"Gebrædan," Toothless said, enunciating slowly. Hiccup was doing his best to concentrate.
"Ge… wait, what?" He was already trying to remember enough Dragonese words to make his head spin. The fact that Toothless was still learning to read and write (it would've helped tenfold if Toothless could write the words out for Hiccup to memorize) didn't help.
"Ge-bræ-dan," Toothless said again patiently. They were sitting cross-legged across from each other on a fur rug by the fire. Hiccup's head was in his hands, and Toothless was doodling in one of Hiccup's sketchbooks, mostly runes that he was trying to write correctly. They'd been at this for hours.
Hiccup sighed. "Gedyngan?" he said experimentally. Toothless looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide.
"…Right?" Hiccup asked apprehensively.
Suddenly, Toothless snorted. Then, he collapsed to the floor in laughter.
"What?!" Hiccup demanded, spreading his hands. "What'd I say?!"
Toothless had an arm holding his stomach, and couldn't speak for his laughter. Hiccup had never seen Toothless giggle before, and under any other circumstances, it would've been amusing to watch, but at that moment Hiccup felt only annoyance.
"N-no," Toothless managed through his laughs, "No, that wasn't…" he burst into giggles again. Hiccup was glaring, although the dragon didn't seem to notice.
"What did I say?!" He asked again angrily.
Toothless rolled himself over to sit up again. His face was red from laughter, and he was fingering his tears in confusion. "Why…why does everything make humans cry?" He asked, and shook his head, still giggling a bit. "Oww, it hurts…" He laughed some more and bent over himself, holding his gut. Hiccup sighed.
"Well then stop, and tell me what I did wrong."
Toothless cleared his throat, trying to stop laughing. "If I told you…" giggle, "If I told you what you just said, you would never let me give you lessons again."
Hiccup frowned. "Wait, what did I say?"
"I'll tell you eventually, when you won't be embarrassed to death, or else that's all you will remember." He smiled. "Now, try it again."
And such were Hiccup's adventures in learning Dragonese. He had a much harder time at it than he would have liked, especially with the verbs. Still, Toothless assured him that he was an incredibly fast learner.
"Not as fast as you," Hiccup had pointed out.
"But I already knew Norse," Toothless told him.
"Debatable."
Toothless chose not to comment, but he did blush slightly. "But you had never heard Dragonese until now. Well, I mean, you have heard it, as much as you have been around me and the other dragons. But you did not know that it was a language until lately."
"Will I be able to understand Dragonese, spoken by a dragon?"
Toothless blinked. "Well," he said seriously, "I hope so." They shared a look, and Hiccup knew Toothless was thinking of whenever he would regain his dragon form. The thought of being able to communicate with his friend, even as a dragon and in another language, warmed Hiccup's heart.
"Still," Hiccup said, "I'd think it'd sound a bit different. Do you think that the other dragons would let me practice with them?"
Toothless looked away at that point, because he knew where this conversation was leading. Hiccup and Astrid had been attempting to get Toothless to go talk with the other dragons for days, now. He'd become something of a hermit in his refusal, and hadn't left the house except to fetch water for over four days. Hiccup thought it was pride. Toothless was as nice, friendly, and fun a dragon as a friend could ask for, but he was still a night fury at heart. Night furies were proud creatures. Toothless was terrified of the other dragons judging him because he was stuck as a human, Hiccup had come to conclude. He was embarrassed.
"Come on, bud," Hiccup persuaded. "This really can't last forever." He laughed. "You've cleaned the whole place like five times, already." And it was true. In his hermitage, Toothless had used his energy around the house to do what would normally be Hiccup's chores, much to Stoick's delight.
Toothless sighed, and looked away still. Hiccup pursed his lips. "Tell you what, we don't even have to go out to the ring," which is where many of the dragons roosted when it wasn't being used, "we'll just go out to the forge, I'll show you how I make saddles, like I promised. That sound good?" He asked.
Toothless was biting his lip, looking adamantly at the ground. Eventually, he sighed heavily, and nodded.
Finally, Hiccup thought.
And so, that was just what they did. They hardly met any dragons on the way, either. Toothless relaxed in the forge quickly, especially because leatherwork did not involve flames. Hiccup showed him how he picked the right leather for the right parts of the saddle – thick, sturdy cuts to fit by the toughest scales of a monstrous nightmare, and thinner, softer straps to wrap around a nadder's soft underbelly. Toothless seemed intrigued by it all, and pleasantly surprised, like he hadn't known how much thought and consideration Hiccup put in to tailoring flying gear to every dragon. He'd attempted to help, but Hiccup wouldn't let him use the leather knives to cut pieces, he couldn't coordinate an awl very well, and after fifteen fingerpricks, needles were out of the question, too. So eventually, Toothless sat quietly arranging the leather pieces in the right way so that Hiccup wouldn't have to shuffle them around as he awled and sewed them together.
Hiccup had been about to deem the afternoon a success and head back home when Fishlegs appeared.
"Hiccup! Hiccup, you have to come see! I taught Meatlug a new trick to do next time we go flying! I can show you over in the-" he stopped as he stepped into the forge and saw the two other boys. "Oh," he said, suddenly a bit sheepish, "Hi, Toothless," He gave a small wave.
Toothless tentatively waved back. Of all the other vikings, Fishlegs had always struck him as intelligent, but scatterbrained in a confusing way. He was never sure what to make of him. Still, the blond smiled a bit wider because the dragon-human had waved at him.
"A new trick, huh? What kind of trick?" Hiccup asked, smiling but not looking up from his work. He didn't notice when Meatlug came buzzing in the door, but Toothless did. He froze, hoping beyond hope that the gronkle wouldn't see him.
"Yeah, yeah, it's awesome! She does this spinny thing, and I can lean to one side so we do sort of a dive thing, but then it's kind of sideways and you have to come see! We were just practicing out with the others!"
Hiccup was looking at Fishlegs and nodding, and saying something, too, but Toothless wasn't listening. Meatlug's eyes had wandered over to him and widened. "Tóðléas?" She asked. Toothless glared, unsure if what he was feeling was more parts anger or fear.
"Alright," Hiccup was saying, getting up and brushing off his knees. "I'll bite. You said everyone was out at the ring?"
"Yeah, we stopped for lunch, and I came to get you. Where have you been, anyway? We go out flying every day, but you haven't-" The bigger boy stopped and blushed when he realized what he'd said. He glanced at Toothless. "O-oh, I mean, uh..."
"It's okay, 'Legs," Hiccup waved the comment away. "You go on ahead, I'll just put this away and we'll be there in a bit."
"O-okay," Fishlegs muttered, "…sorry, Toothless," he tacked on in an undertone, and turned away. Meatlug's eyes continued to follow Toothless until he glared at her hard enough so that she turned away.
"I will not go with them," Toothless growled, still glaring at the gronkle as she buzzed away.
"You will," Hiccup said, just as firmly. He was stacking the saddle bits together in a box so nothing would get lost. When he turned back around, Toothless was right in his face, looking defiant.
"Ic ne béo," Toothless hissed.
"Géa, ðu bist," Hiccup hissed back, and maybe it was because he was mad at himself for teaching Hiccup Dragonese in the first place, Toothless couldn't say anything.
"Cume," Hiccup insisted, somewhat more gentle, and grabbed Toothless' hand and all but dragged him from the smithy. Halfway through the village, people began to stare because Hiccup was hauling a tall dark, glaring boy behind him by the hand like he was an infant.
"You know, if you keep putting up a fight, it'll be even worse when we get there." Toothless didn't say anything, and Hiccup didn't look back. "Fine. I'll just go in there and tell them that you haven't missed them one bit, that you've forgotten about them entirely and-"
"No, don't," Toothless yanked his hand away, and didn't sound so angry as he did resigned, now, and not happy about it. He sighed and scowled. "I do not wish to see them," He said, "but it is not because I did not miss them." He looked down at the ground as they continued across the bridge to the academy. Hiccup knew Toothless was solitary most of the time, but he also knew that he had just as much of a family among the dragons of Berk as Hiccup had among the vikings. He was different, for sure, but he was bound to miss them anyway.
When they got to the academy, Fishlegs was buzzing in the air with Meatlug, and Snotlout rode Hookfang in teasing circles around them. Astrid was still eating, and hanging her legs down into the area where Stormfly was preening.
"Hey, Hiccup!" Fishlegs waved and smiled, and immediately went back to batting away Snotlout, who laughed. Dragons and humans looked up together, and Ruffnut was the one to notice first,
"Woah, he brought his dragon-person with him!" Tuffnut shoved his sister aside to see.
"He has a name, you know," Astrid rolled her eyes, and brushed off her hands so she could haul herself up. She smiled at the two new arrivals and came closer, even as Toothless eyed the dragons around him and glared some more. They either didn't notice or didn't care.
"Tóðléas!" Stormfly trilled, and shook herself before stepping over. A gaggle of terrors heard her and followed.
"Tóðléas! Tóðléas! Tóðléas!" they chorused.
Hiccup was trying to listen to what Astrid was saying, but his new Dragonese skills were distracting him with all the different voices and accents and pitches as poor Toothless was bombarded by his hodgepodge family. It didn't take too long for Astrid to catch on, and she was torn between smiling and cringing as terrors leaped at Toothless' shoulders and arms.
"Ah!" He exclaimed, unused to the feel of small dragon claws pricking at his skin uncomfortably. He withstood the barrage for a moment, before, "Áblinnaþ!" he snapped, and the dragons scattered. They continued to chatter and stamper around him, but at least they weren't on him. Stormfly turned her head to look at him, and trilled something Hiccup could partially understand.
"Swá it is true," she peered down at him, "Tóðléas gehíwede æ vikingr."
"Géa, it is true," Toothless replied, somewhere between glum and pride. Stormfly's spikes all ruffled in a wave of excitement. She called to the other dragons, and they gathered around. Hookfang and Meatlug both ignored whatever their riders wanted and turned to land and crowd around Toothless. Soon it was all dragon chatter and Toothless this and Toothless that, and all the humans were pushed to the back. Fishlegs was happy to watch them and speculate about language, while Snotlout tried to figure out what the big deal was. Hiccup's head was in a whirl, because he was stupidly trying to understand everything at once, and nothing made sense.
He could hear Tóðléas, and vikingr, and "Wilnaþ ðu," which took him a little bit longer to translate – we missed you. He smiled when he understood. Eventually Toothless wrestled his way into the center of the arena and got them all to settle down. The humans watched from around the top while the night fury spoke to the dragons' attention.
Hiccup was distracted from interpreting for a while, because he was seeing a side to Toothless that he'd almost forgotten about. Of course he knew that Toothless was fun, and friendly, and insatiably curious (if not stubborn and proud) but now he was reminded that, in the dragon world, Toothless was a figure of command. Perhaps he was no longer the prince he'd been born as, but even in a slapdash flock like the one found on Berk, he was a voice to heed among dragons, and the authority carried through to Hiccup's ears, even in an alien language he was only beginning to understand. Hiccup realized suddenly that, physically, Toothless' human form was much closer to being a man than a boy. It made him wonder how close or far apart he and his dragon friend actually were, in relative ages.
"Ic álære ðæt ágenspræce tó Hiccup," Toothless said. Hearing his name in Norse suddenly made Hiccup flinch, and every single dragon in the area turned to look at him for a beat. Then, they exploded in chattering, and noises, and words that he sort of understood, and some of them started coming near him. If Hiccup could've seen the surprised face he'd made, he might've understood why Toothless was sniggering at him.
"Cume," Toothless waved him over, down into the arena.
"What'd he say?" Astrid asked as he passed. Hiccup turned a befuddled expression on her.
"I have no idea," He whispered. Astrid looked jealous that he was being invited into this strange, momentous occasion, but she and the rest of the vikings watched keenly (even though they didn't understand a word) while Hiccup shuffled down into the ring and was swarmed by dragons on all sides.
"Ácwiðe!" They said to him, "Ácwiðe!" When Hookfang came up behind him and nudged gently and said it again, he finally realized what they were telling him to do.
"Speak!" the monster encouraged. Hiccup was blushing, because it was bad enough whenever he messed up his pronunciation and embarrassed himself in front of Toothless – what if he messed up in front of all of them?
"Umm…" He looked around at the dragons around him, and paused for a moment when he saw Toothless' encouraging smile. The dragons around him quieted in anticipation. Eventually, he mustered up the courage to say, "…Wesaþ hāl,"
The dragons cheered, and Toothless beamed at him, so he must've gotten the greeting right. Hiccup found himself smiling, too, confused as he was. The terrors climbed on him, and a gronkle bumped him from behind, and after he listened closely to the dragon voices (which were, as he predicted, a bit harder to understand than Toothless' human voice) he began making out the repeated phrase,
"Æðelin speaks! Æðelin speaks!"
"Æðelin biþ Dracareord! Dracareord!"
"Æðelin!" they cheered, "Æðelin!"
Hiccup turned a confused look to Toothless. "I don't understand," he said, hoping the other dragons wouldn't hear and be offended that their new language initiate didn't understand them, "why are they so happy that you're talking with them?" Because Æðelin was Toothless' dragon name, Hiccup knew.
It was Toothless' turn to look sheepish. He smiled despite himself. "Before you came along, in our slavery to the queen, we never used our given names. They have never known me by any other name but Tóðléas," Toothless explained. "Æðelin is you, Gicpa."
Hiccup gave him his best befuddled look. "Me?" He asked incredulously. Toothless grinned at him, eyes twinkling with something that might've been pride.
"Did I never tell you? To the dragons of Berk, you have always been Prince."
A/N: I promise I will not always make these things so foreign language heavy. I'm hoping to slowly whittle away at the alien words as Hiccup learns more Dragonese, until they're all displayed in English, but in italics. In the interim, here are the (really rough) translations for this chapter:
Gebrædan: to cook
Gedyngan: (I know you're all wondering) to defecate
Ic ne béo: I will not. (Or actually, 'I am not' because Old English does not have a future tense)
Géa, ðu bist: Yes, you will. (similar rule to above.)
Cume: Come
Swá: So
Gehíwede æt vikingr: Has transformed (in)to a Viking (human)
Ic álære ðæt ágenspræce tó: I am teaching the (our) language to (Hiccup)
Wesaþ hāl: Hello (to you all)
Æðelin biþ Dracareord: Prince is Dragontongue
I had WAY too much fun with the Old English translations, even though I know I butchered all of it. Translating dead languages feels kinda like making mud pies as a kid – you know it doesn't do anything for you or anyone else but make things messy, but dang is it fun.