The Human Dragon and the Estranged Crow
A How To Train Your Dragon fanfic
Based off of Le'letha's "Nightfall" and "Stormfall" fics

There are many kinds of superstitions and omens that many others believe in, but Faulklin has never found it in him to fall for those kinds of fantasies. He'd always had too many real, tangible things in his life to worry about without fretting over things like trolls or spirits. Fate was the only superstition he'd ever cared pay attention to, and only because he wanted so terribly to change his own which was not his own for too long.

He wasn't going to delude himself into thinking the Night Fury and the one riding it were any sort of blessing or any sort of change in his luck and fate, but that didn't mean he couldn't use the moment to make a bid for freedom. He'd waited long enough for things to change on their own. As he often heard said, to see something done right, a person had to do it themselves.

He would have to be deaf, blind, and dumb not to see this chance for what it was and seize and shape it to his benefit as much as possible.

So as soon as he saw that split-second of distraction on the dragon and rider's faces, and heard the Hunters quickly approaching and not yet aware of the dangerous Night Fury before them ready to fight and kill, he bolted in whatever direction was open that would take him far away from all of this nonsense.

It was difficult to move quickly, both because of the depth of the snow piles and with his legs more or less numbed by the cold from them, but he stubbornly forced himself to keep moving. He had pushed his way through much worse things, and now would be no exception.

When they had set out before, the sky had been half-clear of clouds and nothing fell from the sky, but now there were the every-so-often flickers of snowflakes drifting from thickening clouds above, barely enough to even notice, but a warning to what might come later.

He knows in his mind that running is mostly always a futile effort. Most places are islands, and without a ship or even a dingy of his own, there aren't many places for him to go. But this is the far north, and its winter. Beneath the deadly cold, even the churning ocean eventually submits to the sting of it, freezing solid enough to leave many ships dead in the water, caught in ice. Some ships are built to break through, but many aren't, which leaves most tribes holing up without even the thought of raiding anyone else until spring.

But he's seen the sheets of ice hold even the weight of great ice bears and sleds and small armies. If he can find a long enough break in the weather and travel quickly, maybe this time he can make it somewhere that he can't be followed. Viggo may have ships that can break sheets only just thick enough to halt all-would knars in their path, but there are places where the ice becomes mountains, and no one wants to be exposed to the elements on foot with no shelter.

It's foolish to even try to brave that far a distance on his own, with nothing to even make a tent, but he fears continued servitude much more than he fears freezing to death under the wake of the weather.

Over the crunching and plowing of snow as he tries to force his way through it, he almost doesn't hear the sound of leather wings of a dragon in the cold air, but he sees its shadow stealing the reflection of light from the shards of snow just before he feels it crash against his shoulders and throw him to the ground. Already he had been seeing almost all white, but now he can count with his eyes the individual pieces so close to his eyes, and the dark shapes of trees and leafless brush has vanished.

One paw of the dragon - he notices - has his arm trapped against the frozen earth (the one that is holding his sword), while another grips into his back, which is far worse and flares with the pain of older wounds stressed open. He makes no point of moving or struggling, he can feel that the weight is one he wouldn't be able to throw off, and the snarl of the dragon promises pain and orders stillness. A human, he will never submit to, but he feels no shame for heeding an animal, much less one which has a clear advantage.

He stays still without struggle, the only signs of being awake that he exhibits being winded breathing and a slight shifting of shoulders to alleviate the ache in them, to no avail. The dragon perhaps takes his movements as disobedience or a threat of some kind - he isn't sure - and weights him down more firmly with a snarl that says No! You still obey you stop you still surrender be still!

He listens, but the weight doesn't leave, and barely lessens. He knows the voices and the motions of dragons - of most animals, really - and has no problems with hearing them as other humans do. He cannot always clearly speak back to them in voice, but he knows the motions.

Though he doesn't quite remember it, except in knowing it was never allowed to him, he never had the same intrusiveness and clumsy, rough exploring sort of nature as other children did when he was small.

Though he doesn't consciously realize it most of the time, what some consider a gift and most overlook as useless in his ability to see and hear the things that dragons and animals speak comes from the life he's had, always having to watch and anticipate the anger and unpredictability of masters who owned his life and bade he follow their will and never his own.

He sees and hears other creatures because he has never had the safety of family or a tribe that see him as more than property to allow him the ignorance of not understanding the subtler cues of others, because he has always been in the claws of predators that enjoy hurting and had to know when to flee and when to submit so that the strikes weren't more numerous or more cruel, because they were never completely avoidable. He has always been human, but also a scared animal, and neither are things he likes to admit to himself.

Ironically enough, despite all their boasting of intelligence and criticism of the lack of intelligence in animals, he finds that humans are the ones who make no sense. Animals are at least predictable and their rules and boundaries rarely if ever change. He has never been bitten or scratched at a time where he hasn't deserved it. He has rarely ever seen animals which continue to punish only to feel powerful when another of their own kind submits and whines, but he can't even count the number of times where he surrendered and apologized and pleaded for mercy and still his consciousness was sooner to slip than their hands were to stall another blow.

Under a human's boot, the panic would be so strong it would leave him drowning, shaking, and blind with a million different thoughts of how they could make him only wish for death. Under the claws of a dragon, he can think of only a couple of outcomes, and all, even the ones that would kill him, are merciful by comparison of what he expects of humans to do. If it kills him, at least it'll be quick.

So he doesn't tremble. He doesn't gasp with the onset of panic. He doesn't even cower away and whimper with the idea of how badly this could go. He goes limp, totally and unconditionally, and he waits without expectation.

The only thing he can think of is the surprise it usually brings about, that he doesn't scream or fight and try to kill in retaliation. He hears it in the dragon's voice, a mix of surprise saying surrender you? you? and satisfied good you caught surrender you listen understand good.

There is another voice then, and this one he knows as the rider on the back of the Night Fury, which already begins to kindle a new spark of distaste towards this entire situation, but the Fury's claws are still on his back and there's nothing he can do about that right now.

"Pfikingr kkko!" he snarls, same as before. There are other sounds, and these he thinks are the dragon's, but- ...no, they aren't. It's slight, almost indiscernible, but he can hear the difference as the rider is growling at him go-away bad human you bad go dragons not-yours bad!

It's puzzling, but more-so because he knows that it isn't the dragon making the sounds. He could just be growling mindlessly, but from what Faulklin knows himself, he isn't sure. It doesn't sound like the shoddy improvisations he hears on the lips of most people who think of growling as meaningless or children who pretend to know because that's what children do.

But he knows he can understand, and to some extend he can speak it, so he supposes others learning isn't entirely impossible. Just very, very rare. In any case, he still knows that the order comes from the mouth of a human, and he has no respect for that.

"Piss off." He wonders if the Fury-rider understands that much. Perhaps not. He doesn't care. The tone carries all of the same meaning anyway.

The rider snarls agitation and anger, chattering something like listen you! that he's not sure he's meant to understand or expected to and then speaking in a more human-like manner, "Pfikingr kkko! Oooo-mn nuh herrr! Bad! Oooo-mn, bad, kkko!"

Faulklin scoffs. He understands the meaning of you humans must go, you aren't allowed here, you're bad, but he never overlooks that the words are coming from another human. Even if he knows how to speak like a dragon, he is still human. It's just another learned language, just as he himself knows the Latin that tradesman use and a small few phrases in Gaelic and Frankish and British, but that doesn't make him any less Norseman.

"Take your own damn advice and fuck off to the far horizon, leave the dragons out of your own personal problems, human."

He can feel the claws on his back tighten. The dragon doesn't much like his words. The rider seems to like them even less, but the indignation and insult that colors the man's voice are like honey to his hears.

"Nuh! Nuh oooo-mn! Drakkkn! (click)-uudt drakkkn! Drakkkn herrr! Oooo-mn bad! Oooo-mn kkko!" He doesn't even need to look and see to know that the rider is bristling, claiming himself a dragon. It's laughable, really. He himself would love nothing less than to claim himself some other species, but he isn't, and he never will be. His reality is a loathsome human one, and he hates himself for that just as strongly as he hates all of those around him, because he knows that that weakness and ugliness is something that's in him as well, no matter how much he tries not to be the same as others who have hurt him time and again. Even with all the effort in the world, he is still that same terrible creature as the rest. He can't escape that. Not so long as he lives, and when he dies, he'll be sent to a human's afterlife.

"Human." He spits it defiantly like poison.

"Nuh!" he hears back, frustrated and bitter and filled with conviction.

Maybe it will only get him killed, but he sees it for a weak point and exploits it, in the way that humans see fault and pick at it and pick at it until it breaks. He knows from experience that when dealing with smarter adversaries, what you give up to your enemies in anger is everything, making one blind, and that it can be weaponized.

"Human, human, human!"

"Nuh! Drakkkn! (click)-phuh (click)-uudt drakkkn!" The claim is a strong one, convinced, but there is still a crack in there somewhere, a desperation to make it true.

"Hu-man," he drawls again.

This time the answer comes from the dragon, dominant and enraged, screaming loudly and fervently at him No! Listen you not-human dragon-Hiccup mine dragon good dragon fierce angry mine beloved-mine dragon! Bad human you! No! Bad lies angry rage not-human mine Hiccup dragon-love mine silence you bad lying human angry silence you! By the end, his ears are ringing and he can't help squirming a little at the pain of claws digging into the crease of his shoulders, which seems even worse since he can't feel much else being nearly buried under the snow by said dragon.

When the dragon-roars subside, he can hear angry cawing and croaking, screaming back at the Fury You! You! You! Angry! Enemy! Ours! Ours! Go-away! Flock-Ours! Protect! Go-away! Attack! Attack! Bad! Enemy! It's a wholly different kind of sound from a dragon's voice, but some things are universal and need no translation.

The dragon and rider both growl and yowl in return Angry irritated human bad! Defend why you defend why? Go-away us big fierce you small annoying! and he feels the weight of the dragon roll back from its forelegs and onto its haunches. He uses the moment of distraction to try and push himself up and get out from under the dragon's claws, but just as quickly as its attention left him, it comes back full force and forces him back into the dirt. The weight crashing down on his back again makes it flare up and pain strike all the way up his spine like a bolt of lightning.

He doesn't scream or let tears come to his eyes - he has long ago learned not to give his tormentors the satisfaction - but he can't help a harsh gasp from escaping his lips or his single eye from rolling into his skull from the force of the wave that hits him, all of it pain and dizziness and nausea. He's already started to shiver from the cold, but the convulsive tremble that goes through his body has nothing to do with the temperature.

It's the first time he notices a recoil from the dragon, just before its weight leaves him entirely, leaping back with hind legs. Even with the dragon gone, his back feels hot like a furnace. He can hear snow crunching, the dragon moving, and a noise of confusion, no doubt at the blood that had soaked through his shirt. He couldn't be bothered to move far, only getting up enough to roll into his back. The cold stung sharply at it, but he knew that the benefits outweighed the unpleasantries.

The pain wasn't ever what got to him the most anyway, it was the nausea and lightheadedness.

Hurt? You hurt? the dragon whistles in question, unsure. You hurt not-me hurt you? He supposes the confusion is understandable enough. Even with its claws digging into him, the dragon hadn't been forceful enough to cause wounds.

Not-you, he answers. He knows crow/raven-speak the best, but he likes dragon-speak more. It's easier to make the proper sounds.

This seems to come as much more of a shock to the dragon and rider than anything else, the two of them yelping curiously you speak you? Speak dragon you?

He's sure if he sat up and looked, their eyes would be large, but it isn't important enough to make the effort just for that. His back is still pulsing despite the snow starting to chill and numb it and his head is swimming. Occasionally he can still see one of his crows or ravens fluttering overhead, angrily making a raucous.

He grunts out a yes of-course as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world. He's long ago grown bored with the curiosity and surprise of dragons that aren't used to humans speaking to them in a way that is normally understood.

You dragon-speak you how? There's suspicion.

He's used to that too.

He snorts a sound that's like a none-of-your-business dismissal. Explaining new things to dragons over and over is too much of a hassle. There are things they understand and other things that they just don't. They don't commit to knowing things outside of what is an immediate threat or an advantage, other than that those things are new and strange and sometimes wonderful or good to them or occasionally met with distaste or something-to-avoid. That is part of why, although dragon-speak comes easier to his throat, he prefers crows and ravens. They can think better in abstract. He likes dragons well enough, but he still thinks corvids are comparatively smarter (though most humans he finds are dumber still than both on a normal standard, if her opinion were to matter on anything).

Grimacing, he stick his blade in the ground as leverage to pull himself up, able to at least see the other two - if barely - over the snow, and partly only because so much of it has been flung aside by the dragon's own mass when it had been pinning him there.

You dragon-speak why hunt trap dragons? Dragon-speak you trick you lie hunting dragons easier? They speak in as much vocals as movements and showing-pretending, and they don't trust him, which is fine, because the feeling is mutual, at least concerning the human who denies being human.

The short answer is both yes and no, he supposes. The long answer is he's stuck with people who do it, so by default he has to as well. He doesn't particularly like it, but he's come to accept it. This is what humans just do on a normal basis. It's nothing personal against dragons, but when he sabotages traps or manages to free dragons and sick them back on those humans... oh, that - that - is very personal.

He scowls, letting the message of annoyance leak through his expression, silently communicating a no with the single look as if he is explaining something simple and stupid to small children who know nothing. The snow is coming down more heavily than before, graying the sky and threatening a stronger storm on the way. If not for being slowed down by the dragon-and-rider, he could have found shelter by now and already been working on collecting things to make a fire. Instead, he was bleeding and half-frozen, and nowhere near as far away from Viggo's crew as he wanted to be.

Standing was a battle he was peeved he even had to fight, having to try more than once on account his legs didn't want to cooperate, and swaying when he managed to stay on his feet.

The dragon and rider were both still watching him, and in irritation, he whirled and snarled Go away! Away you not follow annoyance you pests!

They don't leave immediately, pacing a wide half-circle in indecision and chattering no no you human hunter dragon traps! You why you hunt? Hunting dragons still you? Threat! Dragons not-yours you pfikingr bad hunting dragons us stop you!

Fed up with them both, he caws out a Chase! Out! Dragon threats! Get-out chase! at his feathered companions perched on trees, already hunched and poised to launch at the dragon and rider again at the slightest provocation. They happily oblige, diving and pecking at the rider and dragon-man who snarl and swat at them. At the same time, he advances with his blade pointed, snarling another Get-out you! Annoyance! Go! at them.

They finally seem to get the message and leap skyward, flying away with the birds still at their tail chasing them for a ways. He's done with humans and at the moment even with dragons. The irritation still prickles at him, as most things do long after they're done with, but he tries to forget about it and focus on more important things, like finding a place to shelter from the snowstorm that's undoubtedly coming and make up a fire to keep warm. Then, soon as it clears, he's resolved to run far as his legs can take him, even if he has to cross the entire damn frozen ocean to do it.