The Human Dragon and the Estranged Crow
A How To Train Your Dragon fanfic
Based off of Le'letha's "Nightfall" and "Stormfall" fics
The small scar-faced, dragon-speaking pfikingr orders them to go away, advancing with his sharp-claw and cawing to make the ravens swoop at them, and the two of them do fly away, but not far.
The ravens complain and chase them, but the birds are little more than a nuisance, and no matter if the scar-faced human can speak like a dragon and ravens both, he still cannot fly. That is a true thing. It is as much their safety as it is their joy, a place to be where they cannot be hunted just as much as it is a place to be because flying is the best thing.
Now though, they cannot fly, hunting and flirting with the wind in happy tumbles and glides. The air is bitter-cold and lazily, patiently tries to pull dragons down from the sky. It is harder to fly when it is cold. The air moves down and the nip of frost on wings makes them difficult to move after a time.
On clear days when the sun slinks low across the winter horizon, it is not always bad to be out of the nest, but now the clouds have come to darken even the daytime sky. Snow drifts down from the unending expanse of clouds and makes it too unsafe for them to remain out in the open or they might freeze, and the nest is too far from where they are to return before being caught in a storm.
For now, much as they hate to, they will have to find shelter on this island of dragon traps and bad humans who hunt their kind.
They do not like humans much at all, and they like ones who hunt and hurt dragons even less so, but they cannot help but think of the scar-faced human who speaks as they do. Speaks and understands.
It is a strange and new thing. That Hiccup is human in body goes unmentioned - he cannot help the shape he was born with, but he is dragon. That is truth. He has spent all of his life among dragons, all of his life being a dragon and doing as they do, and Toothless has always been at his side to make them two-who-are-one. One being who is two, because together they are better than only one, even as they are one.
The scar-faced human is not a dragon. He is pfikingr. He lays traps and hunts dragons who become caught in them.
Yet he speaks as dragons do.
Used the sounds that their dragon-family make to mock and scold him as human!
Hiccup knows that humans do not accept him as the dragon he is and has always been. Uh strrrTT stalked and lured and tried to talk to him in pfikingr words once. The St-t-t-t-t-KK had tried to take him away from his Toothless-self because he considers Hiccup a human hatchling.
But he is not! He is still a dragon!
He knows just a little bit though that Uh strrrTT and S-t-t-t-t-t-KK do not mean to hurt, even though they did at one point. They want him to be part of their nest. They try to consider him like their own and convince him to stay and have made peace with dragons who were once enemies. They try to make him be one of them because S-t-t-t-t-t-KK once thought of their mother as his mate even though they know that Cloudjumper was her mate.
This time is not the same, and they will not overlook the danger that a speaking-tricking hunter of dragons poses.
How the Scar-Faced pfikingr knows to speak as dragons do does not matter. He uses the words to speak lies and hurt, to surprise and trick, and he hunts dragons as enemies. He can make the sounds, and he can understand, but he is a threat.
That he leaves behind other pfikingr who are part of his flock to go on his own, when the winter snow starts to howl and he bleeds from wounds, is perplexing, but something that they don't ponder long. It does not matter. What is important is that he be chased away from dragons and stopped from hurting them.
They fly just far enough away to placate the ravens into flying back to their dragon-bird-speaking human, and then they turn back to follow, and watch for caves where they can take shelter when the snowfall becomes bad.
They choose cliffs as their perch to prowl instead of spend a great deal flying, Toothless keeping his wings close where maybe his heart-fire can keep them from freezing as badly. Only occasionally does he stretch and flutter his wings to clear the distance of farther clefts, while Hiccup rolls with the motions of his stalking.
They can see the snow trail, and as they follow it from above, they soon see the small pfikingr too, trudging away from where the two-who-are-one had seen resting ships and pfikingr settlements. For as far as they can see from their perch, there are no other humans following since both of them together fought and chased away the hunters. Now there is only the one.
The snow falls harder and starts to make it difficult to keep watching and following, but they see the Scar-Face turn and climb up some of the snow-caked rocks and disappear down the throat of a cave, the ravens who followed and watched and occasionally croaked a complaint going inside as well. Now the snow is getting far worse, and both feel it biting at their scales.
They need to take shelter too, and the closest place is the same where their enemy went into.
They reassure each other that they aren't afraid. They are together, and they are fast and strong and clever. The mouth makes the cave look like it is probably big inside, and they can be sneaky and camouflaged in the dark just as well as they can be fierce and powerful.
Inside, the rising roar of the snow becomes muffled, and they are right to have thought the cave large and deep. Following it and keeping their senses alert for the Scar-Face or what could be an ambush or might be the home of other dragons, they do not vocalize.
Now they are hunters too, and they must be silent.
Toothless stops for a moment, still as stone except for lifting his head to scent the air and listen. Hiccup does not know exactly what it might be that his Toothless-most-beloved smells or hears that he cannot, but he knows without asking that it most likely has to do with their target. That he cannot hear or smell as strongly as his dragon-partner matters little. There are things Hiccup can do that even Toothless, who is the best of dragons, cannot do, and Toothless listens and scents for them both.
He feels Toothless crouch forward, stretching long and lean with belly-scales just barely not touching and scraping on stone, and Hiccup follows his motion, crouching low across the back of his dragon-love's neck.
As they move through the dark, he hears something, straining his ears. He knows the sound. It is like the soft lick of a wave and plop of hitting the surface of water, not exact but similar, like when a fish leaps out after a bug and falls back under the surface. They keep moving until they see the shape, the cave dark but not too much to see shapes, and one of them is moving.
They go still, waiting and watching to make certain they are not detected, before moving forward again more slowly, being mindful of pawsteps making a sound that might alert their enemy before they can get close. Hiccup knows that they could easily lunge in to attack or try again to scare the Scar-Face into running, but Toothless does not make the leap and he does not snarl to announce them. Hiccup does neither of these things himself, knowing that there must be a reason why his dragon-half has not made a move yet.
He hears Toothless softly huffing and looks in the direction of the smaller moving figure, which is hunched and showing its back. There's movement over its shoulder and a wet slap sound that draws his curiosity.
Their sneaky prowling becomes thwarted when one of the ravens swoops at them and caws angrily, making the Scar-Face jolt up and look straight at them, snarling.
You! You! Go away warned angry rage away you! Fierce angry fight threatening fight you! the Scar-Face spat in their direction, quickly grabbing for his long sharp-claw to use against them.
They spread themselves big, wings fully out and arched up on their toes. Toothless alone is big compared to this small, anger-spitting pfikingr, but together they are even bigger and more intimidating. Toothless whistles fire in his throat as a warning, but is no less ready to blast fire if it comes to that. For now it is only intimidation, to make the small enemy rethink attacking them and instead to surrender and flee.
The purple blasting-fire lights up the cave so that they can see their enemy better, and for Hiccup more than Toothless, the moment startles him as it first did Toothless when they had pounced onto their enemy and pinned him to the snow.
He is very thin-small from hunger, near curled over himself at the edge of a melt-pool without his fur and cloth coverings on the top half of his body, and there are scars all over his unprotected soft-skin, so many that they almost completely overtake the body like the greedy spread of thorny brambles.
What causes his surprise most is that the Scar-Face is covered all over in blood, and they know it is his own because he is wounded-pale and there are long, swollen-open gashes all the way down his back. The gashes cover all the way from the shoulders almost down to his legs, and many of them are deep and crisscrossed with each other.
He squares himself in his crouch and snarls with Fight! and Me dangerous!, but it is all bluffs. He is trying to be fierce and scare them away, but he is like a prey-thing at the end of a long hunt that has lost, cornered and too hurt-exhausted to struggle properly.
Toothless swallows his fire and relaxes his wings, though they are not foolish enough to throw away caution. A caught prey-thing can still strike a last painful blow to dragons who are careless.
They know that these are not wounds that were caused by either of them, so they can't help but wonder from where the injuries came. The most likely seems like perhaps another dragon, or that they could be from a bear. Something large and with many sharp claws.
Dragons have many scars and Hiccup knows most of the ones that belong to his kin in the nest. He has always been the one to care for wounds, especially those made by pfikingr, either by traps or sharp-claws. Dragons earn scars often, and most often they come from humans, and often times dragons give humans wounds of their own.
Curious wary peace no-fight you distrust still hate bad dragon hunter you curious wounds hurt dragon claws hurt you that?
Because the Scar-Face is a human who traps dragons and he is small, it only seems natural that a dragon would eventually hurt him back.
The answer is not what they expected.
Humans!
He makes only the one sound for them, but the sound is also filled with many other sounds and feelings and posture that says so much. The tone of his voice speaks of disdain loathing HATRED. The sharp arch of bony shoulders and toothy-snarling face adds to it enemies not-welcome fight fierce attack! even though he does not lunge or move after anything. The one eye that he has is sharp and focused, wishing death kill enemies HATE hunt hurt.
They feel it like a wave, almost a distant echo of the force that an Alpha's command holds when it reaches into their being as dragons, only different. It's a raw swelling of something strong that goes far beyond revulsion and malice, a foaming-at-the-mind hunger that wants to hunt and hurt beyond any natural sense at nothing more than just the thought of enemies.
It is an overpowering will of madness that makes them stagger back in shock, more than it is finding out that what the he-pfikingr reviles most of all are his own kind. It is much akin to facing against the dragon-eater queen, only if the dragon-eater queen was small and her voice not as loud, filled with something deep and unquenchable and dark, ready to greedily devour everything in its path with snapping jaws and without mercy because that is all that it knows.
Even to Hiccup, who does not like humans for the hurt they cause his dragon-family, it feels like a wrong-thing, just as the vicious Queen who ate her own flock and even tried to hunt hatchlings instead of being a good alpha and protecting her nest was a wrong-thing.
Hiccup though is still able to see outside himself and empathize with others.
That the Scar-Face taunted and snarled at him in hate of appearing human is a hurt that he does not want to think about, but it is a hurt that he can push away when his Toothless-beloved-self and Cloudjumper-mate-of-their-mother and the good King and all the nest croon and reassure and tell him what a good dragon he is no matter what humans may sometimes see in him. He has scars from falls and scars from traps that he was slightly too slow to keep from biting him, and he has scars that cannot be seen but felt.
But he does not have scars like the ones this human has. He is not marked by so many that there looks to be more scars than soft-skin. He has not lost important parts as this pfikingr has lost an eye where he can no longer see. He has never been gored under the claws of his dragon-kin who are his flock, and absolutely never so deeply or by so many swipes as this one has been.
These hurting marks are done by other humans, he knows now.
This is why he fled away from his human flock instead of towards them, Hiccup thinks he realizes.
This is why he looked at and snapped sharp words at Hiccup with hate where he did not with Toothless whose shape is what its supposed to be.
What is still uncertain to him is why.
He does not understand what reason there could be for humans to hurt their own in that kind of way, unless he is not of their flock. Even then, he cannot see how so many scars from so long ago could be left if he were merely a lone human being warded off by pfikingr who are not friendly to him and did not want him in their territory.
He has only seen scars like these on dragons that were kept and fought and bullied by the Knotted Man for a very long time.
Hiccup thinks then that the Scar-Faced human must belong to a very bad alpha who has given many reasons to distrust other humans, even if Hiccup is only so in shape, just as Hiccup distrusts humans because they hurt and kill dragons who he has always lived amongst even though he was not born from a dragon's egg.
He is not unsympathetic, and least of all when it comes to a mutual distaste for pfikingr enemies.
Hiccup slides from Toothless's shoulders into an apologetic crouch at the bigger dragon's flank, whimpering peace calm no-threat you hurt humans hurt sorry sorry sympathy understand not-want-to-fight good dragons us no hurt no fight.
The Scar-Face is not convinced at all, remaining edgy and glaring only at him and seeing only human, so Hiccup sits up and rubs soft-skin against Toothless's scaled cheek, crooning dragons us both good dragons Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss love love together dragons me dragon too not-like bad humans yes? and Toothless reaffirms with a throaty purr yes yes mine Hiccup good dragon yes clever little mine good protector-of-dragon-family yes Hiccup good best dragon.
Even with Toothless confirming it, the Scar-Face disputes it, spitting back at him in disdain Human!
Hiccup shook his head like flicking away annoying insects, hissing back Dragon! Me dragon not human dragon me dragon family love love love humans bad killers-of-dragons don't-like me fight break traps help dragons me dragon too! Hiccup Toothless together dragons you me we us Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss yes together dragons best dragons!
The Scar-Face still does not believe him, mocking back human you bad you too not-dragon you bad human and Hiccup can only snarl frustration! in return. He is not a human. Humans hurt dragons, which he does not.
Stubborn bad you listen here dragon me!
Toothless presses a nose into his flank and reminds him yes good dragon you love you love you and tries to push aside his frustration breathing easy calm love you good dragon you yes yes yes love you not-listen lies good dragon you truth.
Hiccup appreciates it, and he pets Toothless back with a soft paw, huffing out yes yes know-that sorry stubborn frustrated.
It irritates him, but he can see things from the other side of this because that is a side he has been on himself in some ways. He would not trust anything he thinks of as human either. Even with Uh strrrTT and the red-furred alpha S-t-t-t-t-t-t-KK who thinks of Hiccup as his own hatchling he does not completely trust, even if he does not think of them as he thinks of most other pfikingr.
Whether because he has figured out that they are not a threat to him now or he is too weary now to put up a defensive display, the Scar-Face does not posture as if to fight them and his attention partly leaves them. They see now that he is using the water from the pool to wash his wounds, awkwardly angling to reach them with a piece of cloth that's been soaked.
He is trying to look as if he's ignoring them, but he is still watching out of the corner of his eye.
They don't know exactly what to do now. They followed the Scar-Faced smaller human intending on scaring him away from dragons and sending him back to his flock but instead they have found him trying to hide and lick his wounds and wanting to run from humans who caused it and from the icy storm that hunts anything foolish enough to be caught in it. Other than waiting out the weather, there is not much reason to be here.
Still, one thing continues to itch at their thoughts, that being that the Scar-Face still tried to close in on a dragon caught in a trap, and they do not know if he will try to trap dragons even if he is alone.
At least with the Scar-Face able to easily understand and respond to them in a way they do as well, it makes it that much easier to ask.
You human you hunting trapping dragons back-there you? Hiccup indicated a direction to where they had come from and where he and his Toothless-half had first pounced at the Scar-Faced and fought and chased him away.
The small man glanced at him and huffed irritation and no, but he did not go on to say anything else, turning a shoulder to them as if to indicate that talking to them wasn't worth his time.
Even more significantly than that, he has turned his wounded back on them. Hiccup would not trust to turn his back even on human allies and he would certainly not expose wounds to them, never mind showing them to enemies. Showing wounds to an enemy would be as foolish as showing his throat and belly and expecting an enemy would not strike at them. He had made the mistake of turning his back on Uh strrrTT only once, and at the time that had come with much greater wounds than any sharp-claw could deliver.
Maybe, then, they are not as much enemies as they first thought, even if it is a very foolish thing to do. Hiccup thinks with a spark of elation, however small, that maybe he is being regarded more as a dragon than a human after all, even though the Scarred-Face insisted on calling him human.
He plays with an idea like rolling a rock back and forth between his paws, not having given the possibility much thought before as he had been stuck on the conclusion of the Scar-Faced man being just another trapper.
You breaking traps?
He didn't receive an answer, Hiccup snorting with annoyance and taking to pacing slightly, his claws clicking on stone. He knows the Scarred-Face could answer if he wanted, but he was pretending not to hear now.
The pacing reminded Hiccup of his own shoulder and the earlier bite of the Scar-Face's sharp-claw so that he stopped and felt for the wound in inspection. It was not deep, but it would take many days to heal, and there was still also the slash that crossed his nose. His eyes traveled towards the water and he tilted his head, thinking.
He does not really need to use the water to clean up his wounds, but chooses to skirt around to the other side of the pool away from the Scarred-Face anyway to where he is not shown the other's back and so not as easy to ignore. Toothless moves with him and sits just behind, watching for any signs of a threat for Hiccup while he dips is paws into the cold water and brings it up to the scratch on his face and the bite to his shoulder.
Hiccup is not without watching himself though, eyes flicking up and keeping interest in the sharp-claw that the Scar-Face is still holding onto. He knows still that even though the other is smaller, he is still quick in his strikes. The Scar-Face watches him tensely too, scrunching his nose with the hints of a snarl ready to be voiced.
Hiccup tries to pretend not to notice him and that he is only right there for the water, but after a while he tries again.
You breaking traps freeing dragons you?
The Scarred-Face growls annoyed pest you and go away! but Hiccup ignores it like his question was ignored twice now. Instead he tries to mimic how he has seen crafty fledglings who know they are bothering make themselves look innocent and unaware that usually charms bigger dragons into tolerating them anyway, rolling partway towards his side and tilting his head with a wondering whistle.
Curious wondering look-at-me want-to-know human you trapping? Not trapping? You human hate human like dragon yes? Freeing dragons human traps you? Curious tell-me! Please?
Hiccup moves just as fast in retreating as the Scar-Face does in sitting up and looking bigger, snarling yes and go away annoying you hate you! in the same breath. Still, it gave him the answer he wanted.
You dragon friend helping dragons yes maybe? Hiccup presses, though he doesn't move closer again, not wanting to risk another slash of the longer sharp-claw.
The Scar-Face shakes himself in disregard, clicking in annoyance and turning away from the water with a look in his one eye that deeply unsettles them both but that they aren't sure why.
He takes his pfikingr things with him and retreats away from them, turning his back again. They see him taking strips of cloth and tying them around his body in near-silence, growling complaints beneath his breath, and now he really is ignoring them instead of only pretending. When he's finished, he wraps himself up again in a dark colored fur he was wearing before and falls on his side to sleep as if they are not there.
From a distance, they aren't so worried about him, but they dare not come close and investigate him even if he is asleep in case he lashes out with a sharp-claw again. Instead they turn their attention to finding a good place nearby to rest themselves as they wait out the storm outside, finding a ledge higher up than the rest of the cave and not easy to climb so that the Scar-Face cannot sneak up on them while they are resting.
With a soft huff, Hiccup wriggles to get comfortable in the shadow of one of Toothless's wings. Hopefully the storm will not last too long, but in winter they can never be sure.