"Once you have tasted flight,
you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."
In Which Toothless Learns his ABCs
Hiccup's every day was spent with Toothless, and every day he worked with his companion. 'Work' probably wasn't the right word, though, as he enjoyed every minute of it, even when it took some effort. But neither boy nor dragon had ever had any contact with the other species. However pleasant, it was a long process.
They started at the bottom. Hiccup would brandish a fish and call the dragon as he ran in for food. If he was farther away, Hiccup would whistle. Toothless grasped the concept almost immediately and seemed to enjoy the pets and praise as much as the fish he received. One day, Hiccup prepared for the day's hike and whistled for Toothless, who had wandered into the underbrush to chase small animals. Toothless wasn't even hungry, but bounded to Hiccup's side. The dragon didn't beg for fish, just leapt ahead and looked back at Hiccup was a gummy, expectant gape. The Viking was thrilled. Toothless had learned 'come'. When he took the time to notice, he realized that the dragon probably recognized other words, too. Easy concepts, like 'yes' and 'no', 'fish' and 'down'. Soon after the incident with trader Johann, he added 'stay' and 'quiet'.
Hiccup, too, learned what he thought of as 'dragon words'. Different postures and expressions and dragonish sounds that Toothless used to communicate. Slitted pupils not only signaled negative emotions like fear and anger, but could also show general attention or focus. So far as he could tell, rounded pupils were always positive, relaxed emotions. Sounds were pretty self-explanatory- bubbling sounds were good, jagged sounds were bad- but nuances of body language sometimes tripped him up. A dip of the head could mean different things depending on the position of the wings or a flick of the tail.
Hiccup soaked it all up like a sponge. Once, at the evening fire while he finished the day's mapping in his newly Nightfury intensive sketchbook, he felt Toothless's gaze on him. The dragon's lids were droopy with sleep, but his eyes held something like gentle recognition. When Hiccup looked up he cooed and shuffled his folded wings. The Viking wasn't sure if he had ever witnessed anything so content as that little dragon as he dozed off.
It only got easier as the two became more familiar with each other. Hiccup hadn't thought it possible, but Toothless became more expressive. He got bigger, slept less after he ate, and his personality filled out with the rest of him. Some habits he shared with other dragons: the sand grass he loved to roll in was universally adored by any dragon Hiccup approached, but the creature had quirks like any other individual. He had no patience for Terrible Terrors. The little dragons would still approach Hiccup for scraps, and some would have the audacity to try and steal the Nightfury's fish. Toothless had never really breathed fire, so Hiccup was puzzled when he spent most of an afternoon shooting small bundles of sparks from high in his throat. Not until the next evening did he realize- Toothless had worked out how to prematurely ignite the Terror's gas when they tried to breathe fire, but needed a small, accurate blast to pull it off. He'd been practicing.
The young Fury wasted no time in establishing himself as the terror of Terrors.
It wasn't long after Johann left that the two began a new game. Toothless became more coordinated and lighter on his feet with each passing day, so Hiccup started to toss his food so he'd jump after it or catch it in the air. Each time he would stand a little farther away, throw it just a bit harder. The dragon slowly matched him with more spectacular catches- if a tree trunk or rock wasn't close enough to ricochet off or leap from, he'd use a quick wingbeat or two to extend his jump and catch his fish as far from the ground as possible.
One morning Toothless made an extended leap from the top of a small rock outcrop, caught his fish clean, and ended his fifty foot glide to the ground with a trotting landing so smooth he might have been born doing it.
"Yeah!" Hiccup whooped and punched the sky.
He clambered down the outcrop to meet the equally giddy dragon with a wide grin. Toothless bounded about the sandy clearing like an excited puppy, wings half open and tongue lolling. When Hiccup reached the ground he bolted straight up to the Viking and tipped back on his haunches. He could almost look Hiccup in the eyes when he sat on the base of his tail and he stared intently, pupils narrowed for a moment in fierce concentration. Hiccup was about to verbally question him when his eyes rounded again and the dragon, with careful, deliberate movements, tugged his lips back in a gummy, toothless smile.
The boy first huffed in breathless disbelief, then threw a wild hug around his friend's neck when he found himself unable to control his laughter. They went fishing for cod that evening to celebrate.
Toothless was diligent in his practice after that. When Hiccup was busy catching the ever larger quota of fish needed to keep the fledgling fed, Toothless would scamper about practicing his glides, or perch on a tree branch and rapidly beat his wings. While Hiccup looked out over the shoreline as he mapped, the dragon was content to face into the wind with his wings held aloft and fins spread to their widest. In a week he cleared the treetops and flew shaky loops around Hiccup, chirping with exuberance whenever he made a close pass. Days later he started flights out to sea, would weave around a sea stack or two before he returned.
It filled Hiccup with a nervous energy. Not that he was worried about Toothless getting into trouble- no other dragons he met in the sky ever showed hostility, and though sea eagles had scolded him more than once the birds knew to keep their distance from even a small dragon. No, it was the Nightfury himself that worried him. After all, what dragon would stay wedded to the ground when the wider world was within reach?
He couldn't help but catch on to his companion's excitement and the free flight of a Nightfury was magnificent indeed. But too often Hiccup looked away, a feeling akin to grief tight in his chest. He only added the most basic anatomical depictions of Toothless's flight to his sketchbook.
The dragon caught his mood, of course, and fussed over the little Viking at every opportunity. Hiccup was too distant to catch the concerned edge to the overtures, but didn't turn down the opportunity to tussle with the dragon while he still could. They even invented a new game. In the evening, Hiccup found a cliff and used a length of scrap leather to hurl bits of fish as far and fast as he could. Toothless would hover above him like a leaf on the ocean wind and dive to snap them up. It was Hiccup who decided that the dragon had it too easy. He started throwing rocks and earth clots instead, and it took several minutes for a baffled Toothless to understand he was to shoot the targets out of the air as he dove, not catch them.
There was always the little voice in his mind- Perfect, I'm training him up to attack the village when he flies- but Toothless was so determined to master the feat that Hiccup didn't have the heart to deny him. And the dragon did need practice. He only hit once or twice in a dozen tries, which frustrated him to no end. The Viking found it endearing.
Despite Hiccup's silent fear, those hours were forever engraved in his mind as laughter and the colors of sunsets. They were pleasant evenings. By far the finest was the night he wrote:
"Toothless caught his first prey. He is now a true hunter. It was only a rabbit, but it beats the baitfish he's managed to splash out of the shallows. It happened unexpectedly. We were on the day's hike, Toothless was in the air when I spooked a rabbit.
"The rabbit fled across a meadow. Out of the sky came a black streak- I've never seen anything drop so fast. Toothless shot his plasma like in evening target shooting. He missed, but slowed himself with a great backwatering of wings and seized his stunned prey. For all his chasing them, he'd never caught one and was immensely pleased with himself. I was sure that was it. That he'd realize he didn't need me to hunt for him and go wild. Instead he winged to me so fast he tripped over the landing, and gave me his (now slimed with dragon spit) rabbit. He was grinning and wiggling in his excitement, and wouldn't leave me alone until I cooked and eaten as much of the rabbit as I could. He didn't seem interested in eating any of it himself.
"Maybe he just likes fish more. Or maybe he'll stick around even after he can hunt for himself."
~Training montage~ And if Hiccup thinks he has abandonment issues now…
I've received some questions as to where this fic is going. I wanted something cute and pressure free to distract from depressing world events, but I've covered most of the endearing little scenes I set out to. Still, this story could be fun. And depressing world events just keep happening. So I may as well finish a parallel of the HTTYD arc, yeah?
Ergo! We are about halfway to the end. Little less. Direct references to My Side of the Mountain will dwindle. I'll squeeze in what I can in, and there will still be thematic parallels, but Sam is a passive protagonist. His climax sort of happens to him. But Hiccup? This kid has the reins, and a Nightfury. Hiccup will happen to his climax if it is the last thing I do. The divergence is coming.
Thanks for reading dear internet equivalents of ships in the night!
Many ascribe today's quote to Leonardo da Vinci- however, no one can actually trace it back to him. So, somewhere along the line, someone thought it would sound better coming from da Vinci. I'm attributing it to anonymous.