he gestured to the rock on the ground and waited for the Gronkle to devour it before giving another one, careful not to overfeed them as Gronkle tended to gorge until the spewed lava and he didn't want Gobber to panic and give some mental lecture about dragons always going for the kill.
As the last rock was removed from bucket, the bulky dragon seemed more trusting towards Hiccup as he tossed the last one into the air letting the Gronkle fly up and catch it in their mouth as he walked over to the dragon and started rubbing the top of the bulbous head affectionately.
"There we are b..." Hiccup had to stop himself mid sentence as he was about to say boy, he forgot to check which gender this particular Gronkle was without the usual 'lift leg' method that most would have taken.
But he remembered once again about traits of dragon genders and their colourings and markings that gave them away.
For females their skin was less rough and bumpy as well as lighter scale commonly seen with most dragons.
Still, he was weary but decided to take the chance as he carried on his sentence.
"..girl" this made the Gronkle look at him smiling making Hiccup sigh with relief once again knowing he got the right gender before carrying on "I see you liked them rocks I got you" looking around as he said that to the ground littered with nothing but tiny pebbles from what was left.
Throughout the whole time with the Gronkle, Hiccup merely played with her, let her blow off steam being cooped up in her cell before it was time to put her back in, promising extra granite the next time which made the overgrown puppy very happy indeed.
The same scenario led with the Terrible Terror, wear them out, identify the gender, with males having slightly longer horns on their snouts, before trust earned, feeding, playing and finally once the small dragon was worn out, back into the cell.
The Zippleback was slightly harder to gain trust, being that with two heads and finding out which was which by their gender, the left head being the gas spewer and the right being the sparker as well as the colouring once again.
Hiccup only interacted with one Zippleback once, during one of his missions to stop the raids, he figured that both heads need to be interacted with, so with a fish in each hand he got both heads attention once they had exhausted themselves trying to blow half the arena up.
"shame they built it very tough" he thought to himself as he tossed both fish in the air at the same time, shame they never fully got to the heads but luckily they met halfway.
This went on for several times until all the fish was gone and left them satisfied and, just like the others, curious about the small boy who didn't seem threatening in any way and even knew how to interact with them.
As they were led back into their cell to rest off their meal, Hiccup realised the last one might be the most toughest.
The Monstrous Nightmare.
It's not like Hiccup hasn't handle them before in the wild but this one was highly bad tempered even for a Nightmare, he came up with the conclusion that being the most angriest dragon out of the five common types found around Berk that whoever looked after them before would have riled this one out out of the others.
Hiccup didn't dare open the cell up to feed this one, not yet anyway, so instead he tried to play on the one thing the dragon prided on the most.
Respect.
So for that just to best to give them their food and leave without interaction until they calm down.
He stood by with the bucket of fish read to slide into the little hatch designed for such purpose while he spoke hoping to gain some mutual understanding.
"Hey there, err not sure how to handle this while you angry, but saying that, I'd be angry too if I was trapped in here, not nice accommodations, and I'm rambling again" her usually rubbed the back of his neck when he was nervous and feeling the heat near the door was no exception, but he still stood firm, gulped and slid the fish through the hatch as he carried on talking.
"Look, I can't let you out this time, Gobber up there would have a heart attack if I did, but if you promise to stay calm the next time, I'll let you out for some fresh air, deal?"
Hiccup waited for the response as silence grew around followed by a huff and what was left of the bucket he slid through fired out of hatch.
That's all Hiccup needed to know as he said his thank you before heading toward the exit, sighing with a mix of relief and triumph at what he just did.
He earned four of the five dragons respect at least.
As he let it all sink in, Gobber came hobbling down gob-smacked at what he just witnessed.
"Lad, what did ye just d..."
"Promise not to say a word Gobber, this is between us" Hiccup soberly asked interrupting Gobber from finishing his sentence.
"But lad..." Gobber stopped himself as he saw the look in Hiccups eyes, they were serious.
"Okay lad" he sighed knowing that he owed the boy for all he's been through "but ye got te tell me how ye managed it"
Hiccup smiled before replying with a shrug.
"I study my environment Gobber, the wild dragons and how they interact, that's how I knew"
"Ye a crazy lad Hiccup, stubborn and crazy" Gobber finished off patting Hiccups shoulders as he waved him Goodnight as they went to their homes.
Gobber used to worry about Hiccup at first going through the forest alone but seeing how he managed it with no problems made the old blacksmith proud at how far he'd come from where this whole banishment started.
He also realised that even if he did tell people, they wouldn't believe him, who, besides a select few, would believe that Hiccup not only survived feeding the dragons but also keeping them calm.
No one, except a certain blond shield-maiden who had not only witnessed the whole scenario but at this very moment following Hiccup through the forest towards the cove, she wanted to know more.
She kept to the shadows as he went along his travel home, making sure he didn't know she was there.
Astrid wanted to know more about Hiccups tactics after watching him with the dragons in the arena, it was very odd to her, nothing hostile upon his part and even the dragons seemed calmer around him.
"But why? How?" was what she kept asking herself. She had watched these same beasts act so aggressive when she saw others feeding them, and these were large Vikings armed to the teeth yet here was the most un-Viking person ever with no weapon turn these giant fire-breathing lizards into overgrown puppies.
She only went tonight because she was scared for Hiccup, to which she wondered why she was scared once again for him.
But now here she was, sneaking behind the said boy as he casually walked through the dense forest at night without care what was lurking around them.
Hiccup meanwhile was happy, he had earned their trust, something he thought, in all honesty, would take a couple of tries to do and with him more worse for wear.
Guess when you're friends with a NightFury, the most fierce dragon around, then anything's easy.
Speaking of which as he made his way through the gap leading to the cove, Toothless is sat up, happy to see his human brother made it back in one piece. Of course he knew that considering he was watching Hiccup with pride handle the dragons in the arena.
Hiccup, upon seeing him, smiled as he walked towards Toothless in an embrace, no matter how bad things got he could always rely on his ebony scaled friend to cheer him up.
"Hey there bud" he cheerfully greeted, scratching behind the dragons ears, rewarding him with a purr as Toothless leaned into the scratch until he knocked over his human, to whom started to laugh from the NightFurys antics.
"Boy bud I have got so much to tell about tonight" and from there he reminisced how he handled each dragon and their reaction afterwards, all the while Astrid was watching in shock at what she was seeing.
A dragon as black as night and a body what look liked it was designed for speed and stealth, she came up with the conclusion that this was a NightFury, the same one that recently has been turning up to raids, disrupting the dragons.
As she watched their friendly interaction, she started putting things together like a puzzle, the reason why Hiccup was so tired even though he said it's because of smithing all night long but couldn't smell the familiar scent of metal and forge smoke upon him, not like she took in his scent before. The way he turned up just after it all ended, again he had an excuse of not wanting to interfere, but if she recalled, that never stopped him before. The injuries he sustained like for example the sprained ankle, now that she recalled, she saw that rider fall through one of the house roofs after falling, that must have resulted in some sort of injury, and yet looking how he's running about in the arena and now, it's like he never had it.
"I gotta say bud..." he pulled off his left boot showing the bandaged ankle and yet from what she can see, no swelling. She listened on to what he had to say next that made her think more.
"...good thing NightFury saliva is a fast healer otherwise I'd have never done all that dodging that was needed" the said NightFury grumbled and snorted making Hiccup roll his eyes knowing what he was trying to interpret.
"Yeah yeah I know, watch around me at all times, I got it, that Gronkle that came out of nowhere, good thing I had a house to break my fall, although I don't thing silent Sven will be too pleased"
"A Gronkle that knocked that rider off? And the house the rider fell through was Svens?" Astrid whispered to herself, taking all the information in before she came to the conclusion upon the riders identity.
Hiccup.
With all this new findings and discovery about him, she wondered what to do now.
The honourable thing would be to tell the chief what she found out, after all dragons are Vikings mortal enemies for the last three hundred years and always go for the kill, siding with them is crazy, stupid and an act of treason.
On the other hand, her logical side telling her that if they're mindless killing machine then how come they didn't kill Hiccup? Surely he would be easy pickings despite his dodging skills.
And finally her heart telling her that Hiccup has suffered far too much for his young age, losing his mother, his father barely knew he existed and his fellow villagers treating him like dirt and not the chiefs son like they should.
If she was being honest with herself, watching Hiccup interact with the most fierce dragon ever to be known by Viking kind in such a playful manner was kind of cute.
She decided right there and then that she will keep Hiccups secret but she still wanted to confront him about it all, she wanted to gain his trust and their friendship back.
Smiling as she left towards the village, she was unaware that Toothless knew she was there, watching the whole time, he felt her heartbeat a mile away, but he didn't act upon it.
Had it been anyone else, apart from the rambling fat human boy or the big smelly two limbed man, he wouldn't have thought twice about grabbing them, throwing them upon a sea-stack and leaving them there.
But this human girl he smelt on Hiccup a few times and even felt his heart race when he was watching him from a nearby tree while he was in the human village.
He came too the conclusion this was Hiccups mate and didn't want to harm her without upsetting his brother.
After she left and Hiccup was sound asleep all Toothless thought on what him and Hiccup was trying to do and wondered one thing.
'Can we achieve peace?'
Haha. pay up wade.
I hate you.
If you did then why do you stick around?
Well it's because...and then there's...but you know, ah shut up!