Part Four: Beneath the Earth

The sound of claws against stone fills the cave – so many of them, or so fast! Their claws patter like summer rain on the king's lake, and Hiccup's heart clenches. He yearns to be back there, to see the surface of the water all silvery and rippled, full of small movements, and far beneath it, the reflections of their Alpha's white scales as he waits out the rain.

No-threat! Hiccup whistles to the half-seen dragons surrounding him and his dragon-self.

Over him, Toothless snarls warning, baring his fangs and summoning his heart-fires up into his jaws. Bright purple-white light casts the small crags and corners of the cavern into too-sharp relief, and eyes, eyes everywhere, narrow and squint against the glare.

These new dragons, striped green on green, are small – smaller than Toothless, but bigger than Hiccup, who crouches beneath the black dragon's chest for the comfort of his presence and so the light does not blind him. They are both hunched low with all their paws tense and ready to spring, Toothless with his wings half-spread even though there is no sky above to vanish into. His tail smacks against stones as he tries to lash it back and forth, warding off a leaping ambush, and his ear-flaps are flattened tight against his skull to protect them from an enemy's bite.

Hissing back through narrow jaws, the dragons surrounding them shutter their eyes against the bright light of dragon-fires, but they do not retreat. Spiked tails rear above a few heads, and strong back legs tense to leap. Some even step closer. Some have blood dripping from their jaws – Hiccup can smell it – and Toothless' fires reveal scraps of meat and feathers caught in protruding fangs.

One is different. Its – her – crest and her fins are red, bright and clear, and red stripes lick across her shoulders and her spine. She stands taller. Her flock flows around her, and she stands like a stone with her fangs bared. Hiccup scents on her breath the blood and temper that had woken him, and he crouches beneath her eyes fixed on them so fiercely.

Their sounds are strange, and their movements unfamiliar, and yet Hiccup understands them well enough to listen, as travelers and frilled dragons hesitate, eying each other warily.

This? this? what this? they ask each other, with ruffs flaring alarm and eyes flashing uncertain.

Curiosity shows in the tilts of many sharp-nosed heads, and the pack shudders like a wave as their eager steps forward to see and smell the dragon-pair mix with stalking, proud retreats.

Intruder, the red-striped leader snarls, her eyes flicking from dragon to dragon-boy. Her uncertain coils in her hindquarters, waiting only a weakness to leap upon. Her body hums that she will leap; she hesitates only considering.

In her shadow, another howls enemy, shrieking anger.

Me, Toothless signals silently, shifting his foreleg between Hiccup and the red-striped she-Alpha. Instead, Hiccup turns his eyes to her flock. He tenses ready-to-leap and presses his shoulder to Toothless' paw, showing his tongue to the air not in a dragon's smile but to taste the tension like a thick claiming-scent in the air.

But surprise flicks through his shoulders. Hiccup watches the dragons surrounding them with amazement crooning from his throat and shock fluttering in his chest.

Toothless-beloved, he vocalizes, and whistles look! and when he lowers the paw he had raised before him, to strike or defend with blunt claws curled outward, he does not set it to the ground but instead to his own too-thin chest.

Look them me I that I yes me me!

The frilled dragons have no wings, or maybe only very small ones that look more like fins, and they stand on their back legs with their front claws held before them. They have lit no fires of their own in their jaws in answer to Toothless' display, and except for the red-striped she-Alpha with her head atilt to peer around their sides, they are all each other's size. These are not hatchlings!

They are bigger than Hiccup still, but the wild boy knows that he will be bigger someday. He makes and remakes his scale-skins constantly, shedding pieces that no longer fit like when Prancing Paws could not stop scratching at her belly until she had dug through to the new and shining scales beneath. He has no choice; his world is too dangerous and too harsh for him to stand beneath the sky unprotected. During the warmer summer, he will run about with all his paws bare, beating thick calluses into skin so much softer than that of his cousins', but every winter he finds that he must make the wraps that protect his paws anew.

Are these dragons his kin, then? Will he look like them, when he is grown?

Hiccup and Toothless know with perfect faith that they are the same inside, but Hiccup has never seen dragons that are so much like him. They are as close to his image of himself as anything he has ever drawn. Their muzzles are much sharper, and they have very fine tails indeed – the dragon-boy whines envy, secret and hoarded – but they are alike enough that Hiccup cries aloud recognition loud enough to be heard over their snarls and the endless clicking of their claws.

The sound slows their paws as the frilled dragons hesitate and tip their heads to look at the dragon-boy creeping out of Toothless' shadow towards the Red She. He glances all around for a swift bite or a sharp howl to tell him no! but no snarl greets him.

They back away, and let Hiccup advance, and Toothless' fires fade slightly. But he does not swallow them away again, and when Hiccup looks back over his shoulder, the black dragon's eyes are narrowed and all of him howls ready-to-leap and willing-to-fight.

You? Hiccup chirrups, sitting back on his heels and setting his forepaws to the stone. The little boy ducks his shoulders submission and no-threat to the red-striped Alpha, meeting her eyes greeting and glancing away no-challenge.

She narrows her eyes suspicion at him, and he chirrs interest and peace, urging no-fight us not-want no safe us good us yes good you here? this-here this you? us here us fly far fly here sorry sorry no-threat sorry.

He cringes apology for their trespass, but gestures all around to show that they have broken nothing, burnt nothing, made no mess, stolen no prey. He gurgles and flinches hunger, licking at his jaws in open jealousy of those who have been hunting.

One stalks into the cave with a seabird dead in its – her – jaws. At once, the nearest to her try to take it for their own, and she drives them back with quick slices of her tail, raking her heavy back claws against the scales of the most daring.

That? Hiccup continues even as he watches this small fight, gesturing at the spring still welling up among the stones, churning within its hollow before pouring away into a claw-thin crack in the cavern's floor. Look you want yes yours no-threat this fine fine not-important us fine.

Red She hisses warning, and he goes silent and still, obedient.

Satisfaction, she growls, and out of the side of his eyes, Hiccup sees her heavy claws pace closer. She is not his Alpha, and her claws look very sharp, and Hiccup tenses to leap away.

Her breath fills his nose, and he senses more than sees her tongue flick out to taste him.

No! Toothless roars, snarling possessiveness. Mine, he snarls, you back-away you he mine you don't-like stranger-alert Hiccup-beloved this careful careful you? you?

Chirring a soft, uncertain reassurance, the dragon-boy sidles away from Red She, retreating with as much of a dragon's courtesy as he can muster. He is not running away from her, he shows with his movements. He only wishes to be closer to Toothless again.

She snorts disbelief, and mockery, and as she turns away her tail flicks a gesture Hiccup understands as dismissal, as if she has shoved him aside as uninteresting.

The little boy has grown up as a creature of the wild, a child of dragons, fighting for survival against the brutally harsh northern realm with every breath. He is a more savage little hellion than any Viking child; few human children kill their prey with their teeth, and eat that catch raw, and think nothing of it. He has frozen, and he has starved, and he has howled endless grief for too many deaths until that grief ended after all; he does not have the luxury of abandoning himself to despair.

And yet he is sheltered, in his way. His flock-mates do not kill each other over prey or mates or perches. They protect each other; they obey the ancient Alpha who rules over them unchallenged. Most dote upon the wild little boy in their midst as a favored child, delighting in watching him grow as one of them. Even those who shrug him away tolerate his presence.

Toothless' love has been the heart of his world for longer than he can remember; they are a single soul in two bodies, each other's heart their guiding star.

Hiccup has been raised with kindness.

So when the nearest smaller dragon sidles closer to him, and stretches out its nose in a tentative, exploratory nudge, Hiccup turns to touch his own nose to its – his – and whuff a greeting, sharing scents with him. He does not flinch when another stands over him and stares, turning its head from side to side. When one ducks its head beneath Hiccup's jaw to taste the skins wrapped around his body, he does not waver to have teeth so near his vulnerable underbelly. He only reaches out a careful paw and brushes it across the dragon's crest, crooning innocent delight.

Part of him analyzes the ridges of the thin bones and the texture of tiny scales, shuffling through memories and half-learned skills and concluding that he could make that someday, if he tried very hard. If this is the kind of dragon he is, should he have a fin, too, just as he longs for scales of his own that grow there just so?

You? Hiccup whistles again, blinking see? see? friendly maybe back at Toothless, who shuffles his paws unhappily, wary still and reluctant to tuck them beneath his body and be at ease.

The last of Toothless' fires fade from his jaws – it is itch-making to hold them so, like wanting to sneeze but trying not to – but the cave does not disappear into full darkness. Some light reflects from the stones at the cave mouth, steady and warm as it drifts into the deeper caverns. The sun must have risen, then; they have slept the night away while the frilled dragons hunted.

Hiccup roars their flock-sound joyfully, the identifier that means the dragon-flock ruled over by the king of ice, and the wild boy clicks and hisses the noises that mean Hiccup-self and Toothless-self.

Like many of their flock-mates, Hiccup tangles their sounds together happily, tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss. The way that dragons speak naturally has many sounds and messages happening all at once and all over each other, and their sounds for themselves are like their paws – that they are together is the important thing, not what order they are in.

Toothless bares the very edge of his fangs, rumbling here I here I guard uncertainty very-much-so back to Hiccup even as the scuttling little dragons crowd around his dragon-boy. He does not like it.

He does not like her – beyond her flock and his beloved, her eyes flash hard like river stones.

The black dragon takes a step towards Hiccup, unhappy at having the two halves of himself so far apart, but the moment he does, she whistles alert and command, shrill and sharp.

Like the snap of a branch, many of the little dragons turn on him, sharp-spiked tails raised and tensed to strike. They snarl warning, snapping back-away!

Toothless' hackles rise in anger and renewed fear. He does not fear for this half of himself, not against such small dragons, but they have Hiccup

The dragon-boy is surrounded, now. He no longer whistles interest and curiosity and friendliness, rearing tall to show that they are the same almost, they should be friends and tell stories to each other, they should hunt together and share the sun.

Now his yip of enough goes ignored as the pack's curiosity turns to malicious, cruel teasing of the strange little dragon who seems to be calling himself one of them, part of their pack.

Hiccup stumbles as a frilled dragon shoves his shoulder against the wild boy's, too hard. When he tries to drop to all his paws again for balance, snaggle-toothed fangs snap shut in his matted fur, making him yelp pain laced with surprise and outrage and betrayal at the tug – and at the huff of spiteful laughter blown into his ear.

And there is no gap in their bodies for him to escape through; everywhere he turns, Hiccup is met with snarling teeth and blood-heavy breath and hard scales that his soft claws can only scream across, setting his own small fangs on edge. Sharp claws scratch too near his own bare paws, and Hiccup wants both to crouch and cower and be small, and to be far away from those claws. He knows instinctively that to fall, in this crush, would be to die.

Across the cavern, Toothless roars protectiveness and rage, and the black dragon lunges forward as Hiccup swats out at a dragon who has nipped straight through his borrowed scales to the soft skin beneath. Even through the layers of skins and the thickening, musty scent of the dragon pack, he can smell the heart-freezing scent of Hiccup's blood.

Faster than even Toothless can see, the Red She has leapt over all her flock, and he recoils instinctively as her claws tear past his nose. Her tail hisses as fiercely as her jaws as it cuts through the air, and there is intent enough in her movements that the young dragon nearly tumbles over his own tail in his haste to get away.

Attack! Red She screeches, and Hiccup is all but abandoned as the pack leaps at Toothless.

Toothless is the threat; Toothless is the dragon with sharp fangs and strong claws and fire burning their night-sensitive eyes. Toothless is the one big enough to devour the seagulls they prey on and leave them hungry, to take their caves from them and crush their eggs.

The black dragon draws in a breath never truly released and blazes it out again as dazzling blasting-fire. Snarling little dragons scatter – so fast! – and the blast explodes against the cavern wall, destroying only rock.

Faster than the besieged dragon, or the dragon-boy at bay, can see, the Red She darts under Toothless' paws, nipping at the softer scales above his claws and in the hollows of his flanks.

Screaming shock rage shock what? what? you I bite bite now yes WANT! intertwined with whimpers of Hiccup-love? Hiccup-mine where where terror need-you where mine? Toothless snaps blindly, trying to both pull away and break through to Hiccup's side. But there is nowhere he can go but into the pack around him; there are too many of them, and this is their cave.

A sharply spiked tail, curved like a gouging claw, finds its mark.

Between snarl and snap, Toothless freezes as still as ice.


Not truly understanding – Toothless is gone, all his signals silent! – Hiccup screams as if the heart had been torn from his chest. Abruptly, nothing makes sense at all, and he reels, more truly off-balance than he can ever remember being.

He can still see a shadow where Toothless was, but it is not Toothless – how can it be? It is only a shape, unmoving, unspeaking, without even the signals that simply are, that say I am.

Even in sleep, Toothless says living. His sides rise and fall with breathing; his paws twitch; his eyes track dreams; his tail furls and spreads as he chases dreaming winds. Even in stillness, Toothless says love. Subtle signals say see-you, a scrap of his attention always turned towards the other half of himself; minute tensions ripple beneath black scales so that Hiccup always knows at a glance which way Toothless will leap, and when. They dance together as if each could read the other's mind, just by watching and being together.

The shadow that was Toothless says nothing. It says only, shape.

Shrieking pure, unfathomable horror, Hiccup bulls past the frilled dragons guarding him with the strength of fear and the advantage of surprise, squirming between two of them by landing a solid kick into one's belly.

Small dragons scatter as Hiccup races to Toothless' side. He does not even try to slow down, and rams straight into the black scales of his dragon-self's chest.

Mewling denial, blind to anything else, Hiccup presses himself against Toothless' heart and listens with everything he is and has ever been, needing to find the heartbeat that must be there.

It must be. It must be. It is Hiccup's heart too. without it, he will – they will – die, and then they will never go home again. They will never see their friends and their flock-mates again. Cloudjumper will never again cuff them for being very silly and watch them over the peaks of rocks and from within the shadows of stone teeth whenever he thinks the dragon-pair do not see him lurking there. They will not be, and that is an unthinkable thing.

Toothless-mine Toothless-beloved need you please please here here please need love-you please Toothless-dearest here… He does not whimper the sounds so much as bleed them, and he must force himself silent to listen.

A moment.

Another.

The world ends.

Silence.

The sun dies.

Silence.

The nest's walls crumble.

Silence.

Beat.

So slowly – so barely! – but Toothless' heart is beating, and in the darkness, surrounded, all but alone, a prisoner of dragons not like him at all, Hiccup howls for broken joy.

His echoes have not even raced back to him when the blood-hot reek of the Red She's breath hisses over him.

Her stinger lashes into his shoulder, and poison rushes into his too-small body, and Hiccup collapses into a sleep too deep for dreams.


She Who Hunts in Darkness, She Who Kills, She Who Leads, She Whose Stripes Are Bright and Glorious, She Who Runs Swiftest, She Who Fights Trespassers Upon Home Stone perches at the side of a stone. She scratches her foreclaws across the bones of a fish that He Who Smells Like This had brought her as she guarded her pack from the dark ones. She waits with her tail to the sunlight and her nose in the darkness where it belongs, and she watches the two shadows that do not belong.

The presumptuous little dragon-brat still lies unmoving where it fell at the dangerous one's paws. When she stares very hard, Glory can see the bigger dragon's eyes still trying to move, to find it. It is hidden under his nose, and the scent of his fear-panic has had a day of hunting and boasting and hissing at her followers to spread through the cave.

Glory licks at her jaws, irritated. She does not like having his scent all over her cave.

She had not thought of that, and she hisses at herself, but inside, where the others cannot hear.

But she could not have let them go.

The bigger dragon has begun to stir, slow and clumsy, but the smaller still lies like a dead thing. That is good. Glory understands dead things.

She turns her head aside to lick at the stripes she wears so proudly, for the comfort of them, and forces herself to touch her tongue to them without hesitation. Silly, she hisses at herself, tail flicking annoyance in a threat to any foolish enough to stay within her reach. She has earned her stripes, they will not fade because she licks them!

Glory had fought hard for her stripes, and the memory still twitches through her claws and burns in her blood. He had smelled so very weak, the one who had led them before. The she who was not yet Glory, who was only Hunter, had dared to creep into his nesting place while he hunted, and when she dipped her nose to his hollow she had smelled death waiting for him.

She had lapped up the scent and carried his death to him in her jaws. It was his.

Her new stripes no longer taste of his blood. They are hers entire now, and she wears them as a warning to any who would dare be bolder than she.

In the depths of the cave, beneath the familiar ripple of the clear water, Glory hears a terrified whimper. She taps her claws against the stone in pleasure as the bigger dragon noses at his littler one, trying to push it awake.

It moves, but only with the pushing. If Glory could not hear its heartbeat, fluttering high and laboring like a prey-bird's, she would have thought it dead.

She wishes it was. Then… Glory thinks very hard, determined to be clever and strong and brave and fierce enough so that none of her pack will challenge her.

Then – she is very clever – then her pack would have dragged it from their places and left it on the stone in the sun for birds to pick at, and then her hunters would have eaten many birds!

She clicks irritation at the bigger dragon's whining. It sounds not at all like her pack's hisses and screams; his grunts and cries and clicks are strange to her. His fussing over the little one is stranger still. If it is not strong enough to rise and fight, why does he want it by his side? It will only tug on his tail and slow him as he runs.

Hidden beside the stone and with the sun at her tail, Glory watches as the black dragon turns his little creature over with his nose. It rolls onto its back and lies still, paws spread wide and belly vulnerable.

Hunting instincts tickle at Glory, urging her leap. She locks her hindquarters in place and waits; hunters must know their prey.

And the black dragon is still much bigger than her. To face him alone…

He whines and licks gently, carefully at the little dragon's strange muzzle and its stranger scales. He lifts a paw from the stone, straining with the effort, and nudges at the small one. It must be a hatchling. But how can any hatchling be so weak?

The hatchlings of her flock spring from their shells fierce and biting, eager to run after so long held within their eggs. They flee all others but their nest-mother, quicker than even grown hunters, and steal kills from the jaws of any slow enough to be cornered. There are some running wild across their island now, Glory knows – an Alpha should know these things – but they will learn by watching true hunters, following in their pawsteps until the true pack knows their scent and allows them to join the hunt.

Those hunters are far from her, scattered out across their island striking down the birds too stupid to remember that this is a dragon nest, and Glory is unsure if she is glad of this.

She must be strong and fierce and confident, to lead them. She must show that she is the boldest, or another will rise to kill her and wear her blood as stripes.

Hunting intruders is impressive, but Glory is afraid to fail. She does not know how! She does not remember other dragons coming here ever.

She growls at herself – but only inside – and wishes that she had bitten the stranger's throat like a bird's while he was frozen-still.

But now he has woken again, even if he has not even looked for hunters watching him. Now he paws over his hatchling with distress bubbling in his throat like (click)-phuh (click)-phuh, but Glory shutters her eyes closed in a flinch. She remembers the fire in his throat, bright like the sun pouncing into their caves to crush stones beneath its paws.

Glory's instincts want her to be a night creature. But there are not many birds all the time. She and her pack must hunt during the day, but she does not like it.

Glory is intelligent enough to imagine what-if, and she paws at her fish bones and wonders what-ifs that flutter around her like panicked birds. What if she did not bite his throat enough? What if he blasted her open like the stones still scattered around their cave that was theirs before he came and made it stink of stranger-intruders?

What if her pack saw her fail? What if all the pack bit his throat and brought him down, and they turned on her because they were all stronger than she?

She would not be She Who Hunts in Darkness, She Who Kills, She Who Leads, She Whose Stripes Are Bright and Glorious, She Who Runs Swiftest, She Who Fights Trespassers Upon Home Stone then.

She does not want to be someone else's stripes.

In the cave, the hatchling stirs, crying out like a broken bird. Glory bristles, hackling at its voice. It is not pack, it is not hers, she would never accept a hatchling that cowered before a stranger and did not bare its fangs in a snarl!

Glory is clever, and she can imagine, but she cannot imagine that Hiccup is anything but a dragon. His signals, his scents, his behavior all are those of dragons, with a child's perfect faith. And she has never seen a human. There is nothing on her island that would bring passing ships to it, not even safe harbors; the sharp stones bristling above the water warn of treacherous spikes hidden below. Her hunters leap between them, when the tide is very low, and shriek laughter at those whose claws are not sharp enough to hold their grip on the algae-slippery stones.

She, too, is very young, and she understands only that the little dragon that smelled more of far-away than fire had gestured to the pack she rules so proudly, and to itself, and signaled same.

They are not alike at all just because it too does not need to set its forepaws to the ground!

But the black dragon fusses over it, yelping relief and chirring love like a nesting mother. Glory watches through the lingering light of the late afternoon as he turns away and pads to the spring. He is clumsy still, and he stumbles even more because he cannot take his eyes from the hatchling curling itself into a pained, shuddering coil.

Glory laughs to herself, fangs bared and tongue flashing, when his paw knocks a stone he broke from their cave and he grunts at the strike of it. She watches, claws clicking irritation and with thief! a bubble in her throat, as he drinks.

She is surprised when he returns to his hatchling with his muzzle dripping, and lowers his nose to the little one's for it to drink, too.

They mewl to each other, the little one barely moving, the bigger dragon glancing often towards the cave-mouth and the light there. Glory purrs with delight at the echoes of their fear.

She and her pack have frightened them. Her pack is strong.

She Who Hunts in Darkness, She Who Kills, She Who Leads, She Whose Stripes Are Bright and Glorious, She Who Runs Swiftest, She Who Fights Trespassers Upon Home Stone is very proud of herself.

The black dragon curls around his hatchling and breathes over it, but it trembles against his scales as if there were deepcold ice all around. She watches it paw at his side, but it cannot pull itself to stand again, rearing tall like one of her hunters. It shakes too strongly. Her poison-sting has killed all its strength.

And always, they cry to each other. Glory listens to their whistles and yips and purrs and croons with puzzlement. She understands the emotions of it all – need and fear and confusion and nesting-sounds – but not the hidden signals that only the dragon-pair understand.

Their closest friends and the flock-mates who know them best might have understood some of it, as frightened dragon and severely weakened dragon-boy gesture and vocalize to each other. They speak in memories, in signals they have created together, in sketches drawn by touch alone against Toothless' scales, and in the quick and bitter scuffles of an argument they do not have time to have and cannot afford to get wrong.

To Glory, their conversation is all but meaningless. She cannot understand the plan they are warming like an egg held safe between their bodies.

But she can see that the black dragon is unhappy – it is clear in every scale of him – and she understands from the refusal in his snorts and his glances aside that he does not want to listen. Watching like the predator she is, she stays hidden, away from his eyes.

She understands the fear in both their voices, and the little Alpha comforts herself with this as she hears the rapid click-click-click-click of her pack's claws against the stones. She smells the blood of good hunting on their scales and claws, and flares her crest to signal them to her. Come here!

The intruders' fear reassures her. She is pleased that they have not immediately fled the cave, even through a tunnel that seems unguarded. (She is a very good hider; she would have sprung upon them in ambush, if they had tried.)

Any hunter can snatch a bird from a stone. She has kept a big dragon caught here!

Here! she snaps at her pack, nudging one into place at her tail with a warning glare. He lowers his eyes, promising not to bite her. She will tear him, if he tries.

Stay! Watch! Guard! That! Careful! Down! You down! Now! Glory pushes and stares and hunt-signals her followers into obedience. No! You small! Ready! I lead! Brave! I brave!

Wait! she commands, holding her tail ready. The young Alpha imagines nesting mothers holding their hatchlings in their jaws, carrying them to new places.

The little dragon-creature cannot fly. The bigger dragon will have to carry it in his jaws.

But then he will not be able to blaze with that terrible bright fire, and they will sting him again!

Glory and her pack will play with them like birds with broken wings until they bare their throats for her bite.

No one will dare challenge her when she has killed a big dragon!

Glory crouches to leap, head lowered and level with her body as her strong tail curls over her back, ready to strike. She trembles with the joy of waiting to pounce, feeling the exhilaration of the hunt singing through her and tasting the fear of her prey in the air as her tongue flicks out beyond her fangs. Her forepaws curve in on themselves to be all claws, and her back paws spread their claws to grip the stone.

All around her, her pack prepares to strike at her command. For a few keenly savored heartbeats, the violent joy of the hunt sings through them, and Glory is caught up in the shared and single purpose of their nature.

For those moments, she has no doubts about her right to be their leader, no fear of the hungry and the ambitious and the daring who might be scenting at her shadow – She Who Hunts in Darkness, She Who Kills, She Who Leads, She Whose Stripes Are Bright and Glorious, She Who Runs Swiftest, She Who Fights Trespassers Upon Home Stone is of the pack!

Now! she signals, and they pour through the cave mouth as one, and –

Firebrightlikesun blazes, scorching through them, and hunters fall from the roof of the tunnel, blinded and stunned and twisting in their blindness. Their stinging tails scrape across their pack-mates' scales, and squeals of rage cut through their howls of shock.

Half-blinded herself, Glory screams follow! as the suddenly-huge shadow lunges into their midst. Thrashing wildly, flaming to knock her hunters aside, the black dragon charges like a mad thing. His shoulder rams into Glory and the flashing dark of the world turns upside down and beats her with heavy paws.

Then his weight is gone, and it is only as she leaps back to her feet with her tail lashing that she tastes his blood on her fangs.

All around her, her followers hiss at each other and yip at trampled flanks, pawing at their dazzled eyes. Glory shakes her head roughly, sharply, seething with rage.

With squinting eyes, she peers back towards the sunlight. A great shadow fills the tunnel for a heartbeat, wings spread, before the black dragon beats them down powerfully and he soars up into the light.

Gone.

Gone, and her hunters scattered and whimpering, and her triumph taken from her!

The little Alpha screams in rage, stalking among her fallen followers and hissing at every eye turned towards her, until all have lowered their heads and looked away in surrender.

Her nose is full of blasting-fire and her skull is ringing with its echoes; the reflections of the too-bright light sparkle and shimmer across the cave that is hers but that reeks of him still!

Glory howls, and whips around, blinking furiously –

And stops, as frozen as if she had been stung by one of her own hunters.

She tips her head to one side, as birdlike as her prey and as baffled.

Crouched in the darkness, pressed as close to the stone at its back as it can go, something shining in one paw, the black dragon's hatchling meets her eyes and bares its fangs and snarls.


There is sun and it is there and Toothless sets his shoulder to it just so and he flies and he flies and he flies and he screams with the agony tearing at his heart and the bite that drips blood from his shoulder is a goodness almost because it hurts less and he flies and he flies and he flies.

There is this wind and it is the wrong one and he flies. There is this wind and it is the wrong one and he flies. There is this wind and it smells almost like the right one but it is going the wrong way so it is the wrong one and a liar and hateful and he flies. There is this wind and it smells of ashes and dust and sticky-sap and old stone and the tall thick grasses that were good to play in when he was not half himself and it is the right one and he flies.

Even the right wind pushes him back and urges him turn and go and not-here and Toothless screams with rage and hurt and must-not! that hauls him back by his heart as if Cloudjumper had caught his tail and lifted him from the stone when he was much smaller and still he hurls himself into the teeth of the right wind and he flies.

The sun flares in his eyes and only his eyes and he longs for the dark that held them trapped but together and he flies. Inside he is hungry and empty and he does not care, he cannot care, because the emptiness inside him is nothing and the emptiness between his shoulders is the weight of the king's paw brought down with all his strength and he cannot do this thing but he does it because he must and he flies.

Toothless fixes all his faith on chirruped promises and eyes half-clouded with hurt that still shone clever and bright as the sun behind clouds and his beloved dragon-boy's nose pressed to his and the soft pleading cry of trust? to which the only reply in all the world is yes yes yes always.

And he flies on the strength of a plan only Hiccup-best-beloved could dream up and all the speed his burning wings can call upon and the desperate need to return now! like the sharpest whistle and the swiftest blow and he drinks down the scent of ashes and strange grasses and he flies to outrace his own fires.

He flies to chase the sun as it flees from him and he flies blind with terror and he dreams of horrors and the scent of his beloved's blood and he listens to the racing paws of his own heart because it would know, it would stop if Hiccup's did, it would have to, and while it still runs Toothless has hope and he flies.

The scent in the wind is stronger and the ashes turn the horizon to bleeding fires and Toothless flies to the attack with his own fires burning in his throat and he races over the scorched-dead island all unseeing, seeking only the tiny fires and the strange shadows burning beyond the edge of the forest that still stands, and as evening descends like eyelids Toothless howls pure desperation and he dives.

When he lands he stumbles with the bite in his shoulder but he cannot care for that. He cannot recoil and whimper from the shrieks of humans fleeing where he has landed in their midst.

Toothless scrambles back to his paws and he keeps his wings spread ready to fly and big-making, and for all his youth he roars like the last nightmare that kills strong men in their beds and freezes horror into their faces until the fire takes them.

The shapes of the human dens are still strange, but he knows them, he has seen them before, he has scampered beneath their sides and played in their shadows when they were two as they should be and now he is only half-himself and yet he must remember, he must!

He must; it is the trick they have dreamed of and pawed to an edge together, ready to fall.

The sharp clang! of metal against metal and the hiss! of drawn blades tears through him seeking deeper horrors, but Toothless cannot remember or he will drown beneath too many hurts to bear, and he blasts fire towards the loudest of the sounds to drive the humans' killing blades away.

Toothless marks the den that they raided laughing together and the place with many spikes like ice bristling from it to leap to and the pit with water far below with sides too sheer to climb down and the screaming-terrified mass of fluffy prey-beasts all trapped together and he cannot see it, but he needs it, where –

A flicker of movement in the side of his eyes, and Toothless spins almost to stumbling, and his heart sings relief, and his heart-fires blaze and strike to claim his prey, mine! mine!

Stone and wood and twisted metal fly, and Toothless leaps to tangle his paws and his jaws up in it, and he crouches to leap heedless of the hunters trying to race to their village's defense very keenly while staying behind someone bigger, and all a safe distance away from the demon-creature like lightning, like death.

Toothless has other hunters to fight, and he leaps into the sky with his prize trailing in his wake, and he sets his tail to the scent of ashes, and he flies and he flies and he flies.

He leaves behind him the most confused of all villages in Vikingdom, because of all the things a dragon could steal, as the villagers will wonder to each other for many years, why in the name of all the gods –


Hiccup has played at weakness and feigned at illness in the water-heavy air and the bright sunlight, beneath the ice of home and the eyes of family with Toothless at his side, and it has been a very great game indeed.

In the darkness, trembling with the wrongness of the void at his shoulder and the languorous, deceptive spinning of the cave everywhere he looks, as if he were beneath the ocean really, he knows he is pretending at strength for his life.

But he bares his teeth and he snarls stay-away! and he raises his blade like a claw ready to strike. And if his paw shakes like he had fallen into ice again with the work of holding it tight, and his voice cracks betraying fear, and one of the front-most fangs in his jaw rattles loose – it cannot matter.

Hiccup is gentle by nature and forever looking for the wonder in his world and the light in others, but his soul is a dragon's, with all his true kin's fierceness and fire. In the dark and alone with only a lie and a claw newly his own to hold his ground, he must play at being as bold and brave as Toothless.

The Red She's strike lingers within him like ice in trees, ready to burst out and leave him broken. Her poison is the only taste in the back of his throat, for he has not eaten in too long; hunger and strain have made the little boy even more vulnerable to her than he might have been.

He coughs the shadow of her poison onto his tongue and spits it away, kicking a back paw in weak disgust, and points you with his nose.

Red She clicks her fangs in an angry chatter. The movement of her tail, signaling ready-to-strike and insulted and back you back I stand I here leader me look mine!, tries to catch Hiccup's eye, but he watches it only out of the side of his eyes.

His Toothless-self is not here to claim her as his foe, so this Hiccup-self must fight their battle, and he stares his very fiercest challenge.

He knows he cannot escape her, if she strikes. She is too fast. She would be faster than him even if he was happy and well-fed and waking from a comfortable doze in the sun with a wide and even plain to race across, Toothless loping at his side as he spreads out his forelegs to catch the wind and be wings.

Instead he braces his shoulders stubborn to hide the shaking in them, lowering his head like Toothless ready to bite, and the muscles in his shoulders and back spread imagined wings wide and threatening.

The growl that rumbles from his throat is true, even if he wants to whimper and curl himself into an egg to hide from the dizziness that tries to spin him to the stone.

Danger, his growl says, cornered danger I danger willing-to-fight go-away you warning and the sharp quick glaring snarl of you-had-better! that had cuffed the nasty not-to-eat seaweed such a blow.

The Red She shows her tongue to him in a dragon's grin and whuffs mockery. She darts towards him, snapping her jaws shut a breath from his face, and blows the reek of old meat into his nose. Not-important, her tail moves as if to swat him away, and she yawns wide and obvious, rolling her eyes at her smaller followers.

They chatter laughter of their own even as they crouch obedience beneath her gaze – just a flicker, but Hiccup sees it, and he tastes rage on his tongue like hot prey-blood.

He knows he is small; he knows it more than ever, with the bigger half of himself so far away. Toothless' absence, even an absence he himself had commanded, hating himself and everything about it except that it had to be done, rips through his chest like a claw of pure ice.

But even at home in their nest, where Hiccup knows he is loved, he does not roll over and look away when one of the flock closes their eyes to him and grumbles too loud over his little voice.

The Red She is nothing but another bully!

And when she lowers her head towards him again with her tongue flashing, he clenches his paw tight and lashes the blade into the tip of it with all his strength.

Her shriek is still echoing through the cave as Hiccup struggles to pick himself up again. The wild boy pants for breath, sprawled helplessly against a lump of stone that was flowing once and is frozen now.

Against his will, he tries to whine fear with the edge of his voice remaining. But there is not enough air in the cave, and he must pant very hard to swallow it all. He tries to shake his head to chase the stars away, whimpering when this only makes the darkness spin more.

Stars should not be underground! They should go back home to the sky where they belong. They should not be trapped here too – it is a wrongness.

He hurts even more so – her back paws are strong, and her claws have torn into his skins where she had kicked him – but her scream of bafflement and surprise and outrage is worth it.

He knows she will kill him, if he lets her. If he surrenders. If he cannot keep her teeth from his throat long enough for Toothless to return.

Breathless, Hiccup makes no sound, but inside he howls lonely, a thin and bitter sound that hides itself knowing there is no one to listen. It sings through him even as he wraps his forelegs across his chest, ducking his nose into them as if they were Toothless' wings folded around him, and imagines that the hurt in his chest is instead his own heart-fire, blazing bright.

Toothless will come back. Toothless will come back. Toothless will. He will. He did not want to go – Hiccup did not want him to go – and Hiccup is so, so sorry for making him go, but he could not think of another way!

Blinking, the dragon-boy pats at the stone around him as far as he can reach, learning this new space and trying to find the blade again; it is a very good claw. If his paws were stronger, he would not have dropped it.

But if his paws were stronger, he could have clung to Toothless' back as they have always flown, and they would be away from here together!

The green-striped hunters that are not like him at all at all at all! scatter and flee their Alpha's fury. They hiss resentment, though, quiet and breathless, and Hiccup could not explain how he knows that she is not loved, the Alpha here. Not as his king – and even weakened, Hiccup reflexively tries to crouch submission at the thought of him – is.

Hiccup is glad he is not like these dragons, even if he wants to mewl disappointment and turn his shoulder to block out the sight of them. They snap at each other, even with an intruder among them; they do not fight together, and their Alpha is cruel. They recoil from her as she stalks among them, biting at the frills of those that do not crouch quickly or deeply enough to escape her fangs.

It is better that he is not like them. He is his own kind of dragon – half of Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss, they are themselves together – and Toothless will return to purr over him, and their hearts will sing us-songs to each other and that will be everything Hiccup will ever need to know.

But their movements make the faint light shift and dance around them, and a reflection glances off the blade he seeks.

Exhausted, resolved, Hiccup manages to wrap his paw around the hilt again and pull it back to his side. But he can go no further, do no more – he cannot even take his weight off his other paw, and his hindquarters will not obey when he tries to rise.

He can only watch the Red She, spitting her own blood and nearly steaming with rage. She trembles too, and with all the speed of her kind, so that to Hiccup's disoriented, still-drugged eyes, the air around her seems to waver with heat like the sky above that forest fire.

His tormentor stalks towards him, waving her tail in loud and obvious threat, but her eyes are hard and cold and fixed on him in deadly promise. With her flock watching her, she shrieks insults – coward you small not-important no-threat not-afraid me dismissive uninterested laughter laughter you weak – and struts showing-off, head bobbing like one of the stupid fat birds the dragon-pair had hunted and devoured.

The dragon-boy narrows his eyes and wishes for fire in his throat and a smear of ashes and meaty smoke on the stones of the cave.

The Red She tips her head on one side, and poses consideration at him, and Hiccup glares answer.

She shrieks baby! with insult in her voice, standing tall above him.

Hiccup makes a dragon's sound, a sharp sound like kkkch! and points his claw at her eye, turning it to catch the little light and flash at her.

The Alpha pulls away, but only for a moment. When she snaps at his outstretched and trembling paw, he is not fast enough to meet her. He could not have been, maybe ever, even if he was not still reeling from her sting and cold with loneliness, off-balance with the half of himself further away than they could ever bear to be.

But she is biting to miss, to show him that she is stronger and faster, and her foreclaws close and open excitement, like she is hungry to snatch him up like prey.

She is playing with him as a hatchling plays with a fish dropped live and flopping and gasping onto their nose.

Hiccup tries, though. The wild boy stabs at her muzzle blindly, slashing the half-sharpened edge through the air. His snarls are shot through with whimpers and gasps as the world reels through his skull, but she is wary, now, of the blade.

Disoriented as he is, he cannot read from her signals that she is baffled by him. She had believed him weak, and yet he displays back to her as she tests him. He had purred peace and cringed obedience, and now, cornered and alone, he fights like one of her own hunters.

A blow from her tail knocks him down, sending him tumbling onto his back, and Hiccup whimpers fear, scattered thoughts all of her powerful back claws as he tries to curl around his vulnerable underbelly.

His flailing, empty paw finds a loose stone, one of the many that Toothless' first wild shot had blasted from the wall of the cave. It is cold, now, and nothing of the fire remains around it, but Hiccup holds it tight against his chest as he pulls himself to a crouch again.

The wild boy throws the rock with all his strength.

Hiccup has retained many skills that come naturally to his human body. The throwing of rocks – that powerful, overarm pitch that hurts when it strikes – is not among them, and it misses the Red She entirely.

Still, her followers yelp surprise and shriek alarm when it lands among them, and Hiccup scrambles for more stones. Most of them are too heavy for him to lift, exhausted as he is, and he soon gives up. Setting his back against the rock wall, he wraps his forelegs around himself for the little protection they offer, knowing himself cornered.

Hissing rage, the Red She turns on her own flock, driving them away. Mine! she asserts, stomping her heavy back paws, and shoves one with her shoulder, sending him stumbling back.

He is her kill, she is the Alpha, she is defending them!

The Red She is just turning back towards the wild boy, fangs gaping and tail raised to strike, when an eerie scream, like the sky being torn in two, pierces the near-darkness.

And the long evening's glow turns bright as midday again as Toothless scorches into the cave, flames blazing in his throat just behind his fiercest battle-scream.

Not even the tips of his wings scrape the walls of the tunnel or the edge of the cave-mouth or any of the jutting stones; his dive back to Hiccup's side is desperate and furious and beautiful.

He lands with all his weight on the spot where the Red She was just a moment ago. Only her own great speed saves her to fetch up against the opposite wall yowling and screaming shock and a raucous protest of unfair!

His roar and his bright fires send the entire pack scattering again, for Toothless can be terrifying, young as he is, and even with the village's stripped-bare clothesline tangled around his neck and shoulders, the torn edge of a single sheet still flapping pitifully against his side.


Toothless-beloved you here you here you here love-you very-much-so relief scared me scared you here gratitude here good good hurting scared you clever yes clever good brave you!

Hiccup whistles and clicks adoration as Toothless crowds over him, heavy paws careless in his haste but never striking the dragon-boy. His dragon-self licks him all over furiously, anxiously, stopping only to nudge his skull against Hiccup's as he mewls you you you Hiccup-self mine mine missed-you need need need frightened I fly yes not-want here now!

Cooing, Hiccup nudges him back and scratches weakly beneath his jaw, breathing life and his own scent into Toothless' nose as a comfort. Brave you clever yes best Toothless proud me.

And yet, even as they cry and nestle together, they cannot lose themselves to that joy and forget the fear. Not when the threat that forced them apart is yowling hatred and screaming promise-of-vengeance from the mouth of the cave where she has retreated, not when her flock is hissing and shrieking anger and encouragement to her and to each other as they mass and pace at her tail.

Lowering a wing between the furious stinging dragons and his dragon-boy, Toothless glances back at them and snarls warning, letting his fire show between his bared fangs.

They do not retreat.

Give, Hiccup beckons, before sneezing irritation at himself and signing instead you still.

Toothless holds as still as he can as Hiccup struggles to his paws – the black dragon wants to pin him down and keep him there in a restful sleep until he is better again, Hiccup's agonized movements hurt – and tug clumsily at the cord tangled all around Toothless' shoulders and forepaws like a net.

It seems to take forever before it comes free, and Hiccup gathers it up as best he can. Though he turns his head to glare down the Red She and her followers, roaring warning, Toothless watches out of the side of his eyes as his dragon-boy paws over it. He grips part of it in his jaws when his paws shake too wildly to hold it, and one of Toothless' ear-flaps flip back anxiety.

String, Hiccup had signed to him with those paws and yipped yes this string this there warning-of-humans yes? yes? you?

Toothless had remembered, when Hiccup had drawn it across his side, but he had not understood.

Hiccup had cried a warning-of-nets, and yet he had grunted satisfaction and interest, and whistled I do!

And Toothless had heard in his voice thinking, his beloved's eyes bright with cleverness, and he had known that he must trust Hiccup, as he has always done. (Sometimes he merely trusts Hiccup to be Hiccup. He does not trust Hiccup not to fall out of trees or not to run full-tilt and leap onto a rock slimy with algae and slide flailing and screeching into the sea.)

Now his wild boy taps his shoulder down and Toothless folds himself to the stone at once.

Beyond the cave, in the tunnel, he listens to the Red She shrieking and hissing at her followers. He sees her turn on one that snarls at her, leaping at it and cuffing and kicking him into submission. She does not see the one that slips around her, hiding behind its fellows, and ventures into the cave, but Toothless does, and he blasts fire at the too-bold small dragon.

It retreats very quickly in a flicker of green stripes.

Hiccup moves around him in limping steps and clumsy shuffles, towing the cord in his wake. Toothless twitches at the feeling of it against his scales, pulled tight as Hiccup bites one end of it in his jaws and nudges the other beneath Toothless' paw. The black dragon holds it there in response to Hiccup's paw placed on his, and when Hiccup tugs it back again, the knot at his shoulder stays in place.

It feels like a net, and Toothless feels like he should bristle at it, but Hiccup's paws against his scales are right, and at last he croons understanding. String ties, and it holds, except when dragons pull on it very hard in all directions. But they will not do that, Hiccup will make it tie careful and right.

And his dragon-boy is humming agreement, tinged with puzzlement even though it was his idea – Hiccup clicks for a moment recognition, just as he had indicated of the little stalking dragons.

Familiar, and yet not.

Cloudjumper? Hiccup mutters, (click)-shhh-prrr, though their guardian is not here.

Low in his throat, Toothless growls back urgency, and his tail taps anxiety and impatience against the stone.

But at last Hiccup pulls himself to Toothless' shoulders – Toothless braces one paw beside his ribs, to make a ledge for Hiccup to climb – and wriggles his small body beneath the loops of cord. They pull tight, pressing against the scales of Toothless' chest and beneath his keel.

But Hiccup is back where he should be, and despite a glimpse of the Red She's muzzle as she peers nervously around a stone at them with fangs bared, Toothless purrs joy.

Hiccup hums back to him in matching joy, and the black dragon can feel his dragon-boy sigh and press his face against the back of Toothless' skull.

Rising to all his paws, Toothless spreads his wings and shudders all over, shaking himself slightly. He grunts satisfaction, and whistles ready yes Hiccup-beloved us go us now!

He feels Hiccup's paws tighten into claws, scratching harmlessly across the scales of his shoulders, and they tense and hum ready! together.

It is very dark now, in the cave beneath the stony earth. Hiccup has been working by touch for quite some time.

So when Toothless summons up his heart-fires and holds them blazing in his jaws, the little stinging dragons that had been sneaking up on them, slow and careful and letting their sharp back claws make no sound, squint their eyes shut and recoil, stumbling away from fire they have learned to fear.

Attack! the Red She shrieks again.

But it is Toothless who answers, roaring triumph, and he spits a blaze of blasting-fire straight through them all.

Right in its wake, so close that the heat of it is warm on his nose like the sun, he charges past scattering small dragons and the furious Red She with Hiccup still too weak to hold tightly, but secure on his shoulders regardless.

Once more and for the last time, Toothless races from their cave with all his speed –

And Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss fly out into the open dark of the wide clear night, and they are free.


Days later, they are still very lost.

They have made themselves a nest-for-now amidst the ashes of the forest fire that was, digging into hollows between stones blunted by debris and turning Toothless' black and Hiccup's autumn-forest browns and auburns to a shared dusty grey. It amuses them to be the same color for once.

Hiccup scoops up a pawful of grey-black ashes and ceremoniously smears it across the trailing underside-edge of Toothless' wing, chirruping amusement. Toothless, having lost interest halfway through a roll, squirms his spines into what remains of the forest floor and yawns.

A shadow falls over them, and Hiccup looks up a heartbeat before Cloudjumper lands with a great thud! at their side.

Shrieking greetings that are happy me very-much-so, Hiccup springs over Toothless' belly in a single leap, tumbling towards their guardian. But his headlong run falls to pieces, his back legs slipping out ahead of him as he tries to veer away, when Cloudjumper rears up again, spreading all his wings and drawing his head back with eyes wide in alarm.

Instead, Hiccup sits back on his hindquarters at a safer distance and laughs a dragon's laugh as Cloudjumper shudders disdain, flaring his ruff as he flicks ashes from his claws and fans away a thin grey cloud with one wing. Behind him, he senses Toothless flailing to turn himself right-way-up again, grunting embarrassment to be seen so silly.

The black dragon tucks his head behind Hiccup's shoulders, muttering exasperation that hides relief, and Hiccup leans back into him and purrs affection deep and true.

This? Cloudjumper asks, his gaze full of skepticism. What this? he looks all around at the burnt forest, head on one side curiosity, then down at still-small dragon and smaller dragon-boy.

Cloudjumper has been protecting them and looking after them, brusque but fond, for as long as either little dragon can remember, and for long before that, too. He is the closest they have to a father, though they have made no connections between his bond with them and the concept of mother's-mate. Cloudjumper is simply there. That he is here delights them both, for all Toothless' grumbling.

Not us! Hiccup denies with a snort, waving at the burnt forest and putting his snub nose in the air indignation, to be accused of burning a forest down when they did not even think about doing such a thing. They did not even sneak off across the island and raid the human nest some more.

The dragon-pair had thought about that, between all of the naps that were very important to take at once. It is full of good things to steal, that nest, and there might be more food.

The many-winged dragon snorts hmph, and his hindquarters shift, showing that he wants very much to leap into the clean air and be away from the ashes dulling his red-gold scales.

The wild boy turns his face up to the dragon who had loved his mother and whistles welcome, humming excitement and a soul-deep relief – Cloudjumper is here! Cloudjumper has found them, he will take them home!

Safe you-both yes good where where? worry I look gone you where? not-like you-both small uneasy gone! Cloudjumper complains, shifting restlessly and looking them over.

The bite in Toothless' shoulder has faded already – it was not deep – and the bruises on Hiccup's stomach and ribs are hidden by his skins, so they do not fear his gaze.

Toothless is still hiding behind Hiccup, ashamed to be found in their lostness and rescued – if dragons could blush, he would – and Hiccup has turned to comfort him, sprawled across the broad plane of his skull between his eyes, heedless of the small soft spines there as he scratches and tugs at Toothless' many ear-flaps.

So neither of them see Cloudjumper's eyes widen at the makeshift harness still wrapped around Toothless' shoulders and chest. Neither of them understand the grief that he swallows down, to see such a thing again, to be reminded that he will never again fly with the woman he had considered his mate.

But their children, their hatchlings, will fly together – he cannot stop them, he would not want to – and Cloudjumper rejoices at this and is resigned to it, all at once.

He is, after all, their father in every way that matters.

Worry, he snaps, and yet Hiccup can clearly hear the miss-you! beneath it. Cloudjumper flicks his nose in a command of come-here-you-both! and spreads his wings we go.

To go home! To not be lost forever – they are found, they can go home again, at last! Toothless whines eagerness, and the sound hums through Hiccup's spine to meet the joy burning in his heart.

Wandering dragon and wild boy sigh longing together, so powerful and earnest that Cloudjumper lowers his face to them, eyes widening with concern and suspicion rumbling in his throat that they are hiding some wound from him.

Hiccup looks their guardian in the eyes, smiles his very best dragon-smile, and solemnly smears a pawful of ashes down Cloudjumper's red-gold nose in a long grey stripe.


-end-

thanks for reading – Le'letha