Together the girls set off. Though lift and decent were still a bit beyond her, Amara was doing well. It seemed that these silent instructions were learned by the adults as kids when riding their dragons for the first time so had grown used to it being the norm. Having only ever really rode their own, they didn't realise that each dragon requires different riding ability. As Roxanna had explained to Amara, you are the constant but the dragon is always changing. What works for one won't necessarily work for others.
Amara was still trying her hardest, staying at that calm centre while they headed back to the village.
"Everything ok? You're being very quiet. Normally you're chatty and all smiles." Roxanna said as they landed.
"Yeah, it's just that I've seen you curious about things that have been said. After the stew today, I'm sure a lot of your questions come down to cultural things. I... want to help you understand about the culture I was raised in, if you have any questions." Amara said.
"Well I was going to ask but I'm sure it'd be hard for me to relate to them." she admitted. "Like what's a 'snoggletog'? sounds like valentines day."
"Snoggletog is our winter holiday. We have hooks under our eaves where we hang our helmets upside down for Odin to fill with goodies. We exchange presents and set up a 'tree' in the town square out of boards painted green, and decorate it." She explained with a smile. "We also decorate our houses, and everyone puts their disputes aside to be kind and friendly to each other."
"So basically it's christmas." Roxanna said, more to herself.
Amara smiled at Roxanna's understanding, though she didn't know what 'Christmas' was. "Did you have any other questions?"
"Erm... just one. Why does your dad have such a ridiculous name? I mean really. He's got the same name as an involuntary movement of thediaphragm that most find irritating, or where I'm from it's another word for a small unintended mistake that needs correcting." she asked.
"There are two traditions when it comes to names for Vikings. Either strong, scary names that will make the monsters afraid to touch the child for fear of being struck down by the gods... most are named this way. But it's also tradition to call the runt of the litter, or one born early, 'hiccup'. Dad was born 2 moons earlier than babies usually are, according to stories told by grandmother and Dad, so..." She shrugged.
"Poor kid. But guess it's better than being disowned." she mused.
"Dad actually beat the odds...most human 'hiccups' don't survive infancy. Dad survived, and has actually been the one who first 'trained' a dragon, when he met Toothless back when he was my age." She told her softly.
"Yeah, you said. I can relate. I wasn't exactly wanted as a baby because I'm a girl. My parents put me in an orphanage to 'teach me a lesson'. All it taught me was that adults lie and family means nothing if you aren't useful to them." She said in a matter of fact tone.
"Family sticks together here... to us... family means everything." She said quietly, getting off Meatlug and thanking Fishlegs for letting them borrow her that day. Fishlegs was just happy to see her back. "Who were you going to go see, Roxanna?"
"Gobber said someone called 'Gothi' wanted to see me. Want to come with? I'm sure bane will carry us both." She offered, not really sure where this person lived.
"OH! Gothi's really nice...most people in Berk can't understand her... at most, it's me and Gobber who best interpret the drawings she uses to communicate. I haven't visited her in a while, I probably should. Just let me grab something from my house... she can't usually make it to the great hall for Snoggletog, so we've taken to bringing her Snoggletog presents early." She said, running to her room and grabbing a bundle, wrapped up brightly. "Ok, set... since she lives so high up, even with 12 Terrible Terrors, it's tough to stay warm... I made her a new winter blanket."
"Alright. We set then?" She asked as Amara got on behind her. "You'll have to direct me."
She nodded, smiling and directing Roxanna to the Great Hall, holding on to Roxanna's shoulders. "Ok, there's a tall rock spire above... we're facing towards the west, so you may be able to see it's shadow. Gothi's hut is at the top."
"Ok, up we go." She said, urging bane up. He took off like a dream, his wings lifting them effortlessly, flapping elegantly like a butterfly, his tail streaming out behind like the tail of a kite. It didn't take too long before Gothi's hut was in sight.
Amara gently guided Roxanna to bring Bane in for a landing on the platform around the hut itself, where Gothi was enjoying some end of the day sunlight. "Good evening, Gothi. I'm sorry I haven't been to see you myself lately." She said softly. "I brought you my gift for this year's Snoggletog. And the Village's guests, Roxanna and her Deathsong, Beau Bane, have gotten your message to come see you." She said, giving Gothi her gift.
Roxanna got down from bane and bowed politely. "Pleasure to meet you." She said.
Gothi gasped, seeing the ring again, and started to draw. "She asks if she could see your ring." Amara read off after noticing what the old woman had drawn.
Roxanna furrowed her brow but took it off and held it out.
Gothi reached out slowly. When her fingers touched the ring, there was a strange burst of energy, the likes that Amara had never even heard of. The ring and everyone there was fine when it dissipated, and Gothi looked shocked before starting to speak at a speed that made it tough for Amara to understand, with the same accent as Roxanna. Roxanna, however, would understand her perfectly. "I knew that was the Black family ring... the specific one that was stolen from me when I was cursed and banished here after my husband died! What is your real name, girl? I can hear fine, despite my age, you can whisper it to me if you don't want the Chief's daughter to know... I know she has The Gift, but I couldn't very well teach her."
"...Jo... Joanna... how did you know about my family? Who are you?" She asked, feeling a bit frightened. Normally her family weren't greeted with kindness, despite the fact her family was viewed as royalty in her world.
"I've probably been removed from the Tapestry, since I married a Muggleborn...but my name was Gothella Black." She told the girl in a whisper.
"... never heard of you but we don't speak of 'traitors'." Jo replied simply though it was true.
"It was the same in my time. I fell in love with a Muggleborn. I always believed the Blacks could be better than the pureblood mania, even back in my day." She said softly. "For a dragon to trust you, you must have a much kinder heart than most of our pureblood manic family, yes?" She said with a smile. "I was banished back through time, and washed up on Berk, cursed to be mute, after my husband died."
"I don't know about kind. I just use what I can to help myself. Though I guess I try not to harm other things in the process. Nobody looks out for me except for Bane, and I care for nobody but him." She said.
"Compared to others of our line, that is kind." she said softly. "Keep him close, but try to make friends here. Young Amara looks up to you, Joanna. Trust in her, even if no other humans. If you can find a way to teach her about the Gift, do so... I didn't get to finish my schooling, so I can't teach her... it's been so long since I did magic."She sighed, "Except for healing potions and divination to help the villagers, that is."
"If mother found out I was being nice to a muggle then I doubt I'll finish my schooling either." She said. "Besides. Its one thing having it and another thing using it. Not all who have it are capable and not all who are capable have it." She explained. "Besides, she's not interested." She added.
"Amara was very talented in her early schooling with me... I have taught all children born here to make simple curative potions... and she's known to be polite. But still... having friends on Berk is better than not having them. Promise me you'll try? It's not like news of me will get back to the Blacks, I don't see how you making friends with Amara would. The other youths her age distance themselves from her, as she's the only one to not have her own dragon yet."Gothi asked.
"Yeah, what is that about?" Jo asked curiously. "It's like everyone but her has one."
"She hasn't been drawn to any eggs laid from when she was 5-10 years old...and none of the dragons have nested during their winter holiday in 5 years. I saw something strange in my gazing crystal...that could only be translated as 'the one to travel and mend the rift between Wizards, and Dragons shall return the Voice of Thunder to Berk'. But since another dragon the Chief's father had, we haven't even seen Thunderdrums near the island."
"You know those things seldom work, right?" She asked sceptical. "Besides, fate and dragons don't mix. They turn up when they want, not because something told them to."
"Wild Dragons, yes...but trained Dragons will consider their human the center of their territory. Consider it, hmm?" Gothi said softly.
"We'll see." She replied, giving the same answer her parents had used a lot that usually meant 'no'. Despite being put in an orphanage, Jo's birth family had visited her once a year... not that the muggles running the place knew about this. So she was very much aware of the 'we'll see' notion.
Gothi smiled, shaking her head. "Go on...it's getting late, and the two of you should be inside before tonight's Freeze."
"Sure. Well, pleasure to meet you." She said, getting back onto Bane and waiting for Amara.
"Same, don't be a stranger." Gothi said, waving as Amara climbed up behind Roxanna.
Roxanna just waved before turning bane back and setting off back down with him. Now it was easier to see the trust between her and the deathsong. They plummeted towards the earth, Roxanna only aiming bane to where she wanted to be. It was entirely down to him how he got there. As they got dangerously close and, as she could see, Amara would naturally be feeling panicky, bane spread his wings and landed delicately. Roxanna had felt Amara's grip on her. "You ok?" She asked.
"Yeah... the dive is a bit scarier to ride along on when you can see." She said shakily, smiling softly at Roxanna. "Are there any hot meals from your homeland we have the ingredients to make?" She asked, looking around the house and food storage and telling Roxanna what they had to work with.
"Not really. I'm kind of a fussy eater in that respect. When I was I was taken back by my parents, they used recipes handed down through the family but they're revolting. But when I'm at school and can eat what I want, I don't really feel up to trying anything new. I'm not particularly fond of sweets either." She said.
"I meant of the ingredients we have... are there any dishes you enjoy that I'd be able to make with you instructing me on the steps?" She said softly. "I know you weren't a fan of the stew... we don't have much for a thickening agent besides the milk, and that's what we use... though I don't know what my mother puts in her Yaknog to make the yak milk in it go lumpy the way it does."
"Just make whatever you normally would. I'll try anything." She said.
Amara shrugged, getting some fixings for a different meal for the humans, and the usual meals for the dragons, before heading home.
Bane walked happily beside them, whistling a tune he'd learned from listening to the local birds.
"He really is talented." She noticed as they walked inside to start on dinner.
"He just likes showing off... you enjoy being the centre of attention, don't you boy?" She asked him. Bane purred loudly, a big goofy smile on his face.
Amara giggled. "That's something he and Toothless have in common, then. That Night Fury will shoot down his own Plasma Blasts, just for a chance at a rubdown, or a piece of bread."
"Yeah. It seems to be a trait of the smarter ones." She smiled.
Amara smiled softly. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it?". After the dragons were fed and dinner for the humans was started, she smiled at her father when he and Toothless came in. "Evening, Dad. Dinner's almost ready." She said, tending to the meal.
"Great, we're starving, right buddy?" He asked the black dragon who nodded furiously.
"Yeah, I know. Your fish are all set in your basket, Toothless." The Night Fury let out a very cute cooing purr-like sound, nuzzling the girl before digging in to his dinner.
"So, you had fun today?" He asked.
"Yeah. I worked my best at learning from everything Roxanna taught me, and then we helped Grandmother rescue her Hobblegrunt from a Smothering Smokebreath nest. It's in a cave among the cliffs. I'd thought you'd relocated all the Smokebreaths on Berk before you and Mum wed, though."
"Well just because you move dragons doesn't mean that they'll stay where you put them." He reasoned.
"True... I just hope they don't start stealing from the town again, like you said they did before." Amara said.
"Well this time we're aware of them. If they become a nuisance then we'll move them again." He reassured her.
She nodded. "Alright, Dad. Still, I thought you should know. Roxanna also helped me bring Gothi her Snoggletog gift... I've been working on ones for you, Mum, Stormfly and Toothless, too. I finished Grandmother's and Cloudjumpers a week ago."
"I'm sure she'll appreciate it." He smiled.
Amara nodded. "I think I'll stay in for a few days to finish working on the presents... after that, Snoggletog preparations will be in full swing. Can you help me keep an eye on Mum, Dad? We have to TRY to keep her away from kitchens, or we'll have to worry about her Yaknog again."
"Yeah, I can try. You know how strong willed she is but I'll try." He said, running a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, I know... and I know Mum means well, but... well..." Toothless caught on and made a 'yuck' face as well. "Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it."
"No problem kiddo." He smiled.
She smiled back, checking the meal and smiling at finding it finally ready. She served it up and settled in with everyone to eat dinner.
Roxanna sat where she had done before, dismissing bane so he could eat his dinner too.
Amara smiled, watching as Toothless conversed with Bane while the others finished mimicking toothless's way of 'talking' to converse with him.
Amara giggled, pointing this out to her father, who laughed. "Seems you finally found a dragon to talk to who's as clever as you, huh, Bud?" Toothless just wagged his tail wing in answer.
"He must get lonely occasionally without others of his kind around. Even with such an enriched environment." Roxanna said.
"Yeah, he does. We keep going out looking for more Night Furies when we have time, but... well, he shares chiefing duties with me. Among the members of the village, the humans see me as their Chief... but ever since Toothless defeated a Bewilderbeast in combat, he's become the chief to the dragons... so we don't have much time to search."Hiccup said.
"Seriously? They migrate through our country twice a year, taking seven to thirteen days to do so. It's manic for everyone, especially when trying to keep... people from seeing them." Roxanna chose her words carefully, deciding against using the word 'muggle' as this would draw more questions.
"Yeah, seriously. Astrid and I were married at 21, I met Toothless when I was 15. We had Amara a year after our wedding... And since I met Toothless, we've NEVER come across another Night Fury." Hiccup said sadly.
"Poor guy must have gotten separated from his pod as a youngster. They don't tend to enjoy cold weather but love mud and bogs. They cover themselves in mud and sunbathe while they sleep during the day, then fly and hunt and eat at night. All travelling is done at night." She said, talking more to herself.
"I still feel bad for him... I'd be willing to let him have more freedom. One Snoggletog, I actually made him a new tail that would have the other side change to mimic the positioning of his remaining natural one. But after he used it to go get my old helmet... he destroyed it. I made a new one, but he won't even let me put it on him... but I think the fact that he took off for so long to find it that I was afraid I'd never see him again may have something to do with it." Hiccup said.
"Sounds reasonable." She agreed.
Hiccup nodded, finishing his dinner and walking over to Toothless. "Since I met him, and he showed me how everything we 'knew' about Dragons was wrong...he's been my best friend... and yet more. He gave me my purpose... even though I'm Chief of Berk... I want to find out everything I can about dragons. But most of all... I want to help him not be so lonely. If we could even find another group of Night Furies to stay here during the summer on migration, as you said..." He trailed off, pressing his forehead to the black dragon's forehead, who cooed.
"I don't know... I'd get in so much trouble." Roxanna said, shaking her head. Bane tilted his head and started hissing like a snake. Surprisingly, Roxanna started hissing back. They hissed at one another for a while before Roxanna sighed, "We'll see."
"You'd...help us find some?" Hiccup asked, his eyes wide. "Can you tell us anything more about their habits in the wild? Are they hostile to certain other species of dragons, for example."
"If I could get home then I'd take you to see them, that's no problem at all. They seem to be hostile towards everything though. Like I said before, dragons eat people. We're part of their natural food chain after all." She shrugged. "Though they avoid fighting wherever possible which explains their nocturnal behaviour."
"Dragons seem to be hostile towards anything they view as a threat to them... I mean, we used to have problems with a dragon we call a Flightmare until we diverted a stream away from the village that had a specific kind of algae that it feeds on. The algae glows on nights when Arandil's Fire lights the night sky, and eating it is what makes the dragon glow... it also shoots a paralysing mist instead of fire." Hiccup saidin explanation, petting Toothless' head. "Maybe if you take him with you when you go to find them, he can help diffuse any aggression?"
"If they recognise him as one of their own. He might look the part but he doesn't smell it or act it. But I guess it'd be worth a shot." She mused.
"He's really smart... I'm sure that if you teach him about how others of his kind behave, he can learn." Hiccup said, smiling. "I didn't try to actively change him... one thing he's ALWAYS done is use his flame on the place he's going to sleep before curling up there."
"I'm not sure I can teach him. I mean, how do you teach a dragon anyway?" She said, shaking her head. She was a Black so was very aware of how much people expected of her, but she wasn't like her family. Controlling spells, potions and incantations flicked through her mind on ways she could change his behaviour but she wasn't stupid or selfish. The ones that wouldn't harm the dragon wouldn't work because of the dragon's natural resistance to magic, and the stronger ones would damage him beyond repair. Any other family member would have gone for the pain route but Roxanna decided strongly against it.
"Like we both know, he's very smart... he's learned to understand our speech, and he understands what we say. Couldn't you teach him like you might teach a human who is unable to read?" Hiccup suggested.
Roxanna didn't look amused. "Like before, I said I can try. You'll have to either take that or leave it." She said bluntly. It felt like talking to her uncle again and she was half expecting him to start screaming at her to go to her 'room', her 'room' being a shed at the end of the long narrow bracken filled back garden.
"I understand... you seemed confused on how to achieve the attempt, so I was making a suggestion, that's all." He said with a kind smile. "Sleep well, Roxanna." Hiccup said, rubbing Toothless' head and heading up to bed.
"Good night." She replied, feeling a little bit confused. Roxanna helped clean up the plates and stuff.
"Is our way of co-operation here on Berk so different from what you're used to, Roxanna?" Amara asked as they washed the dishes together.
"I'm used to having me myself and I to rely on. Being... from my family, people look at you as royalty so expectation are high." She shrugged.
She nodded. "That sounds rough...but here, you can rely on us, too. You just have to ask if you need help."
"Why would I rely on people I don't know? And how could you expect me to?" She asked rhetorically.
Amara shrugged, recognizing rhetorical questions from when she was younger.
Roxanna shook her head, "It takes time to teach any thing anything. People, dogs, owls, dragons, they're all the same."
"Yeah, but they can learn. And I think Toothless has confidence in you." She said, smiling as the black dragon nudged Roxanna's free hand with a gentle coo.
"I've no confidence in them. Don't get me wrong, I understand them and that's why I have no trouble riding them, but I don't trust them. I've been teaching you to guide them and encourage them to do what you want. The only trust involved is that they'll walk or fly but that's more to do with instincts." She said.
"You don't consider Bane your friend?" She asked in surprise. "Maybe that's the problem people where you're from have with dragons? We treat our Dragons as friends and family members... in return, they protect us and help us. Dad found that dragons have an instinct to protect those they care for."
"We get eaten. What part of that don't you get? They don't eat our sheep or cows, but people are a delicacy." She frowned. "Dragons naturally care for their own, not people."
"It's not like that here... I've never seen dragons be aggressive towards people as if hunting them before." Amara explained. "Even most wild dragons we know about eat sheep, chickens, or fish. There's the rare one that eats plants or algae, but mostly it's the former three." She said softly. "I find it hard to imagine dragons having a taste for human flesh... even when we fought them in the past, when they killed us, they never ate us... just left the bodies, according to stories by the other villagers older than Mum and Dad's generation."
"Dragons are huge where I'm from. They're more likely to eat a whale than bother with a few small fish or chicken." She shrugged.
"We have a few massive species, who do tend to eat more than other kinds, but not many. I guess it's something I'd have to see to understand." She said softly.
"Hopefully not first hand experience." Roxanna mused.
Amara shrugged. "Maybe it's to do with environment or something, who knows? But we should head to bed... after the first big freeze of the season, the dragons that breed start nesting, and we start preparations for Snoggletog... if you and Bane are gonna take part, you'll each need helmets forged."
"... we'll see. Goodnight Amara." She said, heading up to bed, Bane following close behind.
When they made it to bed, they found Toothless had gone to every sleeping platform to warm it up so the rooms were heated through the freeze before spending the night with his own rider.
