How to View Your Dragons Chapter 5
"...and with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole!" Apparently, Gobber was passing the evening with his trainees by relating some of his more memorable battles with the dragons. At least, that was how it sounded to the dragons who were somehow watching these events unfold on a flat panel. "And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious! He must have passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of 'em took my leg!"
"Oh, he passed the word, all right!" Stormfly snapped. "I remember the Nadder who got his hand, and he warned the rest of us - 'Don't eat any other pieces of that Viking! He tastes terrible! There's no meat on him; he's all fat and gristle, and the fat is all trans fat.' It was Deathfang the Dim-Witted who ignored that warning and ate his leg a month later. He had indigestion for a week!"
"Then why did Gobber say he was delicious?" Sizzle asked.
"Since when could a Viking read the facial expressions of a dragon?" Stormfly retorted.
"Vikings aren't good eating, from what I've heard," Meatlug nodded. "Most of us never even tried to eat them." She glared at Hookfang. "I suppose you're the exception to that rule, right?"
"No, not me! I never tried to eat any Vikings, either," the Nightmare retorted defensively. "I've been on a strict fishetarian diet for years. Sure, I bit a few Vikings, but I didn't swallow." They listened as the teens came up with increasingly bizarre comments about dragon-fighting, until Gobber reined them in with, "It's the wings and the tails ye really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."
"Hey!" Barf exclaimed. "That Viking stole our proverb!"
"I guess everybody knows that about us," Stormfly admitted.
"Hiccup didn't know it," Meatlug. "Did you see how nervous he looked when he heard that?"
"Nervous, and thoughtful," Toothless said. "I think I know what he's about to do."
"What's he going to do?" Belch asked.
"He's going to darned-near drown the both of us!" the Night Fury burst out.
They saw a series of images showing Hiccup hard at work in the forge, late at night. "Is he making another one of those mild-calibration-issue things, like the one that my buddy stomped on?" Hookfang wondered.
"Yes and no," Toothless answered. "It definitely had some calibration issues, but it wasn't a bit like anything he'd made before."
One by one, the dragons figured out what Hiccup was making. Sizzle was the last to exclaim, "Oh, I get it! He's making you a new tail! But how are you going to control it?"
"That turned out to be the one big problem that he couldn't solve," the Night Fury answered. "Watch and see. I have to admit, it's a little bit funny to look back on this, even though it was scary and frustrating at the time."
"Oh, Toothless!" the boy called as his moving image up-ended a basket full of fish. "I brought breakfast. I hope... I hope you're hungry."
"How did you let him get that close to you before you turned around to see him?" Hookfang demanded. "If he was sneaking up on you with a weapon, you'd have been a dead Night Fury!"
"I knew he wouldn't do that," Toothless answered.
"In other words," Meatlug added, "the two of you were completely trusting each other with your lives already."
"Even though it was kind of a stupid comment on his part," the black dragon went on. " 'I hope you're hungry?' I'd been stuck in that cove for two days, with nothing to eat except half a fish the day before! Of course I was hungry!"
Stormfly cocked her head at the flat panel "Did you realize you were the first dragon who ever had their meal brought to them by a human? He was waiting on you!"
"I hope you gave him a decent tip," Barf smirked.
"I wasn't even thinking along those lines," Toothless admitted. "I was too hungry to do much thinking at all."
"Okay, that's disgusting," Hiccup grunted as he tipped over his basket, spilling fish all over the ground.
"Disgusting? Is he crazy?" Barf burst out. "That's a first-class banquet!"
"We've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel."
"A what?" all the dragons exclaimed.
"Okay, not first-class," Barf said with a firm headshake.
"He is crazy!" Belch added. "Doesn't he know how evil those things are?" They all hissed as Toothless recoiled in horror when Hiccup held up the striped eel, then slowly relaxed after he threw it aside. The Night Fury began eating the other fish as fast as he could swallow them, while Hiccup used the moment of distraction to laboriously strap his hand-made tail fin onto Toothless' tail.
"He's pretty brave, wrestling with a dragon's tail," Stormfly observed. "Why didn't you turn around and let him have it?"
"I was too distracted by the food," Toothless confessed.
"What a typical male," Meatlug muttered. Toothless finished his last fish, realized that Hiccup was sitting on his tail, and slowly spread his wings.
"Now he's gonna get it," Hookfang chuckled. "I gotta see this!" He slid closer to the flat panel so he could see better. Then Toothless exploded into the sky, with Hiccup barely hanging on and screaming in terror.
"Yeah!" Hookfang shouted. "Fly, baby, fly! Show him who's the dragon!" The Night Fury lost control and went into a helpless dive, which was arrested at the last moment when Hiccup reached out and extended the tail fin.
"It worked!" Stormfly and Belch chorused, and a moment later, Hiccup echoed them. "It's working!"
"Well, that's what was supposed to happen, wasn't it?" Meatlug wondered. "Why is he so surprised?"
"Because that was the first thing he'd ever made that worked the way it was supposed to," Toothless explained. "Of course, I wasn't convinced of that yet, and so..." They saw him skim low over the cove, turn sharply, and send Hiccup flying into the water. A moment later, he lost control and splashed in, right next to his former rider.
Hookfang let out the breath he'd been holding. "I see what you mean about how he almost drowned the both of you."
Meatlug shook her huge head. "Actually, you're the one who almost drowned the both of you, by shaking him off. Everything was working great! If you'd just kept flying..."
"...Hiccup eventually would have fallen off because he couldn't hold onto my tail any longer," Toothless finished for her. "It's just as well that I threw him into the water from low altitude; that was the safest landing he could have gotten. But we both learned a huge lesson that day. If I was going to fly again, then I needed Hiccup to control my tail fin, and that meant I had to let him ride on me."
"That must have been humiliating," Meatlug said, "especially for a Night Fury."
"It was," Toothless nodded, "but it was still better than being grounded for the rest of my life. Besides, I was slowly getting used to him being around. Letting Hiccup ride me didn't seem nearly as bad as letting a more typical Viking ride me."
Suddenly, they heard Gobber's voice, and the scene changed back to the training ring. One of the dragon cell doors burst open and was instantly obscured by a growing cloud of gray-green smoke.
"Oh, I remember this," Belch said with distaste.
"Can the rest of you kind of look away from this scene?" Barf asked. "This wasn't exactly our brightest shining moment."
"Yeah, this was really embarrassing," Belch threw in.
"They watched me get hit in the jaw with an axe and a shield," Stormfly retorted, "and we just watched Toothless take an unwanted bath, so we're going to watch this bright shining moment of yours, too!"
They watched as the teens paired off, armed only with buckets of water. "Those might work on our sparks," Barf noted, "but what if we decided to bite them or claw them? Were they going to hit us with the buckets?"
"Or use them as shields?" Belch added.
"You're right - that wasn't very good planning on Gobber's part," Stormfly nodded. "I'm starting to wonder if he was actually trying to get a few of those teens killed off."
"He kept me from killing Hiccup," Meatlug said, "but the others... maybe you're right."
Fishlegs was reciting something he'd read somewhere. "Razor-sharp serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attacks, crushing its victims -"
"Will you please stop that!" Hiccup hissed.
"Yeah, stop that!" Belch echoed. "You're giving away all our secrets!"
"Where did he learn all about us?" Barf wanted to know.
"He seemed to know a lot of details about dragons," Hookfang said, "but it didn't do him much good when he had to fight us."
"Your rider knew how to fight," Barf shot back, "and he didn't do so well, either."
"So what does it take for a human to fight a dragon and win," Stormfly asked, "aside from outnumbering us and using those horrible weapons on us?"
Toothless looked back at the screen. "I never saw this scene in real life," he admitted, "but I have a feeling that Hiccup had been spending enough time with me that he was starting to think like a dragon. That will help him win, I think."
"You have no idea!" Belch retorted. They watched Snotlout and Tuffnut throw their water on Astrid and Ruffnut. The girls responded by knocking Snotlout down and throwing a water-filled bucket at Tuffnut.
"And, just like that, four of them were disarmed!" Barf said. "We should have been able to clean up the whole training ring after that!"
"What did we do wrong?" Belch asked his other head.
"You don't remember what happened next?"
"Oh. Yeah. That." The whole Zippleback shivered. They watched as their counterparts on the flat panel pulled Tuffnut into their cloud, knocked Astrid and Ruffnut down with a tail, and let Tuffnut escape, holding his belly and shouting, "Ohh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!"
Barf snorted. "When he started, he was hoping for some serious burns. What a courageous Viking warrior he turned out to be! All I did was poke him in the ribs with my nose horn, and he ran away in a panic! My horn isn't even that sharp!"
"We didn't even get to the good part, where we tried out the serious-burns thing for him!" Belch chuckled. "What would he have done if we really burned him?"
Now Barf's head snaked out of the smoke; it was the first glimpse of the Zippleback that the teens had seen so far. Fishlegs hesitated when Barf came at him, then threw his water. This, of course, had no effect, because Barf wasn't the sparking head. He retaliated with a stream of green gas that sent Fishlegs running in terror.
"What was he so afraid of?" Barf asked. "The smoke can't do much harm until my buddy lights it."
"It can make humans sick if they breathe too much of it," Stormfly answered. "But I still think he over-reacted."
Meatlug added, "And once again, they all leave Hiccup alone to face the dragon. Did you almost kill him like I did?"
"We wish!" Belch said heartily.
"We don't wish he was dead," Barf added, "but we wish we'd shown him who was boss, instead of... well, watch and see."
Now Hiccup was facing both heads. Belch sparked a warning. If those sparks hit Barf's gas, the resulting explosion would leave everyone in the ring hurt, very much hurt. The boy threw his water... and it fell far short. "Oh, come on!" Now he was defenseless. Gobber began to run to the aid of the chief's son. Again.
What happened next, none of the other dragons understood at first. Both heads of the Zippleback hesitated. Hiccup stood, and Barf and Belch backed away. "Back!" Hiccup shouted, suddenly in complete control of the situation. "Back! Now don't you make me tell you again!" Seemingly with nothing but hand gestures and raw courage, the boy forced the big dragon back into its prison cell, as the teens and the village Gothi watched in stunned amazement.
"How is he doing that?" Sizzle wondered.
"Now think about what you've done," he said slyly, reached into his vest, and pulled out the eel that had so repulsed Toothless earlier in the day. He threw it into the cell; Barf and Belch cowered against the far wall to keep as far away from it as possible.
"Gag me with a mackerel!" Stormfly burst out. "He's using biological warfare!"
"So that's how he did it!" Hookfang exclaimed.
"He learned about the eels from you, Toothless!" Meatlug added. "You were giving away all our secrets to him!"
"What did you expect me to do?" Toothless shot back. "Was I supposed to eat the eel, just to keep our secrets safe? Yuck!" He shivered at the thought.
They watched Hiccup shut the Zippleback's cell doors, wipe the eel slime off his hands onto his vest, and notice his teacher and his classmates staring in shocked, open-mouthed silence at him. As though he did this kind of thing all the time, he excused himself from the class and ran off. The background music suddenly turned into an energetic dance tune as he began to make something.
"What happened to his nervousness?" Meatlug asked. "He looks totally confident now."
"Yeah, he doesn't look like the Hiccup at the beginning of these pictures at all!" Hookfang said. "What happened to him?"
"Two things," Toothless answered. "He did something right, and he found someone who liked him. That was all it took for a totally different Hiccup to shine through."
"Are you saying you changed him?" Stormfly asked.
"No, I couldn't do that," the Night Fury said. "I know I'm amazing, but even a Night Fury can't change someone's personality. That other Hiccup was always inside him. But the fear of failure, and the pressure from the other Vikings, always kept it inside and wouldn't let it out. What you're seeing for the first time is the real Hiccup."
"Okay," Hookfang nodded, "but what is he making?"
"Something so he could ride on me," Toothless said. They saw Hiccup hold up the newly-made saddle, whereupon Toothless took off running in a wild game of tag.
"Why didn't you let him put it on you?" Meatlug asked. "Didn't you know what he wanted to do?"
"Of course I knew what he wanted to do!" Toothless replied, "I'm not stupid. But if I made it too easy for him, he might have suspected something. Besides, he was keeping me well-fed, and I was in no danger of being shot down anymore, so I was kind of enjoying life, except for the 'grounded' part. I felt playful that day. Did you see how my tongue was hanging out as I ran away from him? It was all a game. If I didn't want him to catch me, then he never would have caught me. But, as you can see, I wound up with the saddle, and Hiccup, on my back."
"But not for long!" Hookfang grinned as Hiccup pulled the tail-control line too hard, Toothless swerved in the other direction, and dragon and rider parted company and crashed.
"Another darned-near drowning," Toothless muttered. "It's a wonder that we even survived that experimental phase of his. If those were mild calibration issues, then I'd hate to see a major one!"
"Well, would you expect a human to know anything about flying?" Stormfly asked. "Of course he had to experiment! He was learning how to do something that no human had ever done before, and it's not like you could explain the process to him. You ought to be thankful that he was willing to put so much time and effort into helping you back into the air again."
"I am thankful now," the black dragon replied earnestly, "but getting here from there was no picnic! Watch what we did next, and you'll see what I mean." Hiccup created a tether to keep him from flying out of his saddle so easily, and they tried flying again. This time, they lost control at low altitude and skidded to a halt in a field of tall grass. Hiccup managed to stay on his feet, but Toothless...
"Crazy grass?" Stormfly exclaimed with a laugh. "You landed in a whole field full of crazy grass?" They all laughed (except Toothless) as the Night Fury went out of control at the smell of the grass. Hiccup held up a few pieces of it, looking thoughtful. The scene changed back to the training ring; it was Meatlug's turn again, and it looked like she was owning the ring. She headbutted Tuffnut and sent him flying, then charged at Hiccup.
"No fire?" Hookfang wondered. "Why weren't you flaming them?"
"They didn't give me any rocks that time," she answered. "Wait a minute, I think I remember this fight..." On the flat panel, she rushed up to Hiccup, who nervously held out his handful of crazy grass. Her eyes lit up; she skidded to a halt on the stone floor and sniffed the grass. She smiled with delight, her tail waggled, and then she rolled over on her side, senseless. The onlookers, including the tribe's Gothi, were mystified. How did Hiccup knock out a Gronckle like that?
"So that's how he learned about using the crazy grass on us!" Hookfang burst out.
"I still don't understand why you passed out at the smell of the stuff," Toothless said. "Most of us just get really, really happy."
"We Gronckles have extra-sensitive noses, remember?" Meatlug replied. "The smell of that grass hits us a lot harder than it hits you. If a dragon with a really good nose, like a Rumblehorn, got a whiff of it, he'd probably go into a coma or something."
They saw the teens walking home from the ring. They were all talking about Hiccup's feat.
"Hey, they aren't mocking him!" Barf noticed.
"You're right," Belch nodded. "How come they're treating him just like one of the gang?"
"It's like he said earlier," Toothless reminded them. "In that tribe, killing a dragon is everything. All of a sudden, it looks like Hiccup is turning into a dragon fighter, so he's earned their respect."
"Except for my rider," Stormfly observed. "She's walking behind them all, and she looks mad."
"That's because your rider wanted to be the Number One dragon fighter in the village," Hookfang said. "At the start of their Dragon Training, it looked like she could win her prize with one hand tied behind her back; there wasn't much competition. But now, Hiccup just won a round; now he's becoming a threat to her dreams.'
"Hiccup? A threat?" Sizzle giggled. "I'll bet nobody saw that coming!"
"So he won one round," Stormfly agreed reluctantly. "But did that change everything?"
"I think you, of all dragons, ought to know the answer to that question," Toothless responded. "I remember this next part! Do you?"
They saw Hiccup scratching and rubbing Toothless' neck; the dragon was wriggling with delight at the feeling.
"Why is he doing that?" Sizzle asked.
"I think that's what humans do with animals that they like," Meatlug said. "I've seen them doing similar things to their dogs." Suddenly, the boy reached under Toothless' jaw. A moment's rubbing there, and the dragon grunted and fell to the ground, blissed-out and nearly unconscious.
Hookfang seemed embarrassed. "Did he... did you and he just...?"
"Yeah, he found my 'D' spot," Toothless admitted.
"That's kind of personal when the two of you hadn't even gone on a date yet," Meatlug grinned.
"Maybe all of those early flying trials counted as going on dates," the black dragon thought out loud. "They were mostly disasters, but I think a lot of human dates are disasters, too."
"He's learning all of our secrets from you!" Hookfang realized. "That's how he got so good at fighting us!"
"He definitely got good at it," Stormfly said. "Yes, I do remember this part now." They saw her in the training ring, knocking Astrid's thrown axe aside and sending her running. Then she charged at Hiccup, who was wielding a spiked mace (Stormfly had ruined his axe with her fire the first time they'd met). He dropped the weapon as she approached, moved to get into her blind spot, heard Astrid's battle cry, and hurriedly began scratching the Nadder's neck. After a moment, he found her 'D' spot, and she collapsed in a blissed-out blue heap on the stone floor just before Astrid could strike her.
"Didn't that hurt, hitting the ground like that?" Hookfang asked her.
"It hurt a lot less than my rider's axe would have hurt me," she answered. "Actually, him rubbing me was the first good feeling I'd had since they captured me and stuck me in their training ring. If I could speak his language, I ought to thank him for that. Even though him rubbing me there was kind of personal."
"Do you think he should have bought you dinner first?" Toothless smiled.
"Why not?" the Nadder shot back. "At least he brought you breakfast first!"
Inside the Vikings' Mead Hall, Hiccup took his place at an empty table, the way he'd always done. But things were different now. Vikings converged on him from all over the room, eager to hear his stories and learn his secrets (which he carefully refused to divulge). Astrid found herself alone, and getting angrier at him.
"It's a role reversal," Meatlug decided. "She was accustomed to being the queen bee, and Hiccup was the reject. Now it's the other way around, and she sure doesn't like it!"
"But he wasn't even fighting us!" Hookfang realized. "He hasn't hit a single one of us with a weapon yet. Why do they think he's a great dragon fighter when he isn't fighting?"
"I guess they only care about results," Toothless said. "They knew some basic tricks, like our blind spots, or making noise with their shields. Hiccup just took it to the next level. The other Vikings didn't care how the dragons went down, as long as we went down. After those first few disasters in the ring, Hiccup was undefeated. That made him a hero to the other Vikings."
"What would they have done if they knew he was learning our secrets by making friends with a Night Fury?" Meatlug wondered.
"I don't know," Toothless shrugged. "But I think it might have been very, very bad for him."