A/N: So... I planned for there to just be a single final chapter, but that one chapter became too long for me to justify making everyone read it all in one go, so there will be at least one more chapter besides this one to tie everything to a close! (Alekt got two POV chapters in a row so its fine)
I also re-read all 3 installations of Nightfall/Stormfall/Freefall and came to a decision that all the chapters before now would have been after the events of Nightfall, but before Stormfall. Originally, I had been writing this story before Stormfall ever began, and chapters of this were being released around the same time that Stormfall was about halfway through being written and released, so I hadn't known how Stormfall would end.
As I re-read and thought about it, I didn't think that Hiccup and Toothless would have been as willing to get to know and trust Alekt & Company after dealing with Drago Bludvist, and then Grimmel after that. I think they would have been far too distrustful of humans to experience Alekt the way I had written, much less make this chapter possible. If they had made friends before those events but after meeting Astrid, however, it may have been possible.
That said, though I'm sure you'll figure out from reading, this chapter is set several years after the closing of Freefall. As far as I'm concerned or aware, at least by the time this chapter takes place, I wrote it on the assumption that Toothless and Hiccup did not settle down with a Night/Lightfury mate such as Shiver and haven't had little Nightlight babies, but whose to say really if they didn't or that they won't after they're done with this adventure?
Anyway, enjoy!
Learning from the Masters
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction
Based off Le'Letha's "Nightfall"
Stubbornly, human soft-paws spread paper out beneath him, pinning top corners beneath them and bottom corners beneath bent back legs within the shadow of a rocky overhang. Hiccup chatters soft complaints of go-away frustration bad quiet settle you no not-here! at the sea wind that tries to sweep in and take his paper with greedy, unseen claws, sheltering it under his weight and made-wings that the wind tugs at with just as much jealous force, wanting to pull him too.
Toothless snorts as he sidles alongside his Hiccup-beloved and plants himself down between cave-entrance and his dragon-boy with an audible thwump, mantling his wings out as a wind-breaker and yowls out go go you me protect yes wind go!
The wind does not listen - as wind does - but it cannot break past Toothless's outstretched wings and howls greedy! as it goes around them instead.
Hiccup purrs and trills gratitude yes good Toothless-heart-of-mine good you yes stay please. Toothless blinks back at him fondness and chirrups yes of-course me good me protect yes ofcourse.
Now that the wind no longer snaps and claws to take his papers, Hiccup can relax some and look over them with a proper eye, tracing lines with his fingers and ideas with his mind. Many seasons had passed them by since they had found someone who was a little bit Like Hiccup but not like Toothless - a human born to the wrong skin, only a crow instead of that of a dragon.
They had faced many things since then, born bright scars fighting the Knotted Man who foamed in the mind, become Alphas for a time in the impossible place under the sea and stone that knew no sky, and they had found others that were Like Them both but in different colors like the white Shiver who was now Alpha of her flock and Black Patch who had been Alpha before her.
Many, many seasons had come and gone since those things as well, and both dragon and dragon-feral had flown to new and far-away places, had left behind many of their fears as wounds healed and scarred and even those scars had faded, and though Hiccup was and always would be a dragon in heart and ever a little bit more in body when he could find the time and the inspiration to make his scale-skins all the better for himself, there were times where he even allowed himself to get near to some humans, like the ones who always - always - welcomed him happily to the island of Buh-rrrKK where he was first born before Cloudjumper-mate-of-mother had stolen him away to the Nest where he belonged.
Even seasons and seasons learning to trust a select few humans, Hiccup will never fully drop his guard among them, and he will never stop breaking traps and fighting Vikings who hurt dragons, but to trust any of them is better than to trust none at all, when those humans keep dragons safe as well or make friends with them.
Today they are hunting for pfikingr - but they are not hunting them for the usual reasons of saving their flock-kin from biting traps and cages or only because they happen to live in the same place as friendly dragon-cousins who once belonged to the sickbadwrong Queen Eater-of-Dragons.
Today they are hunting horizons that will take them to pfikingr nests they have never been to and never seen, and while there is frustration in this hunt, Hiccup knows they are on the right trail even if it takes many stops and checking and imagining.
Hiccup has a hard time reading maps, and for a long time he would not have recognized them as anything more than shapes of lines and color drawn with magic that did not scuff and rub away under the brush of paws.
The map that had been drawn just-for-them many seasons ago had made more sense to him than most maps, at least, but for a time, they had been carefully stored away and forgotten in the safety of their just-for-us nest. Unfortunately, paper has a hard time surviving in a dragon nest, since it burns so easily with fires all around, so even though he had hidden it to the best of his ability, not all of the map E-e-kTT had drawn for him survived.
Hiccup had shrieked outrage! when the paper had first been partially destroyed by too-nosy hatchlings that had gotten into his things as hatchlings sometimes do, whining noises of sad no no gone this ruined lost mourning angry lost gone! at the parts that could not be recovered from the tearing-apart and burning, and had sighed resignation frustrated lost this special needed sad me sad even as he lightly petted the noses and heads of peeping, remorseful hatchlings who crooned apologies at him.
He said back to them sorry sorry not-mad forgive-you didn't-know but scolded upset all the same at his nest and his things this-and-these mine ours us out no stay-away not-for-you sad me sad this ours no thief no!
Hiccup was used to his drawings being burnt away by his nest-mates, whether they were drawn on paper or stone. Most of the time he simply shrugged it away, given new blank spaces to draw more to replace the old, only for those to be washed or rubbed away or flamed and scorched for him to do it all over again.
He had been offered paper drawings from pfikingr before by Talking Fish and had refused - he knows these things happen, he knows that dragons burn paper easily - but this paper he had kept only because E-e-kTT and his flock were leaving the burnt island and going somewhere far, far away, and this paper was a way to find them again if he wished.
He had not thought he would fly to find him again, but he had kept it hidden away as a just-in-case thing, a maybe-will-do, if he ever found the motivation to do so.
It is not a thing that he and Toothless do often or almost at all, to fly places so they can see humans again. Mostly, they only go to old places because dragons are there, but maybe, just a little bit, and little by little, they will sometimes visit Buh-rrrrKK because the pfikingr She Uh StrrrrTT and the red-furred Alpha former-mate-of-mother St-t-t-t-t-t-KK are there.
That was not always so, but season after season, they think that it is maybe not so bad to have humans that are important as far-away dragon cousins who are friendly to them are important.
They are still ever-cautious, always the wild and free dragons they know themselves to be in their hearts, and they will not stay to nest forever in Buh-rrrrKK as the St-t-t-t-t-KK wants them to, but they are maybe a little more confident there, now, and a little more comfortable, and can visit sometimes without being afraid even when those few humans want to get close to them and touch them, but only ever on Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss's terms.
It helps, a little, that they are both accepted as dragons there. All the pfikingr of Buh-rrrKK know this now. No one tries to tell them otherwise. Some will even protest loudly for them against stranger-humans who come to visit the island and do not know the two-who-are-one. The two loud and crazy and unpredictable ones whose name sounds are Rr-uhf and Tt-uhf protest very loudly for them despite that Hiccup and Toothless avoid them with very much prejudice whenever they can.
It helps even more when those humans not only accept him and Toothless for the dragons they already are, but when they try to help Hiccup look even more of a dragon than he already is.
No loose, wild fur falls in his face now, tangled and unkempt and auburn-brown.
Hiccup knows already that humans change their skins easily by wearing ones they took from prey-things and stitching them together with clever ties and cloth and metal. Sometimes humans change color when they are scared or upset, going pale. But then, one day he learned that they can also change the color of their fur with magic.
There are many things humans can do and make and think of that he cannot understand. Even if he was born human, he was raised as a dragon. He can conceptualize things that other dragons cannot, but there are still yet more things that even being closer to some humans over the seasons, he still either cannot comprehend or has not yet figured out the trick to.
He remembers one of those tricks was to change the color of fur using water-like-paints but not-exactly-paints. He still remembers a small holding-thing of black liquid that stayed even after he washed it away, coloring his skin in gray spots like bruises beneath flesh but without the aches and pains or injuries of bruises. He had whistled in wonder, unable to make the spots go away no matter how much he dipped them in water and tried to rub the spots off.
Naturally, of course, he had to coat all of his soft-paws in it, making them not-quite-black but dark gray for a time, delighted in his change of colors. The ashy color had remained on his soft-paws for days, but eventually faded away just like bruises that heal, leaving him disappointed and without more black-water-like-paint.
Uh StrrrrTT had called this magic inK, and when Rr-uhf and Tt-uhf said something to her in their human words, Uh StrrrrT had suddenly lit up with a gasp of shock and excitement and cast him cautious but hopeful glances with an idea playing behind her eyes, her movements as she stood speaking urgent! and her motions and words at the two-who-look-alike projecting praise.
The two seemed just as baffled as Hiccup and Toothless were, even if they were less wary than the two black dragons, but curiosity led Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss to follow Uh StrrrTT when she motioned excitedly for them to follow her somewhere else.
She soon invited Hiccup to sit somewhere where no others would come through and bother them, and she promised to use the magic that was the inK to make Hiccup more like-a-dragon-like-Toothless if he would hold very, very still for her and let her touch his fur.
He was wary, but anything that would make him look more like the dragon he was inside was a welcome magic, even if it was pfikingr magic.
So he had sat almost-unmoving like a statue, while his Toothless-best-love watched him and watched Uh StrrrrTT most of all, even though he wanted to squirm and shudder away more than once, but when Toothless asked if he wanted the pfikingr She scared away from him, Hiccup squared his shoulders a bit determined and refused him no no me fine safe calm confident easy love uneasy-still safe-still.
Uh StrrrTT took a long time to undo his tangled fur very carefully with a wooden thing with many long, narrow teeth, pulling out knots and trying not to pull his fur too much as she did so and wincing apology when it couldn't be avoided until all his fur was flat and smooth and could be brushed through cleanly without snagging on even the smallest fur-untangling tooth.
She used her paws to cover all his fur in ink and then wash it out with water so that much of it turned the water murky black, and when that was done, she pulled his fur back away from his face and tied it very cleverly into different broad stripes all along his head, as pfikingr were known to do with their fur.
When Uh StrrrrTT was done and held up a reflective thing for him to look into, he gasped aloud at himself and gingerly traced his fingers over his own reflection, turning his head this way and that. His fur which had always been brown was now as black as Toothless's own scales, and the way Uh StrrrrTT had cleverly tied his fur made it look just the same as Toothless's ear-flaps.
When he was done staring wide-eyed in fascination, he whooped and yowled aloud in delight, spinning around in place lolling his tongue in a dragon's smile and shrieking Look! Look! Look-at-me! Excitement joy elation good me dragon better dragon yes look just-like-you look-at-me Toothless-love joy delight happy happy happy me me look like-you like-you!
Toothless celebrated along with him, the two dancing a dragon's dance around each other and singing you me we us happy joy elation yes us good best better dragon yes love-you love-you silly heart-of-mine yes best dragon us we you me we us!
Uh StrrrTT does not join in on their dance or song that is for-themselves, but she laughs in the way humans laugh and her signals speak happy-for-them and proud-of-herself and maybe proud for someone else as well though they cannot tell who.
The St-t-t-t-t-t-KK seems shocked when eventually he sees, but he is happy for them also and the two-who-are-one are overjoyed enough that they roar for the attention of other dragon-friends to show them how much more of a dragon-like-Toothless he is now, even though Toothless is a little skeptical at first because he is so used to seeing Hiccup with his brown fur for all of their lives; but if it makes Hiccup happy, then it makes Toothless happy also.
It is a good day of happy feelings and one neither soon forget, and even when the two of them tire of Buh-rrrrK and then travel to new places and then tire of traveling and return again to the Nest, the magic that is ink does not fade from Hiccup's fur like it faded from his skin, and he does not feel the need to hide himself away under his hood of black scales quite so much.
His flock-mates at the Nest were curious of his changed colors and the shape of his fur too and he was very, very, very, very happy to show all the Nest how much more he looked like Toothless now even with the parts of him that were human, shaking his head around just to show his fur flapping just-the-same like Toothless's own ear-flaps when the dragon shook vigorously.
And from their great Alpha King-of-Dragons he had blinked Proud at them - proud that, little human-hatchling he had begun as, dragon he had grown into, and wounds and scars he had harbored for a long time after his humanness had first been shown to him - he had done more than simply heal from those wounds of knowing.
Now there was more than just acceptance of his wrong-skin as something he could not change but only hide from others and hide from himself, he could also embrace some of his human traits and be more of a dragon for it. A dragon he always was, but a dragon who hid himself under borrowed skins, but no more now. There were parts of that human that he could accept, and not only because of what tricks they can do for other dragons only, but also for himself.
The King had sighed out Right. There is no wrongness to the skin that Hiccup was born to, even if it took him a long time to realize. He was different, but different was not wrong, not something to shy away from only because his shape was not the same. He could not fly on wings that he did not make, and he could not breathe fire from his throat, and he was not so big and powerful as most of the nest was on his own without Toothless there with him, but he was still right in every way, even in the ways he was human.
His paws could break traps and tie wounds and gently scratch scales in affection, yes, but he could also change the color and the shape of his fur to be like dragons, and maybe when he next visited Buh-rrrKK, Uh StrrrTT would know more pfikingr magic that would make his natural shape a little more right, and not only hide his shapes beneath borrowed scales and clever ties but shape his human soft-skin and fur and other things as he liked.
And the King had also rumbled out like a delicate caress Love, for it was a thing of love that the humans of the island Buh-rrrKK would not only agree that he was a dragon in all of his being, but that they would help to make it so, because it would make him happier than he might have been without.
That they already welcomed him to their nest-island and shared their food and offered their nests even though Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss would not stay and protected them from threats and defended their home from killers-of-all and no longer tried to stop them from being completely free and wild were more than enough proof of good-will towards the two-who-are-one, but all of those are things that any friendly dragon could offer them just as well.
This gift though is different. Dragons can love and accept him as a dragon, and they can give him their shed-away scales and their broken-off claws for him to sew into scale-skins for himself as imitations not-his-own, but they cannot teach him human magics that set a wrong-thing right in a very human way. Just as it is human paws that help him protect his flock, it is human paws that untangled and tied and colored his fur very carefully to look more alike to how he should be.
Hiccup's human paws had always helped and healed his dragon-kin, and it was human paws that had hurt dragons once that tried to heal his own unseen wounds now too.
Eventually, as his fur grows out, the base of his fur grows back to brown, and Hiccup mourns the loss of the blackened ends when they have to be cut away, but by then Uh StrrrrTT has more ink for his fur to make it dark again just like Toothless's scales. She cannot tell him where the ink comes from, so inevitably, he keeps having to come back. Before long, she starts leaving the magic of ink with St-t-t-t-t-t-KK to turn his fur black instead of her, but the red-furred Alpha seems to mind not at all. To help Hiccup look more like the dragon that Toothless is seems to make him happy, even as the St-t-t-t-t-KK's fur changes from red to a little more grey each of the many seasons that Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss visit.
His black fur now sits the same in a pattern that is not too hard to tie even without looking and mimics Toothless's ear flaps much the same, and on his own he has even learned how to carefully nest scales into the ties of the fur on top of his head and some of the ink-blackened fur that is newer to his face. At first he had snarled at it and tried to cut it away, used to seeing such face-fur on too many pfikingr, but face-fur is stubborn and returns even faster than fur on top of the head and - most importantly - his flock-kin in the Nest of the King did not care.
His body has always been human, and the Nest has always known, but to them it does not matter even then.
So instead, when he grew tired of trying to fight it into going away, he learned to cleverly tie it the same as the fur on his head and shape it with the help of a sharp-claw blade and dye it black with the magic of ink to look as much like Toothless as fur can make him look.
The ink is one kind of magic that he had been gifted by pfikingr, but it is not the only one, and while he had been out hunting and foraging for food with his Toothless-love, it was one of those times that a pesky and persistent raven had harassed them for their kill and he remembered.
At first, Hiccup snarled and swatted with his claws at the bird to go-away!, and at first it had taken his warning and gone, but then it had come back, and tugged at Toothless's tail, and Hiccup had pounced after it and startled it away again, but in the act of chasing-and-pouncing through the field, he remembered a time before where he had done just the same with a similar bird, where Toothless had been sprawled out in the silly-grass after a good, fun race against a noprey with heavy-striking feet that carried a small pfikingr on its back and that pfikingr had sat peaceful in the grass drawing imagined-things of created-wings and tails!
Hiccup had crooned remembrance and longing and where far-away where? about the human who was a crow inside just as in his heart he himself was a dragon and who had saved other dragons from bad pfikingr that wanted to kill dragons and who had stood in the way of a death-strike meant for him when he was trapped and could not move in time to avoid it.
He had crawled onto Toothless's shoulders and complained with his face tucked into the back of the black dragon's skull and gestured at the empty sky with a sweep of his paw not-here away sad where friendly good crow far-away gone find-maybe longing, the sounds of a dragon missing its friend that it had not seen in a long time.
E-e-kTT had drawn them a map to follow but Hiccup wailed softly paper gone ruined lost can't-find maybe now at the paper that had been burned and torn into different pieces and only some parts of it had survived.
The two of them had resolved to bring the papers to Uh StrrrrTT later, to show her the pieces and spread them out and show that there were places-between where the paper had been ruined. At first she had been confused, and then she had understood and been curious, and then she had taught Hiccup maps. A little, at least.
Hiccup still had trouble reading them and they had done much drawing on the ones Uh StrrrTT had given him so that they would make more sense, much to her amusement. Now, sprawled out over one of them with all his legs pinning it down, he tried his best to figure out where they are on it and make marks. For a moment, he rolls it back up and holds it in his claws, secure from the wind taking it away, and peers over Toothless's wing at the local landmarks that he can see.
Maps are still very try-and-fail. They are too abstract. They make sense when he and Toothless can fly very, very, very high up, or when there is something so unique on the map that nothing else looks like it, because maps are pictures looking down on very big landmasses and islands (Hiccup doesn't know how humans can know what land looks like from very high up when they cannot fly).
Maps though, he has learned and frustrated over, are not perfect. They only mark places which are always-there. They do not chart things like islands of ice that float and drift, and they do not mark ships, or anything else that travels.
The pictures of maps are magic, but they still cannot show everything. The drawings do not change to show the things and places in the world that change often.
Not all is lost though. Of the parts-of-drawings that survived, one is of the pictures shown on ship-leaves that marks ships as parts of different flocks just as dragons have a flock-sound. If they can find the ships with the right pictures on their leaves, then they will find E-e-kTT's flock. So long as they keep following east - a direction they know instinctively but do not have a word for - then eventually they will find it.
It does not take Hiccup long to tire of studying the map and its shapes - while he understands some of it, it still feels unnatural to one who has always simply picked a star to chase or a stream of wind to follow wherever it happened to lead them - and to climb once again onto Toothless's shoulders, chasing the wind and the horizon where the sun first flew from in the mornings and would eventually rise from again after night had tired of darkening the world.
Days of flight and eventually the two of them set down inside a forest of sea stacks that had overgrown more than most, offering the shade of some trees that perched precariously along rocky edges and offered sweet fruits to break up the monotony of fish, fish, and more fish. While Hiccup licked sweet juices away from his soft-claws and rested comfortably with his back against Toothless's flank, the black dragon flicked an ear-flap at the sound of something rustling before snapping his head up.
Up in one of the fruit trees, a creature covered all in dark-and-bright feathers but without wings regarded them, peeping light chirps and bobbing its head to look at them, balancing with a tail that was bigger than its body and twitching long claws that were tucked close to its chest. They were almost like squirrels, but their back feet were scaled like birds and they had a beak and their huge tails were of feathers instead of fur.
Hiccup rolled to his paws low as Toothless stood and stepped closer, Toothless rumbling curious this what bird squirrel maybe? You think what you?
Hiccup squinted and rolled his head towards his shoulder, before realizing he had seen this creature before in a drawing made by E-e-kTT. It was on the map! It was a little dragon, littler even than him, if just by a little, but it was very close to where they needed to go.
Hiccup trilled and chirped hello we us friendly good dragons we Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss friendly no-harm here we go-soon yes and the call-sound for their flock.
The little dragon, uncomprehending to his sounds, immediately puffed all its feathers out and arced its tail up over its head to look bigger and screamed a rattling-warble, spitting a thin stream of acid that he barely dodged away from to leap onto Toothless's shoulders as the bigger dragon flared his wings and snarled back no you bad me-big you-little go now you you away threat me threat!
They were answered instead by several more shrill screams, many more little feathered acid-spitting dragons leaping up into branches and onto narrow rock faces with greater leaps carrying them farther than their size would imply. Toothless tucked his wings in and leapt aside of more acid-streams with Hiccup poised flat against his shoulders, Toothless's claws slipping briefly on a too-close edge of stone.
Hiccup leaned further towards the air and gave Toothless's fly-with straps a tug, signaling up away this-way go us now! and Toothless pushed off and into the air. They were trespassers here - there was no fight to be had with little flightless dragons defending their territory from unknown strangers, but they were a sight to tell the two-who-are-one they were going the right way, even as a rainbow-colored pack of them stood tall on the edge of the sea stack and jeered at their retreat triumphantly.
Spinning away into the wind, they continued on their way, being more careful to check and scent for other dragons wherever they touched down after to occasionally rest long-journeyed wings.
Finally, after days of flight, they found some other certain sign of success in their hunt.
They had flown over and near many human ships on their long trek eastward, but only now did one of them bare a familiar drawing on its leaves, and it swam in the same direction they had been going themselves, so with any luck, it would be returning to its nest; the nest of humans and crows and human-crows.
Years ago, when E-e-kTT had drawn them a map towards his nest, he had drawn many islands of all shapes and sizes and unique things about those islands like the Viking-carved sea-stacks of Buh-rrrKK and islands with odd shapes no other island had and islands with cliffs that stood a certain way and little flightless dragons who inhabited only one place that was known to him and pfikingr villages that were there before and were still there now and he had drawn little ships and lines of ship-paths where they traveled.
Of all the places E-e-kTT drew, the one with the least special details like this was the nest where he stayed itself, but it didn't need any special monuments to set it apart, for it was the biggest of all the islands. So big that the lines of it went off the page without ends that circled back to each other like a dragon biting its own tail. Hiccup knew some of the islands drawn, knew just how big they were, but none came even close to the size of the island that E-e-kTT drew for him (Hiccup has only ever known islands, he could not even conceptualize continents) so to go to such a big place was as exciting as it was daunting, and he did not think he would ever have enough seasons to see it all.
Even knowing they were going to a very, very, very big island, just the knowing did not completely prepare him for it, when they found it, first pale-blue lines of the far horizon, which grew and grew in length, seeming to grow out of the sea itself, and then continuing to grow as a wall in either direction without end, and then the tall, broad fangs of mountains revealed themselves through the distance-haze, rows and rows and rows of them overlapping like shark's teeth but without end, proud and glistening white.
At the roots of the giant teeth of mountains, much of the snow had melted away, but there were few places where the land was flat. Only the tiniest shores managed to harbor grunting, howling herds of furry water-beasts, all tangled together in sleeping piles like winter-nesting dragons who had nothing better to do than sleep and then sleep some more.
Much of the rest of the space were harsh, vertical cliffs where not even dragons would feel at-home, too few spaces good for perching on without slipping and falling, and even without skimming close to the cliffs, they could feel the lash of wind trying to beat against rock only to be sent howling straight upward and away like a scolding dragon who was batted away by a bigger and fiercer cousin, only for it to escape and tunnel through long, deep river-gaps through the stone into hidden alcoves unseen from where they were.
From somewhere in the sea of endless white fangs rising skyward, there were thin wisps of smoke trailing up from between, small hut buildings or lone towers caught between the teeth of great mountains, often far apart and in too little quantity to be the greater sized nests E-e-kTT had drawn for them.
So, having gotten a breath-taking glance over new lands that ran so deep they could see no ocean on the other side of the horizon, they banked and continued to trail the ship with the familiar leaf-pattern from afar as it flanked the coast, ignoring smaller settlements of humans as it went, as did they when it seemed those places were of no interest to the ones on the ship.
When the ship finally stops, it is within the docks of the largest settlement they have seen yet, surrounded all around by big stone-and-wood walls. What they have seen on Buh-rrrKK pales in comparison, when it comes to number and size of pfikingr nests.
There are many, many ships and docks where they tie to, and most have their leaves drawn up and folded to rest like tired dragon's wings. Humans mill all over the docks, but more humans still are within the streets away from shore, with big fires lit all over even though it is still daylight and easy to see. There is one long, wide road in particular that most of the humans seem to avoid, instead crossing on narrow wooden pathways above to leave it empty, and they can easily spot small flocks of pfikingr hatchlings screaming in play and running through narrow passages between houses.
There are tangles of rope and colorful cloth hanging all over rooftops and between buildings and from wood structures they have no name for, but on closer inspection, they can also see black and black-white spots all over them, and on top of houses and towers and ship-trees, and they realize soon that the spots are perched birds as they flick and turn and flutter between resting-watching places.
Hiccup croons softly familiar and right-place here maybe as some of the birds unsettle away even though there is still a good amount of distance, and they hear the tell-tale kraaaaaw! of a raven or a crow, followed by others. Hiccup purrs confident almost-sure here yes found-it perhaps at his Toothless-half-beloved, who snorts with a small airborne shake in reply maybe could-be not-sure-yet caution still here threat-maybe.
No sooner have they said before Hiccup yelps in alarm what what? as a weight suddenly hits the back of his head and leaves as soon as it came, snarling his teeth who dares what threat?!
A small black shape backwings away from them and then dives out of range, ringing out angry croaks and caws that they can easily interpret as intruders! even though it is in the tongue of birds instead of dragons. They have had dealings enough with ravens to know.
As soon as Hiccup's attention is on that bird, he feels Toothless shift to the side towards it, but a shriek of look-out! warns him that his dragon-fly-partner is not moving towards their attacker, he is moving away from another.
Small but sharp claws rake just shy of the corner of Hiccup's eye in the moment where he glances to see the warned-of threat, and he immediately ducks his head down towards Toothless's skull, snarling offense! at the sting.
What is first only a couple loud, scolding voices quickly becomes a cacophony as crows fill the air, black ones and black-and-white ones, but they all share a similar voice and all of their voices together sing the same hostile song and together they block out the land and sky with their many bodies, swarming like a hive of angry bees whose nest had been knocked from a tree and broken apart against the ground below.
It is Toothless who backwings now away from the birds in front of them and he screams outrage! and snaps his teeth without catching feathers you little bad go me big threat! as Hiccup snarls similar on his back, tugging his hood of scales over his head to better protect it from swooping claws and swiping his own claws in return, missing or only barely brushing bird wings with his swipes, but there are too many - too many! - birds.
They can only see flickers of the world beyond the screaming angry hive of birds, and the birds do not have enough fear of them to be driven away with screams and threat displays or missing-swipes alone.
They cleverly bank away from Toothless's teeth and claws whenever he snaps them out, and dodge Hiccup's claws and dive at blind-spots, clawing and pecking and pulling at Hiccup's scale-skins and then wheeling away unseen into the crowd, indistinguishable from one another in their swarming. Only sometimes Toothless's large wings manage to create enough wind to drive some of their swoops back, or knock a few of them careening downward by pure accident.
They snarl together away you! as Toothless twists in the air, sweeping his tail in a broad arc and sending one chunk of the angry flock to fall or go screaming away through the sky, struck and dazed but still airborne, and for a moment all the crow flock scatter to reveal the world again.
Toothless shakes his ear-flaps Enough! and Hiccup agrees with him in light touches to his shoulders, bracing himself to fly fast and true away from their attackers. The two-of-them are not afraid of birds, they have faced down much worse and survived and triumphed, but they still do not want to play along to their mean game of swarms and stings.
Toothless shoots one of his blasting-fires through a gap between the birds to startle them away further, and then dives through the opening with a heave and fold of his wings as it explodes fire in the open air in the distance.
The crows are stubborn though, and they regroup like schools of fish in the air and pursue right on Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss's tail, the sky still filled with their chorus. They consider where to go. The sky is theirs, but this sky is filled with too many crows to escape while still staying nearby. They could leave across the ocean, but they have come so very far to find this place, and they cannot hide among the trees. Ravens and crows, they know, can hide by the many in trees and move much more easily with their small size. Trees are good camouflage for ravens and crows and there are always more than they can see.
They cannot simply dive into the sea to shake the birds away as they can stinging bees. They do not know these waters enough to risk it, and bees are stupid and easily fooled, but crows are not. It will not work here.
Perhaps they can use the cleverness of birds against them though, as Hiccup spies a roof without solid walls near the edges of the pfikingr village where they cannot see any humans visible but there are a herd of small, white prey-things Uh StrrrTT had called Shh-phuh. They have spent enough time around Buh-rrrKK to have an idea of the hiding places that were safer than others, to know that those fluffy prey-things are always too-afraid of dragons and too dumb to be threats, and the sheep nest with its open sides would let them flee out any direction they chose but be protected from the sky and diving claws.
Hiccup leans and lightly touches the side of Toothless's neck in indication, and without even pausing to think of where they are being led - Toothless trusts Hiccup implicitly - they dive and swoop underneath the cover of a dry-grass roof, white prey-beasts bleating out in fright and scattering out to the open parts of their pen. It is not a large space, and they have to tuck themselves into it to hide proper, but it is enough to offer relief from the angry flock outside. They can see flickers of birds just outside, jeering and angry, but none of them dare to fly into the small space where Hiccup and Toothless might be able to catch them out of the air.
At least, so it seems at first.
Some are more daring and come close to the openings, getting a proper look at the two-who-are-one, telling the rest of the bird-flock where they are, but then they backwing away before they can come within striking distance. In the confusion, Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss almost don't notice one of the birds among many that tangles and swipes at its own kind, scolding and driving them away, until it has perched itself on the fence, mantling its wings and warning its flock-kin back, and little by little, their many voices begin to quiet.
Satisfied with itself and confident, it sidles and hops along the fence closer without fear, and to both of their amazement, it rattles a sound they know.
(click)-a-phuh.
For a moment, they can only freeze in surprise, watching the bird with heads tilted unsure and glancing at each other heard that you too you too? They have never heard a bird speak to them before, much less one of their names.
The little bird mimics them with a tilt of its head in return, before standing up tall, its throat bristling out and it bows its whole body each time it repeats: (click)-a-phuh. (click)-a-phuh. Tuh-thssss. (click)-a-phuh.
The two-who-are-one rumble amazed at each other and the bird and ask, tentatively, you know us we you familiar maybe know-you?
The bird repeats their names again a few times, shuffling back out onto the open fence, and tells their names to some of the other birds that land on the fence near it or they can hear hopping along the dry-grass above their heads. In their amazement, they almost miss the sound of many heavy steps like a herd of large prey-beasts coming, tensing ready-to-fly from their shelter if they must, but the creatures that appear are distinct and familiar.
They are horses!
And one is most familiar of all, with its pale-gold colors and grey nose and black-and-white fur along its neck and tail. Astride its back on the fly-with that horses had just like Toothless was also a familiar-different face, older now just as Hiccup and Toothless were, baring similar face-fur to that which Hiccup had grown, but even if the man had changed all his colors and shapes around, Hiccup would never, ever mistake those eyes, still as blue as a cloudless sky and still as unmoving as the most stubborn of stones that not even blasting-fire could move.
Time has done nothing to grow E-e-kTT in height - he is still quite short - but there is still something about the human-crow Alpha's presence that is more than it was before as his head swivels towards them and his eyes subtly narrow in regard.
A leg swings off the horse's back and the rest of E-e-kTT follows, speaking words to the rest on horses who had followed, commanding them in soft unreadable words that made curious and tense pfikingr relax some while his back was turned to the dragons.
His horse-partner shivered a shoulder with a soft snort, tossing its head up in the air to watch them, and E-e-kTT finally swiveled towards them properly, a paw rested relaxed on one of the hooked sharp-claw blades at his hip.
The two of them suddenly remembered how uneasy E-e-kTT had made them before, forgotten for a time under the last memories of fighting together to protect dragons and protected Hiccup and how his signals had opened up to them towards the end and a little bit how weak and vulnerable E-e-kTT had been after his injuries.
Now they were closed off again, hidden away unreachable even more than before, and all his intentions were a secret. They could not help lingering their eyes over the sharp-claw ready to be drawn even though they had come here searching for a friend-to-dragons, ready to turn their tails to this place and never return if they were deceived or betrayed.
It did not come to that, as his eyes trailed away from them to pet the nose of one of sheep that cried up at him in fear, but E-e-kTT's words seemed to be for them as he made the sounds for out that they have learned to recognize. They are glad that the sounds do not come with shouting and flailing like they see so often on Buh-rrrKK when vikings want dragons to leave a place they should not be.
They check the outsides first - always - before leaping to a narrow wall of standing wood and then onto the sheep-nest roof, the many crows that had perched there scattering to the tops of pfikingr homes and tangles of rope to make room, noticing now to their discomfort that they have drawn many eyes and not all are just birds.
There are human eyes on them from horse-back and from nearby streets and the windows of homes and from walls and towers. Some of them, in the higher more-hidden places, Hiccup thinks he sees with crossbows and arrows, but any poised ready are soon lowered as one of E-e-kTT's horse-riders shouts at them afar. They are familiar now with being stared at by humans wherever they go, but they still do not like it, especially when they do not know these humans at all.
But they have not tried to attack, and E-e-kTT is Alpha here and has never let his flock attack before, so they hold their ground. Or at least, they hold the roof. The ground is still suspect territory for now.
Finally E-e-kTT speaks to them proper, lifting his eyes from the frightened sheep to them.
"Welcome to Norge."
When there are less curious-wondering eyes on them, it is much easier to relax and the two dragons feel better for it. There are no hostilities in any of those who come, even if there is some wary uncertainty and caution in the faces of a few, but even so, being watched so closely is too much like being hunted.
E-e-kTT is sure to disperse onlookers away, and some of his flock on the horses stand blocking the roads and sight-lines deliberately like a wide, protective circle. Still, Hiccup and Toothless are cautious, even as they slip from the roof to the ground. They recognize the greeting-sound welcome that humans speak often when a new face comes or when they want to invite a friend into their nests, but the sound Nrrr-kaw that Hiccup thinks might be a name like Buh-rrrK is new.
Hiccup and Toothless had learned many more human words in their many visits to Buh-rrrKK over the seasons, but Hiccup still cannot say as humans do even half the words that he has learned to understand, and to understand is still a struggle. Faced with E-e-kTT - whose words say invitation, but whose body and eyes say only secrets - it is even harder. It is like trying to play the game-of-sounds and learn brand new from Uh StrrrTT all over again, but at least back then, he could still read her emotions.
E-e-kTT is different. He has always been harder to read.
Hiccup at least knows more sounds now. Among them are good-to-see-you and noises for far away and you-two here. There is a don't-know sound without a shrug, and they are not sure what he doesn't know because his body-signals tell nothing. There are several other sounds for things Hiccup has no meanings for - Uh StrrrTT and her friends had tried to teach him, but they were too abstract. There were sounds for friends and more sounds for welcome here.
Finally there is something they understand far more easily, a dragon-whistle of question, and the pfikingr sounds asking you understand?
"Issss. Uh-trrr staaah-TT." Most of it, at least. There are always parts of human words they never understand.
E-e-kTT tells them a sound they know but can't even try to replicate - it is too long and complicated to make dragon-sounds that are similar - but they had learned that sometimes pfikingr use many different words for the same things, and the closest word Means-Like-It that they can say is prrr-Tii, which sounds a lot more like the idea of the thing should sound anyway.
They know there is also many types of prrr-Tiis that humans throw. Most of them make humans act more wild and crazy than usual and there is often large amounts of food shared all around and silly-water whose sounds are too close to the sounds for meat to bother learning. Hiccup hates most of all that humans have many sounds that are too alike and sound not-at-all like they should.
On Buh-rrrKK, they had tried to join one once, and learned that it was a very bad idea on account of Rr-uhf and Tt-uhf who like to make it even crazier for everyone, humans and dragons both, which often leads to much yelling and throwing-things and sometimes there is a fight.
They understand they are being invited again, but they lift their heads and look around suspiciously grumbling unsure maybe-could don't-like wary loud pfikingr angry-loud crazy threat could-be caution uneasy. There are no look-alike crazy pfikingr here, as far as they know - they are very far from Buh-rrrKK - but they have found the ones from the Island of Dragons and Strange Pfikingr in places they did not expect before, and finding them here would almost be less crazy then not finding them here. Those two are known to appear out of impossible places, even if most of those places are on the island of Buh-rrrKK.
Besides, there were more than one two-heads dragon-cousin out in the world. What was to say there wasn't also more than one Like Rr-uhf and Tt-uhf out there too?
Don't-see don't-hear still here maybe crazy-two could-be bad horror no don't-like no no not-here don't-want.
Their attention turns from looking around to E-e-kTT as the human-crow-Alpha steps towards them, and crouches resting on bent legs in front of them, not bowing low in submission but pulling off a glove - Hiccup notices curiously they are like his claws, but with metal - and offering a soft-paw faced upward towards Toothless's nose without touching, all his front-toes curled inward into the pads unthreatening.
He crooned sounds to them they had not heard from a human throat since all those seasons ago, noises of peace friendly no-harm calm, and some of his signals and his eyes opened up to them to ask trust? as they looked first in Toothless's eyes and then Hiccup's.
They exchange a glance with each other, and are decided immediately.
E-e-kTT had fought to save dragons, more than once. He had done things Hiccup could never conceive of doing, both to keep promises to them and to spare Hiccup from turning his healing paws to ones that harm his kin, to save a sick dragon's life. He had shared the joy of flying-games with them, and he had leapt in the way of a killing-strike meant for Hiccup once. Even bleeding and pale, he had put dragons needing saving from cages ahead of himself and collapsed unconscious in the ship-nest of enemies.
They still remembered the too much blood that had trickled over Toothless's scales - blood that would have been Hiccup's if he had not leapt in the way - as they pinned E-e-kTT carefully between Hiccup's chest and Toothless's shoulders and flew him to safety, unsure and anxious that he would survive, just as the red-furred Eh-brrrKK had not, or if he would become a dead one to grieve as his body was burned and the ashes blown away and scattered into the wind.
That possibility was not so, and they were glad for it now, as Toothless touched his nose to E-e-kTT's paw, unafraid even as it flipped over to rest against his snout properly, and Hiccup's paw settled over that one to hold it between him and Toothless, just as they had sheltered him between them once in their fast flight away from mutual-enemy-pfikingr seasons ago.
Trust you yes confident-sure! they declare together, breaking contact with E-e-kTT's paw as they stand up taller and lift their heads, briefly flashing their throats fearless!
It is only for a moment, and they signal by hiding their throats down again not-them as they look at the other nearby pfikingr. They will not trust all of E-e-kTT's flock, but they will at least trust that E-e-kTT will command them not to harm the two-who-are-one.
He had already proven without doubt he would protect their lives like they were his own flock-kin.
He was a crow in human skin anyhow. It is not the same as pfikingr any more than Hiccup is one.
E-e-kTT's signals briefly say satisfied as he closes his eyes and braces paws on his legs to stand up, breathing out a soft grunt. For a moment, he seems to move on one leg stiffly, almost-a-limp, but his signals become all secrets again and his strides even out into steady steps no different from each other as he moves back towards his horse.
He waves most of the other pfikingr away on their horses, and takes hold of a rope around the face of his own, inviting Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss with a wave of his hand follow this-way. When the other horses and riders move away, they do, almost alongside E-e-kTT, but away from the heavy-striking feet of the horse. They still remember how they hurt, even after years.
It doesn't take Hiccup very long to sit up higher as they go, with his Toothless-heart-of-mine securely beneath him if they need to fly from any threat, and the both of them walking in E-e-kTT's shadow as he leads confidently through the streets between buildings. There are still eyes that peek out at them as they pass, but most of them hide and only come out behind their tails to see and to whisper. Any who try to come out ahead of their path or alongside are soon enough signaled away by a raised paw from E-e-kTT and a few soft words, and the pfikingr all-around mostly obey.
The ones who do not leave when E-e-kTT says to are sent scuttling back and changing pale-afraid with a growl of warning from Toothless instead.
As they walk, and Toothless watches and snarls for them both when they need to, it gives Hiccup a moment to observe E-e-kTT more closely and take in his changes. Most notably, the changes to his made-skins.
Hiccup's own scale-skins were different now than they had once been. He no longer had the tall spiky fin on his back like before, changed for ones that were shorter like Toothless's own many fin-spikes, and he had the colors of many nest-mate scales patterned in among Toothless's old, shed black ones.
E-e-kTT has changed his made-skins quite a bit too. Their colors are still mostly dark greys and blacks, with a collar of black fur around his shoulders and covering his throat, but there is much more cloth hanging from it now, bundled together at his back much like Hiccup's wings but covered all over in carefully-set feathers. There is even more though, dangling from E-e-kTT's wrists limp, and Hiccup cannot seem to decide if it is for something practical or just-for-show.
There are more colors than just black though. A bright round stone of red held between crisscrossed tiny metal chains across his chest, and smaller red stones circled by silver in his ears where crow feathers hang from. His gloves are like Hiccup's indeed, but the claws are made of silver metal layered like shiny scales up his fingers and over the tops of his paws and further up his forelegs like the scales on the legs of a bird. It seems like he also has a hood, but unlike Hiccup's, it is shaped with the point of a top-beak pointed up to the sky as it rests tipped-back against his shoulders, almost like a second head. A true-head of a bird, almost.
E-e-kTT's face is also a bit different, and not just for the thin but distinct line of brown face-fur around his jaw. Around his eyes and nose and the top of his skull, there are black paints that are carefully drawn just-so, but they make his icy eyes stand out much greater than against his pale human soft-skin alone, and make them all the more unnerving as a result even when they look somewhere else instead of at them. Hiccup thinks it must have taken a long time to make the lines exactly-right on his face as they were, and he must have been very careful all day not to smudge them out-of-place. Even the parts that trail out from the rest like wisp-trails of smoke seem more deliberate than not, drawn that way instead of rubbed into smears.
A shriek startles him out of his looking-thinking as Toothless jumps in-place beneath him startled!, and quick as a flash, they launch into the air and perch onto the top of a pfikingr roof. Hiccup sees what came for them even as the horse below snorts and tosses in shared alarm and E-e-kTT tries to calm it, a flock of unfamiliar human hatchlings staring up at the dragons with gaped jaws and wide eyes.
Hiccup softly laughs amusement no-threat just-hatchlings even as his claws lightly scratch sympathy safe I-here together we us we good safe together against Toothless's scales, and the black dragon shakes and snorts beneath him not funny don't like! even though they both know that human hatchlings are of no danger.
Still, they decide it better to stay away from them, especially among humans who do not know Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss and might think they are threats to their hatchlings, and hop between rooftop perches instead despite that E-e-kTT invites them back down.
When they stand stubborn refuse no here good here safe, he does not insist and keeps walking with the dragon pair following from above where staring human eyes and excited hatchlings being silly all around are less threatening, even if it makes many crows leave their perches complaining and fluffing their feathers.
When the many rows of pfikingr homes end into an open gap - and to their discomfort, they can see many, many more humans, too many to learn all in a day - E-e-kTT motions for them to come down, but in a place away from the big crowds, to where some other horses and animals are penned in.
Toothless snorts and shakes his head reluctance but slips down from above anyway, reassured by Hiccup's subtle touches over his shoulders and doing so only because it is E-e-kTT that invites them down and the flock of screaming hatchlings have already run off elsewhere.
When they return near him again, E-e-kTT turns his head and speaks in sounds completely new and strange to them. There are a lot of pfikingr sounds they do not understand at all or understand only a little, but exposure over time and learning some of those words from human-friends-to-dragons, they at least know a little bit the rhythm of the sounds.
These sounds are completely different, the rhythm of them all wrong to what they have known before, but E-e-kTT makes them easily and they know already that he is a great mimic of sounds.
Another human turns to look towards them, and perhaps they are as shocked to see him as the human seems to be shocked looking at the two-of-them.
They have seen many pfikingr and humans with different colors of hair and eyes and clothing and sizes and sometimes they turn pale and sometimes they will be a little different in skin tones, where one might be the color of the inside of a birch tree and another the color of pine or fir or oak or redwood; but they have never seen a human near as dark as Toothless's own scales, all of their color blended together the-same except the white parts of their eyes. It takes them a moment to realize he even has fur because it too blends into his soft-skin.
In the bright of the sun, he stands out stark and obvious, where his brighter clothes do not cover, but if it had been night with only a sliver of moonlight or inside a shadowed cave, their darkness-trained eyes may not even see him there, made invisible when there is no light.
It is not such an impossible thing, really, that there might be humans somewhere as dark as Toothless - there are dragons in all colors all within their great Nest and there are more colors of dragons still much further, though he cannot help but wonder just the same if the darkness is a made-thing like paint or like his own borrowed scale-skins - but it is a new thing, for a moment, and the Dark He speaks in sounds he has never heard a pfikingr speak.
The man's signals all speak unsure and watch Toothless and Hiccup - thankfully not with the hunger-to-have that so many pfikingr show when seeing Toothless - as though they are an impossible thing. A thing that should-not-be. A thing that he will not believe even as it stands before him.
His eyes - just as dark as all the rest of him - turn to E-e-kTT as though to confirm something, breathing out sounds of disbelief to him that they know even though it is in a new human tongue, and he clearly hums speculation at whatever E-e-kTT has told them, staring over the two of them with a different but still-baffled look to his eyes.
The man looks to E-e-kTT and seems to ask a question, before taking a few tentative steps forward, and his noises now sound like the more familiar pfikingr sounds that offer greetings and a name - the closest sound they can make to it is Chrrr-rruhm - before also offering one hand in a gesture they know for humans means friendly.
What Hiccup notices straight away is the pads of Chrrr-rrhum's paw, paler than all the rest of him, more like Hiccup's own soft-skin, instead of the same solid-dark of the rest of him, and he can't help chirruping curious strange wonder never-seen-that curious. He spares only a glance at E-e-kTT after sliding from Toothless's back, as if to be sure it is safe, before he simply can't help himself.
He must see if his colors are paint!
It must be paint colors or a made-so thing like the magic of ink if he has spots of paler skin beneath the dark, like his own underneath his scale-skins!
He holds the offered paw delicately in his, some measure of unsure threat could-be danger-maybe trembling in his spine at having any stranger human so close, even a friend to E-e-kTT and with Toothless right behind to defend him if need be, but fascination and bravery earned from many other years of encounters with humans both dangerous and good hold him in place just long enough to trace his fingers along the top of Chrrr-rrhum's paw, expecting to come away with the residue of colors on his own paw and instead coming away clean and bright and untarnished.
He croons wonder that is intermixed with both disappointment and hope at once. It is not paint, so maybe it is just a natural born-with skin just as there are many dragons born with many colors, but maybe it is also a new human magic he has not yet learned like the ink that colored his fur.
He can only stand the contact with a new stranger - even a friendly one - long enough to confirm, but Chrrr-rruhm asks E-e-kTT a question with easy laughter in his voice as Hiccup retreats again to a more comfortable distance.
He hears E-e-kTT introduce them by their names, which Hiccup forgot to give in his haste to explore an exciting idea, and he introduces them both as dragons equally, which they purr together happy yes us dragons sure confident we-are!
There are more new-tongue words exchanged, and bright white flashes from Chrrr-rruhm's face in a toothy human-smile suddenly, bowing his head a small amount to E-e-kTT before swiveling to move elsewhere away from them.
As he goes, E-e-kTT looks over Hiccup in his first real inspection, tipping his head and whistling question. He points down towards Hiccup's legs, and then to Toothless's tail, moving a finger as though following it from afar, and then back to Hiccup in signals that mean where tail?
Hiccup knows he does not have it, and he wonders if E-e-kTT is disappointed or sad about that behind his unwavering signals of secrets. He ducks into his shoulders a bit, signaling and crooning sorry sorry not-here liked-it very-much-so!, spinning as if to chase what is not there, promising delighted good gift yes you good tail good best yes!
But the tail had not been completely perfect. No tail can be as good as Toothless's tail, of course. He had never expected it to be. It had been good. It had!
But it had also sometimes gotten in the way, in ways that his scale-skins and claws never had. It made flying on Toothless's back more difficult, when Toothless would twist or bank hard in the air, and yelp aloud when one of the hard wooden spines would jab into his scales or his wings when it was pulled close to Hiccup's legs, but to fly with it loose behind him means that it would whip and twist around limp in the air, and then too, it would become a problem and frustration for them when it would move around where it should not.
When Hiccup wore it, he had to sometimes be careful where he went. He could not climb trees with it because, as he had found out, his tail could get stuck and then he could only dangle and snarl frustration and wail like he had not done since he was a small hatcling in being the tree's prisoner, while at the same time having to tell dragons who came to his rescue no no no no-bite not-that! when they thought to try and break the rope instead. Sometimes it would get stuck in rocks too, but at least then it was easier to get free.
And he had found in wearing it around the Nest and playing with other dragons that he could be caught with jaws or pinning paws when he had thought he had successfully leapt away from a nest-mate and made to yank back and crash hard into the ground. Some of his nest-mates had thought it was funny, and at first it had been a good joke, but it stopped being funny when it kept happening and when claws tore leather and Hiccup bristled offense! and drew his made-tail close to him with his paws and demanded no-more! as he crouched over it protectively.
And of course, any thing made of wood and leather and rope burns easily, in a dragon nest, and he does not have the tools of pfikingr to fix it completely-right.
He had fixed it many times, when a nest-mate had pinned it too hard or chewed on it or when flames flew and caught it and burned, and it had been mostly okay, mostly-the-same, but never quite-as-good as when E-e-kTT had made it new.
It was not a lost thing that Hiccup never enjoyed anymore, but it was only a sometimes thing and close to the safety of their Nest, in skies where they knew every stream of wind and where they did not risk facing dangers alone-together and certainly not where there would be pfikingr to worry about trying to bite their tails.
Hiccup had thought of bringing it here, when they readied to depart the Nest towards Nrrr-kaw, but they were flying a very long way through places they had never been and dangers unknown, even if they had been guided here by a map towards a place where they knew they would find friends, so in the end it had been left safely tucked away into their just-for-us nest. If he has to fix it again when they return, then that was just how it had to be. It was better than giving enemies something to pounce on or another thing for Toothless to avoid if they needed to flee quickly from a threat.
The tail is a good gift, but Toothless always comes first, even before things that would make Hiccup more-like-a-dragon, and he would never knowingly put his heart-beloved at risk for anything. If his claws or his scale-skins or his wings would put his dragon-half's life in more danger with them than without, he would gladly shed them all, to keep Toothless safe.
But it is still a special thing, to take out when he wants to, to enjoy flying with when things are calm and easy and there are no dangers to worry about, and that is the best time to enjoy the rightness of having a tail anyway, when they can simply celebrate the having-of-it and play together-games in the sky where there is nothing to catch his tail except for the wind.
It is not a wrong-thing that he can take his tail off sometimes and hide it away, any more than its a wrong-thing that he can remove his gloves when he needs clever paws more than slashing ones, or that he can take off his scale-skins to improve them with new ideas and weave more fallen scales into them whenever dragons shed them.
He shakes his head not-here and points far over the sea from where they came far away and crouches and drags his claws over the dirt like possessing something and crouching over it, lifting his head alert like he's watching for threats to show hidden-safe mine!
E-e-kTT seems to understand. He is good at reading them, better than they are at reading him.
E-e-kTT's head tips at him then, whistling another question at him, asking good? about it. Hiccup purrs and nods as humans do eagerly that it is still very good, but it does not seem to be what E-e-kTT is asking, and it takes a little bit of trying different sounds before Hiccup understands the question as could be better? He realizes that E-e-kTT is asking if it could be improved.
Hiccup sits crouched and rests a paw over Toothless's back, wondering. There could always be improvements, especially for an only-sometimes thing that he would like to make an always-thing, but he is not sure how E-e-kTT would make them better, at first shrugging before nodding again "Issss." If E-e-kTT has new ideas, Hiccup is willing to try and learn them.
"I'll show you," E-e-kTT promises. "Soon." For now though, his eyes shift to Chrrr-rruhm as the man returns, carrying with him a water-holding thing and a tame fire, and their words once again become something Hiccup doesn't understand, making small motions at each other as they do.
E-e-kTT clicks for Hiccup and Toothless's attention, and then motions to his eyes and then the Chrrr-rruhm watch.
Chrrr-rruhm takes a big drink until his cheeks are filled up like a squirrel hoarding nuts, blinking only one eye at them before he lifts the tame-fire right in front of his face away from them and he does something impossible.
He breathes fire!
All of Toothless's ear flaps go up and Hiccup yelps aloud shock awe amazed you see you see you? looking between Toothless and the human-who-flames. It is an unreal thing! And impossible thing! Hiccup has tried and wished and dreamed for his heart-fires within to be breathed forth like all the dragons around him, and he has never, ever, ever succeeded no matter how much he wanted or how angry he became.
He had long ago accepted that - just as he would never grow wings, or a tail, or natural scales, or any other dragon thing - he would never breathe his own fires, because his body is human, and humans cannot do so.
But now!
Now!
NOW-
Want want want need must-have mine too me too want want me fire too please want! he chatters through his teeth, feeling the desire for it so acutely that it crackles up his spine and he imagines the heat almost-real in his throat. He must have it. He must learn this new trick! He must!
He only wishes it did not come with a mouthful of pfikingr silly-water, that tastes awful and bites his tongue and makes him cough as some of it goes in his throat, stinging like swallowing sea-water. The rest he coughs out like he's just been drowning, and its only after his first attempt that Chrrr-rruhm clarifies he is not supposed to swallow it, as he sucks it into his cheeks and holds it there to show.
He has tried tasting pfikingr silly-water before, just as he tries experimenting with the tastes of many human foods, but he has never liked the taste of it and certainly never drank it. It tastes bad and he has seen how humans act after drinking lots of it.
Instead, he is shown to spit the silly-water like a gulping ocean cousin, and how tamed fires burn brighter from it, just as thirsty and excited for it as humans are. It is a strange thing. Usually water puts fires out, so he never would have thought of it.
But in no time at all, with a few tries and grimaces at the yuck! ugh no-like gross tastes-bad silly-water, he has finally breathed fire!
They are not flames from within his throat, but he thinks of it like his fire all the same, feeling the heat of it on his face and coals of excitement trembling deep in his chest, making him feel more alive than he's felt in a long time.
This is a trick he can use now, he knows, and he does not need to despair or think hard over how.
There are holding things for liquid, he knows, and there are often tame fires around human places, including the nests of pfikingr trappers.
It is always a good joke, to stand before trappers after they have broken their traps and cages open and set cousins free and see them baffled and angry and defeated.
It will be an even better joke when he can scare them with his own fires just like Toothless and their dragon-cousins.
He is admittedly a bit disappointed when he has no more silly-water to make flames, but the most important thing is that now he knows the trick.
Not much sooner has he run out before the sound of a loud, near-distant horn blares through the air and startles him back towards Toothless's shoulders on instinct, the movement as fluid as it is quick, but once he's settled there, he sits up a bit taller, at-alert, and there is no sign of a threat that he can see. E-e-kTT and his companion look as well, but their signals are relaxed, and no one leaps to answer it as though it signals danger, so Hiccup and Toothless relax soon as well.
E-e-kTT looks at them briefly, before motioning with his head in invitation to follow, walking from them towards some of the strange wooden structures along the empty road and crowds of other humans gathered around there.
Chrrr-rruhm goes first up wooden stairs, and then E-e-kTT, but the two-who-are-one stop at the bottom and Toothless sniffs the wood in suspect. They are narrow climbing stairs, and even a small dragon like Toothless would not fit between them comfortably, snorting and shaking lightly. There is the sound and stink of humans all around up the stairs, and all his signals speak human stink don't-like this can't-go me too big we us stay-together here threat maybe, the claws of one paw lightly scraping at the bottom step and looking back at Hiccup, licking his nose nervous.
There are many humans here they don't know and only one that they do, and he is a very small human, even if he is an Alpha here. Toothless cannot follow this way and he doesn't like the idea of Hiccup being anywhere without him in a strange new place, especially a strange new human place. Not after the Knotted Man and his ships. Not ever again!
That was long ago now, and the bright scars had faded, but still. He has no desire to open those scars fresh and bloody or to make new ones.
Hiccup drapes over the top of his skull, breathing out easy calm love right-here reassurance no-threat here safe together you me we us, the two of them purring together yes yes yes us together safe brave together here yes.
When Hiccup slides from his back, he snorts another don't-like that is also fine!, Hiccup's claws scratching more reassurance across his scales and promises me careful safe you-see when he follows E-e-kTT up the steps, only to the very top where Toothless can still see him clearly, using some of the wooden rails to help his way up.
Toothless scolds lightly better-be you careful you reckless! in a shared laugh between them, but Toothless's eyes find E-e-kTT and command him as well safe Hiccup keep you'd better you yes very-much-so or-else!
He is not so worried about E-e-kTT, and neither is Hiccup. They have followed him and fought alongside him in the belly of an enemy's ship before. Hiccup can follow him among friendly humans too and be protected, they think.
Still, Toothless likes it not-at-all, but he will tolerate it so long as E-e-kTT commands the rest as an Alpha that they are not-to-be-threatened.
Hiccup chirps and trills a bit under his breath curious caution wonder what-this here what? as he finds his way to the very top of the stairs.
There are many human perching-places where they sit together in crowds, loud and obnoxious as humans usually are, and many of them share food and drinks and chatter. There is another wooden platform like this one across the way, both flanking the big empty road, both filled with excited humans.
They still make him nervous, but excited and shouting is at least better than angry and shouting.
E-e-kTT and Chrrr-rruhm sit on a perch as well, but Hiccup chooses to remain standing at the top of the stairs furthest away from anyone, bracing his front paws on the wooden railings to stand confidently tall.
E-e-kTT he trusts. The rest? Not so much, but he can tolerate being here so long as its within the human-Alpha's shadow where he doubts anyone will pounce at him, and within easy enough view of Toothless that his back is watched for him.
There are curious eyes on him, of course - there are always curious eyes wherever they go - but no one moves towards him for now.
A pfikingr up on another high platform roars out words that he doesn't fully understand, but he knows just enough to recognize there is no threat, enough to stay where he is and watch. One by one, horses with riders walk out into the big empty road, most who flail their paws around in the air and bare their teeth in a human smile, until there are many horses all lined up alongside each other. All the humans perched to watch cheer and flail back and whistle and jostle each other, all of their signals saying excitement and very few noticing him.
When the loud-shouting human blows into a horn, the whole herd of horses leaps from standing still and stampede all the way down the empty road and then twist away out of sight past the buildings, further than his leaning over the edge could track, their thundering heavy-striking feet fading into the distance.
When the thunder of their charge eventually, slowly began to come back, it was from the other side, some leading the charge more than others. He saw in the distance as three of them closest to the front ran hard at each other's heels, and one who had been just behind the first picked up speed and tried to pass, pulling ahead, falling behind, and then pulling ahead again until taking the lead.
When the first horse crossed a line of white chalk in the dirt, many pfikingr cheered or leapt up in celebration, others snarled anger and disappointment and a few even pulled their fur the way humans sometimes do when upset. He kept all of them within his sights in case they might fight, but beyond a few squabbles that lasted only seconds long, nobody did.
The horses slowed their strides or pranced to a stop, the humans on their backs waving their arms in the air again as some horses trailing far behind still raced to catch up. When all the horses who had run returned again, they walked out from the large empty road to be replaced by more of them, and Hiccup found himself tilting his head in wonder as another herd of horses ran off into the distance and around the bend and eventually came back around to the start.
Each new time, humans cheered or wailed or snarled or made some show of emotion as they returned, often reacting a little bit different than they had the time before.
When E-e-kTT eventually stood from his seat and descended the stairs, Chrrr-rruhm following, Hiccup followed down from the steps as well - and noted, after returning to Toothless's shoulders, that both of them went to lead their horses. Hiccup was familiar with E-e-kTT's horse, but the one that Chrrr-rruhm led along by a rope was noticeably smaller, with a narrower head that had a deeper slope, and a tail carried high so that it almost draped long fur a little bit across its back instead of hung low and long.
E-e-kTT shed some of his made-skins off carefully, mostly a lot of the loose-hanging cloak fabric, before walking towards the horse-running road. Instead of follow, Hiccup and Toothless perched up on one of the rooftops overlooking the road a little further down, by now already used to the crows that had to scatter away to make room for them to perch, and waited for the horses to line up like before and for the shouting-man to blow his horn and signal for the horses to all start running at once.
Toothless perked his ear-flaps up interested and the two of them turned their heads in unison to follow the path of the horses as they blazed by below, kicking up mud and dust as they went. Curious about where they were running - and maybe a little bit why - Hiccup signaled with a small tug up us-go now too! on the fly-with, launching into the air after them and banking to the side as the horses turned down a well-trodden path.
Sound alone made them easy to follow, even as networks of still-bare tree branches obscured them from sight in places, and fallen logs scattered all throughout the path were leapt over with varying degrees of success from the herd.
Many of the trees began to thin, opening up into fields and then passageways through rocky stone that arched up over the path like a broken rib-cage of rock, some of the horses falling further behind while others strained to overtake each other despite that nothing chased them.
The dragon pair soon realized that it was a race, seeing who were fastest, leaping over logs and holding-things and rocks and ice patches that were put in their way. They noted - with some amusement - that even though Chrrr-rruhm rode along with the smallest horse, it was also the fastest horse and leapt much higher and farther than any of the bigger ones, easily pulling ahead to the lead most of the way.
E-e-kTT and a couple of others started to gain closer on their tail as the race took them uphill and then down a snowy slope on the other side, but when the ground leveled out again and they ran a wide loop back into view of the human village, the smallest horse started to pull ahead again, pulling ahead of E-e-kTT and another unfamiliar human-and-horse pair.
When they passed the line of color drawn into the dirt, the humans perched on either side threw up their voices again in either celebration or dismay, horses dancing to a stop once they had reached the finish.
It was only now that many of the humans seemed to notice Hiccup and Toothless for the first time, heads swiveling and humans standing up, gasping or murmuring or yelping out and pointing as they appeared flying at the tail of the horse herd, who most of the humans seemed to suddenly forget about.
Instinctively, Toothless backwinged and Hiccup braced against his shoulders, looking around at the on-alert humans, and decided now was as good a time as any to turn and dart away out of sight.
Skimming over the waves, Hiccup could almost reach a paw out to trail through the icy cold water, but its depths are too dark to dare doing so in an unknown place and he knows that dark waters sometimes hide threats like sharks. If they are to break through the surface of the water, let it be to snatch fish that are good-to-eat and be gone before any shark or other danger has realized they have come and gone.
Perhaps even more dangerous though is the possibility of sharp stones hidden beneath the waves, waiting to rip and tear dragon wings or tails from any careless enough to dive into the wrong place and drown them when they cannot escape the pull of the ocean.
They scan the waters and watch how it moves and where the waves change, and when they spot the glimmer of fish near the surface, Hiccup braces as he feels Toothless shift for a shallow dive, barely deeper than skimming the surface, and snaps up the fish he had seen there.
They get a glimpse of the water and its hidden stones before breaching the surface again, Toothless swallowing down the fish before they hunt for more. He has his fill first, but there are many fish here, so long as they are patient, and some he catches for Hiccup before alighting on a slippery cliff near the shore where he can share with his partner-beloved.
They tremble both with the cold wind and the feeling of too-close too-many humans. They do not like to have so many eyes turned towards them at once, their instincts telling them the many eyes might be enemies even though no traps have been sprung and no biting arrows unleashed.
It is not so nerve-wracking as to whip their tail to this place and flee far across the sea, to return home and cower under the watchful gaze of the King or beneath Cloudjumper's wing like frightened hatchlings. This is not a place like the ship-belly of the Knotted Man's nest and his dark Alpha. There are no cages and nets and whips and armored enemies. This is not a place that reeks of death and fear and blood and ash, where dragon nightmares come true.
Still, there is only so close and for so long that the two-who-are-one can stand to be under the gaze of stranger-humans who might be threats, and so many of them at once, even if it is their crow-friend Alpha who invites them and protects them.
Especially so when that Alpha is distracted with racing-games and does not have his eyes set on all his flock.
They will not leave yet, but for now, they need distance, and choose to fill that distance with hunting for fish from the cool, unknown waters and flirting with the wind. When things are quieter and the human flock have somewhat forgotten them, they will return, but for now they leap and dive at the water, sometimes missing their pounce, other times coming up with something to feast on until they're both drenched cold but their bellies satisfied.
Sprawling out on some of the higher stones, they purr content to one another as they curl up into each others' heat, letting their heart-fires burn together and enjoying what little warmth the low spring sun has to offer them.
They had noticed during their hunting and once they found a perch to rest on that they had been watched all the while, a small group of crows scattered about keeping an eye on them everywhere they went, but not attacking. There is nothing terribly unusual about that. Crows are clever and they watch intruders always and with many eyes, choosing not to engage unless they must or there are enough of them.
They are friends to the flock here though, they think - or hope - and they are not interested in hunting bird's nests anyway.
Unconcerned about their watchers, Hiccup rolls over to curl up more against Toothless's flank, and without needing to ask, the bigger dragon obliges blocking out the light of the sun with a wing folding over him so his best-love-mine can sleep undisturbed.
For a while, they simply doze, Toothless sitting poised with his head up to listen even though his eyes are half-closed.
So far they have scented no other dragons here to worry about, and the cliffs are too steep for any wolf or large cat to pounce down from, and the ledge too high for any humans to come for them without seeing them from a long way off. All that they need to worry about for now are birds, and most of them are not eager to get close.
At least, that's what Toothless thinks, until one alights on the rocks near them and he flicks his ears up and eyes open curious, whistling softly wonder.
Hiccup stirs beneath his wing, asking what? and rubs his eyes when Toothless dips a nose under his own wing and whuffs look curious this look you.
Blinking the sleep and the bright sun from his eyes, Hiccup crawls out from under the wing to see what has Toothless so interested, tipping his head.
At first, his sleep-hazy eyes think what he's looking at is a seagull, but he quickly realizes that it doesn't have the blue-gray patches of wing or the black tips, and the shape is all wrong, and the feet are not webbed.
He has seen black and black-and-white crows all day here, but so far he has never seen an all-white crow, and not one that also has pink legs instead of grey, and a sun-tinted ivory beak, and beady bright red eyes.
He has seen many crows and ravens before, but never one like this, and he wonders if it is a crow at all.
The bird stands still like a statue at first, before it swivels its head around to look at them with a different eye, and then back again, blinking a clear eyelid. If it is looking for food, Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss have none for it, all of their fish eaten and any inedible parts disposed of back to the sea. Even if they had not eaten their fill, they would not hunt the crows here. Not if they were a part of E-e-kTT's flock.
Staying perfectly still, they watched the bird in return as it looked them over appraisingly, and then almost as quickly as it had come, it launched into the sky again and vanished along the coastline without a sound.
Undisturbed by anything else the rest of the day, Hiccup and Toothless rested a while longer on the cliff before exploring along the higher peaks, riding the updrafts towards the top of the mountains and getting a better look at the land that seemed to stretch out forever without wandering so far they wouldn't be able to find their way back.
Eventually as the day grows dark and night blankets everything, they finally return towards the human village, perching on the rooftop of one of the many houses and enjoying the heat radiating up from inside. In the darkness, no one sees them even as humans mill by down below in small hoards, oblivious to the dragon-pair perched within easy striking distance if they chose to leap.
There are many less humans out then, a lot of them retreating to their wooden nests, but there are still plenty enough of them out and about huddling around bonfires for the two of them to idly observe and get a feel for this lands' human flocks.
Eventually, even that quiets down, and only a small pawful of humans skulk around the far edges of the village keeping watch.
When the sun had barely begun to peek over the horizon, Hiccup was awoken by a soft bellow of air from Toothless beneath him, lifting his head and crawling to perch his front paws on the bigger dragon's skull and follow his gaze. Resting himself there, Toothless turned their heads for the both of them to track the movements of two figures walking the streets below.
One was unfamiliar and tall, but the other was short and unmistakable as E-e-kTT, even if he wore less made-skins in the early morning cold.
Neither seem to notice them for the time being, speaking in human words as they go, and E-e-kTT yawns in a way that says he is not all-awake. His steps are not quite steady like his strides the day before, Hiccup notices, but they aren't quite the pain of a full limp either, little more than a hitch.
Then again, he remembers the times when E-e-kTT had been hurt when he crashed his very first made-wings, or the ways that he moved after being stabbed by a pfikingr sharp-claw. Even when E-e-kTT was hurt, his signals tried to cover it up beneath secrets, so it was possible he could have been very hurt indeed.
Watching them go, Toothless rolls an eye back at him and a slight nudge of his nose at the air asking you what you want go?
In the chilly morning that makes him shiver even under his scale-skins and against Toothless's warmth, he sighs out reluctance to do anything at all, rubbing his face into Toothless's scales here good don't want up yet, but he yawns widely and sits up reluctant ready-though lets-go follow yes, nodding towards where E-e-kTT had gone off to.
Toothless mimicked him with a yawn that blows out a small cloud into the cold morning air and a back-arching stretch as he pushed himself up off the spine of the human nest, flexing his claws and trembling his wings ready, though he chose to slip down and pad across the ground instead of fly, launching into the air only far enough to perch on more wooden structures where they could better see E-e-kTT and the other pfikingr.
The place they went was a circular pit covered in a mix of ice and sand at the bottom, and there were lots of wooden perches for humans to sit on surrounding it, but for now those perches were thankfully empty. Stretching and rolling his head and arms, E-e-kTT regarded the two of them only fleetingly before focusing on the taller man, bracing his body ready-to-pounce.
E-e-kTT doesn't get the chance before the taller one lunges first, swinging a fist that only strikes air as E-e-kTT sweeps around it. Hiccup wasn't sure why either of them were fighting or who might've insulted who, but it wasn't his or Toothless's problem to interfere with, dragon and feral alike stretching out like mirror images one on top of the other, paws crossed beneath their heads as they watched.
It didn't seem like all that serious a fight, and neither E-e-kTT or the tall one had brought out weapons or made-claws, but all the same, they could hear at least a few of the strikes as forearms struck forearms or kicks struck sides or punches struck chests.
E-e-kTT kept light and quick on his feet, trying to stay in the other man's blind spots behind him and strike where he wasn't looking, but despite the size difference, the larger man was keeping up quite well. During their not-so-serious fighting though, Hiccup could tell that he hadn't simply imagined the awkward movements and missteps; E-e-kTT did have a limp to one leg, favoring his weight on one instead of the other often.
Still, even with the limp, he moved quick and placed his steps careful, dipping and weaving around and away from strikes and grabs only most of the times successful - and landed hits of his own as both men panted visible breaths. The taller man grinned/snarled and spoke often, the cadence of the words gruff but light and perhaps goading, just a bit. E-e-kTT remained largely silent, his eyes sharp with focus, and Hiccup noticed that the larger man was pushing to try and take advantage of E-e-kTT's weak leg, forcing the smaller brunette into either retreating or feinting as needed.
Hiccup and Toothless both subtly winced sympathy when the larger man finally managed to break past his defense and make him stumble for his footing on his bad leg, and pounced forward to carry through on the advantage. E-e-kTT threw himself aside and rolled through the sand and frost, over his shoulders and back to his feet, and immediately lunged a kick for the back of the other's leg to return the favor and make him fall, striking towards his head with a bent elbow.
The strike was caught by a paw held up to block it, snatching hold of the limb and the belt at E-e-kTT's hip to flip him over the man's shoulder and onto E-e-kTT's back in the sand.
All the signals of the larger one say triumph! as he stands to his full height and plants a foot on E-e-kTT's chest briefly, tilting his posture mocking at him. Hiccup sees Toothless flick a tongue out over his lips and glance up uncertain at him. It seems like nothing more than a play-fight like they have sometimes seen pfikingr do or that they have done themselves with nest-mates.
But then, E-e-kTT is Alpha here, and they have never seen an Alpha like their great King play the games of smaller dragons - perhaps in part because he is so much bigger than any dragon in the Nest. They are not afraid of being injured by their King, but surely even one as great as He might accidentally crush a small dragon like them under-paw if he tried to play as all his Nest does!
But perhaps he would play if he were smaller.
Then again, perhaps he would not. They cannot recall ever seeing the red-furred Alpha St-t-t-t-t-t-KK play games with smaller humans in such a way, and Uh StrrrrTT does not often like to play wrestling games either. She very often ends up bending paws and legs and throwing to the ground other adult humans who try, like the black-furred human Hiccup sent away with claw-marks to his face the first night he and Toothless had crashed onto Buh-rrrKK from the fly-rocks.
Uh StrrrTT throws that one into the dirt very often and very hard so that he does not forget who is in-charge whenever he trespasses beyond accepted behaviors.
They cannot think of any such instance where Alphas played like nest-mate followers, but surely, this could not be a fight for Alpha's status...?
They watch carefully, as E-e-kTT is finally offered a paw to stand up, receiving an amiable pat and a little bit of assistance dusting off the sand. Hiccup cannot tell what they have decided, but they seem to have decided something, and he cannot tell whether it changes anything at all about who is Alpha or not.
Human alphas do not have a deep-inside voice that touches inside the hearts and minds of others like dragons do, as far as Hiccup can tell, but then maybe he just can't hear them because - despite his shape - he is a dragon most of all. Even the Knotted Man who roared like a dragon did not have a mind-inside voice like their King despite that he commanded the Dark Alpha. He does not know if humans have a similar thing or not.
It doesn't matter. E-e-kTT and his companion seem to be over their tussle and move to sit a little ways from Hiccup and Toothless, E-e-kTT paying them no mind at all as he closes his eyes, sitting back, while the new face sits with head swiveled to look them over, his voice and sounds speaking curious wondering.
He says something about dragons and the word they know for friends in human tongue, and his head tips at them inquisitive, while all the rest of him says confident sure-of-himself but still relaxed.
His fur has two tones, Hiccup notices, most of it dark brown, but with some patches and stripes of rusty orange, his eyes a similarly tawny-rust color. He doesn't seem terribly off-put by the dragon and dragon-feral, and he asks their names.
Hiccup yawns widely in an outward show of non-concern, clicking his name (click)-phuh and rubbing his cheek against the top of Toothless's skull Tt-th-ss, answered in-turn by a purr of Toothless's own. The name the new face gives is thankfully short and easy to replicate into dragon noises; Iiuh-kTT.
There are more things said, but Hiccup pays attention to few of them, only sparing enough attention to know if a threat is coming. Iiuh-kTT is a friend to E-e-kTT, as far as they can tell, but he has done nothing to earn their interest or respect yet as E-e-kTT has, so his presence is more tolerated than sought.
Hiccup's attention is more on E-e-kTT himself, many curiosities flitting through his thoughts - many which are not easily translated from dragon to human, but some that are - and he finds his eye drawn to more black marks on the other's soft skin. Chirping softly in curiosity, he rolls off Toothless's back and slides down a wing onto the wooden perches with a light thunk, shuffling closer to look, taking one clawed glove off to hold with his teeth and tentatively touch near E-e-kTT's shoulder.
E-e-kTT spares him a brief glance out of the corner of his eye, but no more than that and closes his eyes again, seeming fine to allow the rare bit of contact as Hiccup's clever paws delicately trace lines along the back of his arm, lines that are so detailed they look convincingly like real feathers inlaid directly into his skin. But they are not simply feathers, they are the shapes of bird wings!
Hiccup had seen tattoos on Vikings before, though he did not know at the time what they were or didn't think to ask. Most often, he had seen tattoos the first time he had also seen that human for the first time, and so the tattoos were a part of them, a marking the same as dragons sometimes had an odd splash of color to their scales separate from the rest and in different shapes from any other dragon that they were born with. He has only ever thought of them as natural patterns. After all, his own soft-skin has had small spots and freckles that simply were.
This time though, he knows in his memory that E-e-kTT did not have these markings before and he cannot curb his curiosity - they are another new magic thing.
E-e-kTT is patient with him (he is always patient with dragons, it seems. It is a thing Hiccup likes about him) and indulges Hiccup with pulling the made-skin top off to expose even more of the detailed feathers joining together all down his back and spine, holding his arm out to the side a little better to see in invitation.
Hiccup whistles and chirps in delight as he traces the magic patterns with both his fingers and his eyes. It is like paint, if paint was done very, very well, but it does not smudge under his fingers. He does not even feel it.
The paint truly is inside the skin! Or perhaps they are feathers placed under the skin somehow - they are very convincing if not!
Even with his own made-wings, he chatters softly want want want under his breath, remembering the magic of ink that turned his fur a color closer to Toothless's. He has made scale-skin clothes for himself, but he has only a few times ever thought to try and change his soft-skin, and he has never succeeded at the how.
Keenly focused on exploring the careful lines and trying to figure out the how of this soft-skin magic, he only subconsciously notices that E-e-kTT holds very, very still for him in knowing - even as much as Hiccup may trust him the way he seldom trusts pfikingr - that if he makes sudden moves or tries to spin around or touch Hiccup without his permission, he will instantly leap away and scold and growl at being invaded the same as he is somewhat-invading E-e-kTT's space now. He notices as well that Iiuh-kTT is not moving much either, and that Toothless has not screeched any warnings of danger.
E-e-kTT eventually breaks his stillness only a little to ask if he likes the soft-skin magic.
"Issss," Hiccup answers immediately, adding to it like like this good yes very-much-so want want this yes!
He's asked then if Hiccup wants E-e-kTT to show him, and the dragon-man bobs his head vigorously in the motion he knows humans like to use to confirm things, answering more determinedly "Isss!"
Shaking off the cold a bit, E-e-kTT conceals his feathers under coverings again and stands, breathing out a yawn and waiting both for Iiuh-kTT and Hiccup and Toothless to all follow from the fighting sand-pit and through the town, until coming across a pfikingr hut where two strangers sat. E-e-kTT simply stopped near them and said customary greetings, the two strangers looking up briefly to converse, before going back to what they were doing.
E-e-kTT nodded to Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss and then the strangers, his signals saying watch without words, though admittedly to watch made Hiccup squirm a little, inside.
One human took a metal sharp-thorn like those Hiccup used to sew and dipped it in black ash, before carefully - methodically - stabbing it into the skin of the other human's foreleg. Much as the stabbed human tried to sit still and confident, his signals still said pain underneath and he shifted his weight frequently and looked away often with a tight jaw.
Slowly though, patterns were taking shape across the man's skin that weren't there before and remained even when the Mark Maker tried to wipe them away as he was working. After a bit of seeing them work and the how of the magic, the initial uneasiness started to fade for curiosity instead.
When E-e-kTT finally clicked for his attention, he asked with his motions you want? gesturing between him and the Mark Maker.
Hiccup's shoulders squared uneasy, crouching slightly on Toothless's back maybe don't-know uneasy don't-like could don't trust want maybe yes not here no no don't-know maybe though not him. To trust a stranger to stab him with a sharp-thorn, even for this new and interesting soft-skin magic? Absolutely not.
Even if it were a less-painful magic like ink for his fur, he would not trust a stranger that close, and sensing his unease, Toothless steps back no refuse not here no for both of them, mantling his wings a bit and warbling at his Hiccup-half me here us we together I protect!
E-e-kTT - ever sharp - seems to catch on as well, humming thoughts in his throat and pointing to the sharp-thorns and ash, then to himself, and holding out an upturned palm like presenting a gift, but the gift is still a question. When Hiccup hums back uncertainty, E-e-kTT circles a small spot on his own cheek - which also still has the black soft-skin magic from before - and wonders at them again.
Hiccup exchanges a contemplative glance with Toothless, considering it. Toothless croons reassurance at him, but his look is a question just as E-e-kTT's is, wondering what Hiccup wants. If it is a gift Hiccup wants to accept, then that is Hiccup's choice to make. E-e-kTT has given them good gifts before. He had made Hiccup a tail and he had had a friend show him how to breathe fire.
If he had another magic to offer him, then...
Hiccup bent his head down to rest his forehead together with Toothless's, breathing out more calmly love you we us together yes strong sure certain assured, answered in turn yes yes love you love if-you're-sure here yes protect together us always always happy you want yes here-still for-sure for-you.
Sitting up again, Hiccup nodded his acceptance and slid from Toothless's back, resting his hood back and shaking black fur out, following E-e-kTT again and sitting where E-e-kTT indicated for him. Even though E-e-kTT was Alpha here, his smaller signals not hidden behind secrets asked permission each step of the way, though Hiccup was glad for it.
Having a human hand - even one belonging to a human who was really a crow - anywhere near his throat was a difficult position for him to tolerate, his first impulse to pull away or bite. He did neither, if only because E-e-kTT seemed aware of his discomfort and watched his own movements carefully, leaving plenty of room for Hiccup to pull away if he chose.
Tolerating a sharp thorn near his face was another matter entirely and he found it hard to fight his instincts to leap away, even at first when its sharp point only barely grazed over his skin to trade small patterns, making his face twitch. The first time the sharp thorn really bit in, he reflexively yelped and pulled back, rubbing the sting in his cheek.
As expected, E-e-kTT had hardly any reaction beyond an apology, but he patiently waited for Hiccup to decide to try again, suggesting with signals to close his eyes. At first, he refused to, but soon enough found it was easier to resist pulling away if he couldn't see the sharp thorn coming. It still wasn't enough to stop him from twitching and squirming a bit after every few stings of the sharp thorn, but for the most part, he only moved around after the sting rather than right before.
While Hiccup sits resolute in his place, even with eyes closed hiding don't-like, Toothless chooses to seat himself on the ground just behind E-e-kTT, a little bit to watch the magic done to his Hiccup-self; perhaps a little bit to remind E-e-kTT he is still there and very close and very big if the crow-human decides to do anything to truly hurt Hiccup.
He does not so much distrust E-e-kTT - he had proven himself beyond what most any other human would have done, to save his heart-beloved from a killing blow - but he still remembers how tricky he is. The memory of the flying bolt arrow into his shoulder that had grounded them long enough to become captured is faded, but never fully forgotten. Neither is how E-e-kTT had learned to trick dragons into thinking he could speak as they could, or the clever ambushes and traps and battle-plans he had made against other humans to save dragons.
But even in saving dragons, Toothless remembers with a small tremble of revulsion how E-e-kTT had severed the dead leg from the body of a wounded dragon-cousin, something unthinkable. While it had been good in the end, and E-e-kTT had kept his promise true, perhaps just a bit, his forgiveness of such a thing was tainted by other human experiences such as with the Knotted Man.
Certainly, E-e-kTT could not be compared to such cruelty, but the taint of those bright scars now faded is difficult not to think about around even the best of humans.
And besides, the severing of the leg had been done for good reasons, but it was painful all the same for the cousin. This was a little bit similar. It was maybe for a good reason, for Hiccup, but it was a painful thing. He would not let E-e-kTT forget for a moment not to go even a little too far, or he would pay that injury back tenfold, to protect as well as avenge his Hiccup-heart-of-mine, even if that meant shadowing so close over E-e-kTT's back that his warm dragon breath could be felt.
To his satisfaction at least, E-e-kTT's motions are careful, and he doesn't seem to outwardly acknowledge that Toothless is right over his back, which is just fine by Toothless. He knows not to think for even a second that E-e-kTT does not realize he is there. He is far too clever not to notice.
Content to watch, and occasionally crooning sympathy reassurance here me concern love you fine still you want no more? Me here ready yes love love, he only looks up from watching when he sees Iiuh-kTT join them to stand behind Hiccup in a not dissimilar way as Toothless stands at E-e-kTT's back.
Not appreciating how close the man is to his Hiccup-beloved, his ear-flaps flatten and he growls a warning that goes unheeded, the man only standing confidently and staring back at him with a close-mouthed smile and paws on his hips. Hiccup's eye cracks open in question, but E-e-kTT's hand is on his jaw holding him from turning to look so that the sharp-thorn does not miss its target.
When Iiuh-kTT still does not move, Toothless gets up and circles around, moving towards him with flared wings and a snarl, and the two end up trading places with who they are both standing over, with Toothless now at Hiccup's back and Iiuh-kTT behind E-e-kTT. The tall man throws his head up in a human laugh that Toothless cannot decide whether it is mocking or playful or both, baring his throat at Toothless fearless dare-you!
He does not care either way, standing guard over Hiccup's back now instead and glaring Iiuh-kTT down, who only radiates amusement before looking down to watch what E-e-kTT is doing, telling Toothless with his disregard unconcerned.
Soon enough, E-e-kTT is done enough that he sits back and offers a reflective thing for Hiccup to see himself in and admire the small pattern of black scales swirling down his cheek, nothing even half as elaborate as the entire back of feathers E-e-kTT himself sported, but complimenting in their own right.
Still, Toothless knew that acquiring them was not at all comfortable, and had to check for certain you like? you think good you like?
Hiccup chirped a little subdued happy think-so yes stinging like it maybe could be good yes yes fine good nice very-much-so you think you like what you think?
Licking over the unstung side of Hiccup's face, Toothless purred good yes looks-good you yes fine good either-way happy you most-important love you love you silly of course.