~Ouroboros~
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1st – 19. The Depths of my Sins
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The next week passed by almost monotonously for Hiccup – dragon training in the mornings… and dragon visits in the afternoons. Gobber had scaled back on live dragon fights during training, instead focusing more on having them build up muscles and practice wielding their weapons with the rare lectures thrown in to spice the otherwise dull days. The idea was to impart upon them the invaluable lessons that Vikings have learned over their three generations of fighting – and dying – against dragons, though often times they degraded to something akin to stories told over fire.
Personally, Hiccup preferred this – there was after all less chance of suffering sudden (or possibly quite painful and prolonged) death when running in circles along the main roads of the village or when swinging an axe as compared to facing actual dragons in the kill-ring. Naturally at the end of training he felt like Toothless had shot off one of his blue fireballs down his throat and his muscles felt like they would give out during the next couple of steps and just spontaneously turn into water, but fortunately for him several hours of rest along with some quality food would bring him out of the 'walking corpse' stage.
One of the more welcome surprises that week, not counting the fact that he still wasn't spotted taking fish from the store houses every day, was the discovery that while he was definitely weaker than the others; Big surprise that, I know; he actually had better stamina. He could easily last longer than them and recovered faster from their training – working with Gobber in the forge days on end must have done him more good than he thought.
On the other hand his visits to see Toothless were met with mixed success. The tailfin incident was never mentioned again, but Hiccup found that Toothless was becoming more and more restless as time went on. Whereas on the first few days the two of them could literally spend hours just sitting close as Hiccup sketched whatever caught his attention while Toothless snoozed on nearby, lately Toothless seemed to be incapable of staying still for a long time – shuffling around whenever he lay down – almost as if he could not find a position comfortable enough. Every ten minutes or so he would stand up with a huff and pace around the cove until he found another place to lie down, only to repeat the process again and again.
Just a few days ago Hiccup noticed that a few of the older trees in the cove had their bark torn away with deep gashes along the bare trunks that were quite obviously recent from the way sap still seeped from them. Considering that no other creatures large enough to do that much damage could come into the cove, the only answer as to who caused this left Hiccup uneasy as it reminded him of just how dangerous the dragon really was and spawned worry about his own safety that he had thought he had buried long ago.
Worse still, a day after that when he had visited the Nightfury it had actually stalked behind him when he came into the cove and had him pinned down to the ground before he could even realize what was happening. Of course it moved off of him right away and sitting down close by gave him a cute look; but for a moment when their eyes first locked together and its claws were just a hair breadth away from piercing into his chest once more, Hiccup thought he saw mindless fury within those slits that promised nothing but a quick and brutal death.
For that single moment, there was no doubt in his mind that he was about to die – for there was no doubt in the alien eyes staring at him either. No doubt, no emotion; nothing but some sort of primal instinct – if he could call it that. It was akin to looking into the eyes of a wolf that was aiming for your throat – no anger or hate, just a bestial desire to kill what it perceived as its prey.
Frankly, those eyes scared him more than the imminent death did, and that night his sleep had been plagued with them – and not just in the Nightfury's eye sockets ether, everyone he saw in the village also had those eyes. Strangely enough his dreams were not horrifying so much as sad – for the dead eyes staring at him out of Toothless' body was infinitely scarier than even Gobber with those same eyes. He didn't even notice any difference between his father's regular eyes and the hollow ones in the dream, though dreams never really made any sense to him in any case.
The day after that incident Hiccup had actually dreaded having to return to the cove. Not that that stopped him, but he had arrived an hour later than usual and left quite quickly afterwards even though nothing strange happened that time and Toothless had begged him to stay longer – at least if pleading eyes, a low croon, and a pang of sadness constituted begging.
Fortunately last night had been dreamless once more which at least meant he did not have to wake up with irrational fear once more. The elder always proclaimed there is some deeper meaning or memories of a past life within dreams, but if there is one thing that Hiccup had learned from them it was that a good night's sleep without them was the best case scenario he could hope for. The latest dreams of course did nothing but reaffirm his belief in this.
Sufficiently rested for once, Hiccup walked over to the kill ring for this morning's training, idly wondering just what awaited him this day – both in training and in the cove. Gobber had told them to gather at the kill ring today instead of out at the sheep pastures, and Hiccup honestly hoped that did not mean that they would be returning to actual dragon training today. He knew they would have to at some point, but any day that they didn't was a good day for him.
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"Alright you all! Gather around! Now I am sure you will all be glad to know that the quite honestly boring exercises that ya had to do this past week are coming to an end and hopefully you are all ready to get back to something more exciting!" Gobber's voice echoed across the kill ring from his position in front of the Gronckle's cage, and the six trainees took a wary step back at the mention of 'excitement'. By now they all knew what constituted as exciting for their trainer, and in many cases even Snotlout would agree that the more exciting a situation was, the higher the likelihood of death was for them.
"Now now, there is no need for that" Gobber said removing his hand from the lever that would have released the dragon, all the while grinning at their reactions, "While I am sure you are all excited to get started, I do have to let you down on that – you won't be seeing a dragon until tomorrow. Today on the other hand will be the last of my lectures! So you better all be in the Meade hall when I finish checking the dragon cages here."
Hiccup and the rest of the group shuffled warily around, clearly expecting Gobber to just spring the dragon on them in any case. Seeing this Gobber frowned and bellowed out "Well!? I hope you are not all waiting for me to personally guide you out!" before hobbling off to inspect the door to the Nadder's cage that stood locked up next to the Gronckle's.
As Hiccup wandered off with the others towards the Meade hall which was incidentally almost half the village away, he couldn't help but wonder why Gobber hadn't just told them to meet him there in the first place instead of at the kill ring. He really wouldn't put it past his mentor to have done it for no other reason than to see their faces when they thought he was going to sic the dragon on them, but it was always possible that Gobber's decision not to have them fight the Gronckle had been just a spur of the moment thing.
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Gobber arrived to find his six trainees demolishing the remainders of breakfast and smiled slightly at that. It was quite obvious that they did not quite believe him that there would not be any actual training this day and were preparing just in case – he had after all done that several times and watched as the hungry younglings staggered along while he yelled at them that a Viking should be ready for a dragon raid no matter when.
As with all other groups he had taught over the years, it only took one lesson to teach them this – he could still recall the shockingly graphical death threats aimed at him when he gathered them up several hours after sunset and got them to run around the village with their weapons in hand wearing whatever they have when he bodily threw them out of their warm and comfortable beds. Still, they would thank him later - as several of the older groups he taught had after their first few raids.
Those that didn't were either too proud to… or dead.
Grabbing himself a small keg of ale to keep his throat from becoming parched Gobber walked over to his trainees and sat down across from them, causing them all to give him their undivided attention.
"Well it certainly is nice to see you all fed and watered – glad to see that you took our moonlit jog to heart" He stopped here and bathed in the death glares directed towards him, taking them all as further proof of a job well done.
"Hopefully this week of training has gotten you prepared to face off against another dragon – and do a better job at it than the two abysmal attempts you had at the beginning. I expect all of you to put everything I have taught ya about dragons into training from now on, so no running around screaming, no poking snide remarks at each other, and most definitely no moments of inattention.
"I expect ya all to know exactly where the dragon is at any point during training, where it is headed, and the best way ya can take advantage of that. Finally, I expect ya all to work as a group – there is a very good reason for why there are six of you against a single dragon, and that reason aint to give the dragon more targets to shoot at! I swear to Thor almighty that if I see any of you acting like you have against the Gronckle or the Nadder a week ago, ye will all be running around the village for a month before I let you near another dragon again!"
He punctuated the last points with several slams of the mug tied on to the stump of his left hand against the table before nodding firmly and refilling the now empty mug from his keg – all the while basking in the total silence around him. Even the few Vikings at the other tables lowered their voices when they noticed him teaching his group.
Chugging down half of the refilled mug so as not to waste good ale on the floor as we waved his hands around, Gobber continued. "Up until now I have taught ya several things about fighting dragons – namely the main characteristics of each of the common dragon types, their methods of attacks, the best ways for you to avoid said attacks, and the best ways of fighting against a dragon based on the type of dragon encountered, the amount of dragons you have to face, and of course the amount of Vikings on your side.
"All of that leaves just a single topic for me to cover before ye'r all ready to face the Hideous Zippleback in the ring tomorrow. If any of ye have even glanced at the dragon manual that I told y'all to read right at the beginning of training, ye should be able to tell me what that topic is.
Glancing around Gobber could see that Snotlout and the Thorston twins had no clue from the way they seemed to be enchanted by a particularly interesting wood grain pattern of the table. Astrid seemed to know the answer but as always would probably wait for someone else to try before her, and Hiccup seemed to have something on his mind other than Gobber's lecture.
"Oh I know! Weak-points!" As Fishlegs gave off the answer Gobber nodded absentmindedly while noting to himself to talk to his apprentice later on about whatever was troubling him. Really though, he couldn't even remember a time when there wasn't something troubling Hiccup… Well, there was nothing he could do but try and handle what he could and assume the rest of the problems would resolve themselves.
"Aye! Now that y'all know about how to survive against a dragon, the next step would be knowing were to attack them! I want y'all to be able to not only survive, but also to knock them down and keep them that way! Skipping over the Terrible Terrors because honestly speaking any clean hit would kill them – it's their numbers that you have to worry about; let's get straight into Gronckles.
"As ye should all know by now, Gronckles have the strongest armours out of all the dragon types, so they are quite difficult to put down. I cannot stress enough the stupidity of going against one with a sword or a spear – not that I recommend those weapons against any other dragon either. Your best bet would be heavy weapons such as axes or war hammers to deal blunt damage with a lot of force behind them. Now normally ye aint got much choice of where to aim; but if you do, go for either the skull or their throat. The head is covered by an exceptionally thick plate of armour, but a heavy hit would stun the Gronckle allowing ya access to its throat, which is the least plated location besides the place where its legs meet its chest – but those are rarely available for attack.
"Ya lot got all that? Because it was frankly embracing when I saw y'all running around like chickens with their heads cut off when pitted against a Gronckle in the ring – I mean, not even a single one of ya managed to land a single good hit on it! The best you could do was the half assed attempt at confusing it with noise, and even that mostly landed you in more danger as ya couldn't predict where it was going to shoot its fireball next! As I told you several days ago and will likely tell you again until it sticks in yer brains, do not do anything that would make the dragon act in a way you cannot predict unless ye know what ye'r doing! …And trust me when I say lining up to get shot is not an example of knowing what ye'r doing."
The rapid nods sent his way did not do much to decrease Gobber's worries (not that he let any of them show on his face), but the only thing he could do was hope that his lessons would remain in their minds during the next few actual dragon training sessions. From there the run against an actual dragon would ensure the lessons stuck around.
After tomorrow's Zippleback which Gobber knew never actually lit the gas it released (fortunately for them all, as the surrounding net over the ring would need major repairs after a couple of explosions of that size), he would send his trainees against the Gronkle and the Nadder again several times before giving them a day off with the single Terrible Terror. Maybe throw in the Zippleback somewhere in between for flavour as well. Hopefully a regime like that would convert the theory he spoon fed them into practical experience.
After that though… It would be time to pit them against the One-wing and see how many of them survived. Naturally he hoped that they would all get through with only minor injuries, but being a realist he knew that the chances of that happening were roughly the same as of a dragon suddenly deciding to not kill a Viking it had at its mercy.
In other words, too close to zero to even consider outside of daydreams and fantasies.
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Hiccup sat at the edge of the group next to Fishlegs and absentmindedly scratched at the table with a broken piece of chicken bone from this morning's breakfast, listening intently to Gobber's lecture. The previous few lectures were a literal treasure trove of information that may save him from death during the upcoming daily survival games against a dragon, and while he knew that after meeting Toothless he would never be able to actually kill a dragon, the current lecture was still important – after all he would have to make it seem as if he was putting his all into dragon training while at the same time making sure that he did not accidentally kill one (no matter how unlikely that was).
So far he made a note to himself that the only method virtually guaranteed to never kill a dragon would be to go against one with a sword or a dagger – not that Gobber would allow either into the ring. Other than that he seemed to remember that the neck was a weak point for every single known dragon type except for Boneknappers which used dead Gronckle bones (amongst others) to protect their known weak-points. Not that Gobber would even mention them in his lectures, the last Boneknapper was seen even before his father became chief. Long enough that even scary stories told over a fire switched from them to Whispering Deaths (the last of which was seen when Hiccup was four) to keep up with the times.
"… the Deadly Nadders on the other hand are almost the opposites of Gronckles, being exceptionally nimble and preferring to fight from far instead of getting in close. Of all the common dragon types besides Terrors they have the weakest scales with almost no armour except for the quills along their tails and spine. As such, if ye actually manage to get up close to one, ye can kill or mortally wound it by striking out at its heart through the chest area, slitting its throat, slashing at its wings for shock value, or simply stabbing it through the head. Of course its speed and exceptionally deadly tail make it dangerous to stay up close, but the size and weight of its tail do not allow it to move as fast as it would like – meaning that if ya dodge a strike from its tail ye have a few seconds before the return strike when you can attack.
"As with all the other types of dragons, the head and the neck are the simplest areas of attack for Nadders, mainly because going at it from the front means that you won't be within the line of fire of its quills along with the ability for ye to come in unnoticed if ye manage to stay within the blind spot offered by the horn on its nose. As I have told y'all before – unlike the other dragons for whom the best direction of attack is from the side due to their reliance on fireballs and their focus on the danger in front of them, for the Nadders it is the opposite due to their tail quills which can only be shot to its left or right. And trust me when I say that those quills are deadlier than its fire."
Hiccup shivered at Gobber's words, remembering the aftermath of the dragon raid a couple weeks back and the two Vikings nailed to the walls with Nadder quills. It was only his luck and speed during dragon training that saved him from the same fate when he foolishly forgot about the dragon and instead opted to question Gobber about the Nightfury, throwing his caution and almost his life to the wind.
Sure the way its fireball melted down his axe was frightening (mostly because a few feet to the side would have resulted in it being his head), but the way he could literally feel the needles hitting the ground just a hairbreadth behind his flashing feet and the fear that the next one's aim might be just a tad better scared him even worse than staring into the open maw of the Gronckle when it nearly blew his head off with its fireball.
Amusing wasn't it that he had stared death in the face from every single type of dragon with the exception of Terrible terrors which haven't really shown up in force since a few years back, and the Hideous Zippleback which he did not yet have the honor of crossing paths with.
Well, considering Gobber's words, tomorrow's dragon training would fix that horrible oversight. Speaking of which…
"… now the Hideous Zippleback may seem to be more difficult to bring down due to it having two heads. But in truth its two heads are by far its greatest weakness, as two long necks means twice the weaknesses – as long as ya have someone to help keep the Zippleback from focusing only on you. Better still, crushing the skull of one head would send the entire dragon into shock for a few minutes which is more than enough time for a Viking to finish killing it. DO NOT however consider a Zippleback as dead unless ye crushed both its heads! – after a minute or so it can come out of shock and tends to be much more vicious to make up for the loss of one of its heads.
"While the underside of the Zippleback is just about as unprotected as a Nadder's, it is usually pointless to attempt to kill one by striking into its chest and aiming for the heart, so do not do it! These double headed dragons have two hearts and can in fact survive losing one! Worse still, the hearts are not positioned where ye would expect, so it is all too easy to miss either heart all together and leave yourself open for a bite from the heads.
"Finally, remember that although one of the heads breathes the gas and the other one sets it off, you should never consider this a weak-point and attempt to douse the heads in water to prevent them from lighting the gas, or some brilliantly stupid idea like that. Trust me on this, it has been tried and failed spectacularly.
"Think of it this way – how many Vikings have you seen running around with buckets of water during dragon raids? … Oh and you guys before dragon training don't count. So… There ya go. With the venomous teeth and snake like heads the loss of their ability to blow things up is not worth getting your head bitten off a second later. Besides, there aint ever a lack of dragons or fire to set off the gas during raids; one less dragon capable of that is as helpful as a bucket of water on a Nightmare's flames."
Hiccup watched Gobber take another swing of ale as he wondered just who it was that tried that spectacularly bad idea – even when he first started making his contraptions the plan of pouring water on a dragon never came up, after all dragons were deadly enough even without their fire breathing abilities to risk your life like that. Of course the fact that Gobber mentioned it means that someone had at one point actually tried it, likely resulting in a mess afterwards.
Noticing Gobber taking a deep breath to continue Hiccup shook his thoughts away and focused back on the lecture.
"And that leaves us with just one type of dragon – the Monstrous Nightmare. While only one of you will get the honor of going against it – and save the bickering about who it will be until after I leave; during dragon raids it's as foolish a move as ya can think of to go against one without help. Even veteran Vikings tend to take them on in groups of two or more. There is a better chance of survival that way.
"As with the other dragon types, the underside of the neck is the least armoured area, but unlike the other dragons you should never attempt to get close enough to strike at it and should focus instead solely on bashing its head in, which it fortunately sticks out quite often. Similar to the Nadder, a Nightmare dragon has two legs instead of four, and while it cannot move around using its two legs like a Nadder can, it can stand still on its two legs and use the wings to fight – the only common dragon to use them that way.
"If ye remember my lecture about the Nightmares, the tips of their wings they use to walk around have two razor sharp claws, and while that makes their wings a tad safer than a Timberjacks, any Viking that gets close enough to slash at a Nightmare's throat will inevitably place themselves within reach of said claws – typically with quite gruesome results in the dragon's favour. This leaves the head as really the only viable place of attack – and considering that its head can dart around almost as fast as a Zippleback's, ye should all see why killing one is in another class of difficulty altogether. The number of Vikings capable of taking one on during an actual dragon raid without help can be counted with the fingers of yer hands with some fingers left over. When I had all my limbs I too was among them, but not anymore.
"That said, y'all don't worry too much about Nightmare dragons, I will personally coach whoever has to face one at the end of training. As for the actual dragon raids, my suggestion if ye meet one would be to run in the opposite direction until ye'r capable of handling several Nadders at the same time. Fortunately enough we rarely see more than a handful of Nightmares during any single raid and those that come are handled by our Veterans."
Hiccup felt shivers go up his spine at that – he could still vividly remember his escape from the Monstrous Nightmare that had destroyed his Mangler, and could honestly say that he was thankful that he had never had the misfortune of meeting one during the other times he had been out testing his contraptions… Not counting of course that incident with the 'sleep powder'… as the less was said about that particular episode, the better.
"All that of course brings me to the last point. Hopefully y'all have been awake enough to know that with only a few exceptions it's the head and throat that you really want to go after; but there are two other areas you can also aim for which while not resulting in a killing blow will nevertheless cripple the dragon."
Gobber's voice boomed over them, and Hiccup could feel his stomach slowly drop down as his mind reverberated with that single word.
Cripple…
He didn't need to even hear Gobber exclaim about taking out the wings and tails and how the injuries done to them were some of the few that the dragons could not heal with their almost regenerative healing speeds, and yet the words were there, passing through his ears and lingering in his thoughts.
"… almost every Viking warriors knows this, and so should you – a downed dragon is still deadly, still capable of killing or injuring Vikings – still capable of fighting… and yet no dragon survives longer than a month with broken wings or shattered tails..."
The sheared off tail fin – the result of my actions – such a minor seeming thing, and yet tying Toothless to the ground stronger than any metal chains or crafted cages ever could.
Shaking his mug Gobber continued, heedless of the horror within his apprentice's eyes; "… no one really knows why, after all wolves, lynxes, Hel even Vikings that have lost an arm or a foot still manage to survive. I have once met a two legged wolf and let me tell ye, after it got to within inches of my throat I never let down my guard around seemingly crippled opponents. Not so for dragons though – downed dragons actually take their own lives within a single month rather than continue living that way, almost as if they cant bear to live without flight. You often enough see several beasts just dropping down dead during the last minutes of a dragon raid when they see the others flying away and are incapable of following them; dropping dead or just jumping off cliffs…"
A single month… He could not breathe as he understood that even under the best conditions it had already been a fortnight since he had shot down Toothless; with at most another fortnight left, and even that was assuming that Toothless could hold out that long.
"… the only thing we know about it is that the first few captured dragons had their wings removed to prevent their escape. Let me tell ye now how that ended - they all became increasingly violent and restless, in some cases foregoing sleep altogether. After a while though that all stopped - almost as if they lose their will to live. After close to a month, most just lay around in their cages and refusing to eat simply up and dyed within a day at most."
Hiccup's latest visits to the cove flashed through his mind as he finally got an answer as to why Toothless' behaviour started changing. He had feverishly hoped that Gobber had been wrong, or perhaps that it would not apply to Toothless, after all no one has even seen a Nightfury or an intelligent dragon, so it was possible that all the knowledge gathered on the other dragons did not completely apply; but there was no way he could disregard the truth now that it was so blatantly staring him in the face.
Toothless' increasingly erratic behaviour, the stripped off bark of the trees, the time Toothless jumped on him and almost killed him; the vivid memories flashed through his mind and Hiccup shivered.
It all fit with Gobber's explanation, didn't it?
He had shot down Toothless and crippled him, chaining him to the ground and consigning him to a slow death.
The only friend he made, the one being that was slowly filling in the jagged hole in his mind that had been ripped out with the loss of his mother and further flayed open by his father's thoughtless actions; fated to die from a wound he himself inflicted upon him.
There had to be something he could do – he refused to just accept the current situation as inevitable. Refused to accept Toothless' tail as crippled forevermore; for all the problems originated from it.
The tailfin, of course…
Hiccup did not notice himself jumping from the table and running out of the Meade hall, nor Gobber's yells and the other younglings' stares. He did not even notice himself yelling out some sort of excuse back at Gobber which must have worked as his mentor sat back down and continued without him, not that he payed any attention to their reactions.
His mind was focused on only one thing, the artificial fin – the half-finished design drawn within the pages of several of his journals, along with the partially finished bits and pieces of the metal skeleton that would together form a new tail fin to replace the one he was responsible for.
The forge was already heated up as Gobber had likely been working on it in the early morning and was going to continue later on, but Hiccup disregarded any danger of being discovered by his mentor or whoever else could drop by. He had planned on taking his time to build the artificial tail fin so that no one noticed the materials missing and the finished product only needed minor adjustments before Toothless could use it, but there just wasn't enough time!
It took perhaps an hour to put together the metal skeleton as the rods were already complete; and another hour to stitch the light leather he filched from the docks and cut into the shape of the tailfin on top of it. He had been planning on collecting the black scales that Toothless constantly shed and somehow attaching them onto the leather to make the artificial tailfin more like the real thing, but that idea would have to be scrapped now or at least put on hold. Worse still, the blatant problem that he had been stuck on of actually controlling the tailfin was clearly visible as he folded and unfolded it, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Half an hour more work installed a way for him to jam the fin in its spread state. He doubted Toothless kept his tailfins fully open all the time, but it was better than nothing.
Perhaps showing the tailfin to Toothless would at least buy me some time, and who knows – perhaps he can at least glide with this.
If there was hope that he would be able to fly things would be better, right? – After all Toothless wouldn't just give up… right?
Fueled by desperation Hiccup took off towards the bridge and was about to enter into the forest when he skidded to a stop and turned back around. In his haste he had forgotten to get any fish for Toothless, and asking Toothless to allow him to approach the tail was not something he fancied doing while the quite possibly easily irritated Nightfury was still hungry.
Of course there was still the problem with having to go all the way down to the docks to get the fish, along with the higher possibility of being seen as it was only a couple of hours past noon and there would be people at work there.
He could wait until the other Vikings dispersed, or…
Screw this – I'll just grab the basket of fish I brought over to Gobber in the morning and replace it afterwards he thought. Heaving the basket over his shoulders Hiccup staggered for a moment under its weight before grabbing the half-finished tailfin from the ground and rushing off to the cove, all the while thinking of just how to broach this particular topic with Toothless.
I suppose I'll just show him the artificial tail fin and hope he is in a good enough mood today to allow me to put it on.
Right, because there weren't so many things that could go wrong with that 'whatever happens, happens' plan.
Still, it wasn't as if there was any time for anything else, and theoretically speaking, nothing could in fact go wrong with such a plan. Whether the plan would be able to successfully accomplish what he wanted it to accomplish with minimal amount of blood spilt was a completely different question altogether.
… He really hoped that Toothless would be in a good mood today…
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A/N
I hope Gobber's lecture was not too long – I wanted a slightly different take on the entire firepit scene when Hiccup finds out the entire 'downed dragon is a dead dragon' bit, mostly because with an added time limit I needed Hiccup to get out to meet Toothless with the tailfin on the same day as that episode.
The story has finally passed into three digits of reviews! Grats goes out to MidKnightz for posting review #100. Thanks everyone who read/reviewed/favourited this story, and hope you stick around for the rest – its barely started as it is, and if I can get it finished to my satisfaction there will probably be five to six times the current number of chapters. The amazing thing is that I actually have the plotline written down for it all – now I just need to flesh it out.
I will continue to write and post new chapters, and hopefully all of you will continue to read, review/favorite/follow. I really hope to reach the end, but going from a story that was supposed to be 50-70 thousand words to ten times that is quite a daunting task. On the other hand if I finish I will have the dubious honor of having the longest HTTYD fanfic on the site (or second longest – Truth is a shard of ice seems to be going strong, and it is my own personal hope that it continues as well – awesome story, if anyone here hasn't read it I strongly recommend it).
I have recently had another idea for a story climb on my back and not get off, so I may take the next week off from posting a new chapter here and instead post the first chapter for that story (which currently looks to be about 20k words in total). If you spot a story called 'Draegon Child' published in the upcoming week, check it out. What with the chapters being closer to 2-3k instead of the 4-6k I usually put into Ouroboros I may actually write both of them at once.
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Saienai signing off