A/N: This took WAAAY too long to write cuz I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to do just this one chapter but I finally managed to pull it off! (Dragon perspectives are so haaaard)
Learning from the Masters
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction
Based of Le'Letha's "Nightfall"
Two days was an absolutely insufferable amount of time to be separated. Toothless couldn't remember a single instance like this one where he and his other half had been apart like this, he and his dragon-boy having been together since either of them could first remember. They'd grown as hatchlings together and had always been one-who-is-two.
There was some measure of comfort, at least. They were still close enough to talk to and hear each other, though even that was lacking. Half of their communication came from body language, not words or sounds, and it was harder for Toothless to talk back to his other half because of the thing the pfikingr had put on his head.
He'd tried and tried and tried to get it off, but it held on with great stubbornness, and he knew this was one of those things only Hiccup's skilled paws, or that of the pfikingr, could get off, much to the Fury's dismay.
At the very least, the pfikingr had taken away some of the binding things that had made it impossible for the Fury to move, other than helplessly, futily wriggling against them, though instead they'd replaced it with another on his neck so that he could only roam a short ways inside the cage itself.
He'd spent a good deal of time pacing about inside it, pressing his body up against the bars, or scratching at them, or simply looking at them, trying to find a way out of it. If his mouth was free, he could have easily broken out with a few charged blasts of fire, but the jaw-shut pfikingr thing prevented that.
When he'd finally grown tired of pacing, or just grown tired, he flopped down grumpily, though with no shortage of chattering to Hiccup. Neither of them were at all content, much less happy, with the situation, and neither did anything to hide it between crooning and warbling of us yes love love yes here safe here love love love you me we us love here safe yes us yes. The only time they stopped talking back and forth was when either one or both slept. Occasionally they would chatter with other caged dragons as well, confirming that none of them were hurt or being treated badly, which was a relief, but also confusing.
At the moment, Toothless was left in silence as Hiccup slept and the other dragons kept their voices to themselves, though what they were doing, the male dragon wasn't terribly sure.
He'd settled for splaying out along the floor of the cage, which had plenty enough room to do so, not counting his tail and wings if they were stretched to their full length, eyes closed but not really asleep, merely thinking.
What did pfikingr even want with live dragons, anyway? Perhaps they wanted them as companions, like the Uh strrrTT did, but they had only done that because the She had seen his Hiccup and him fly together first. Besides, these ones had the preynoprey creatures that hunted and fought dragons that he had seen come and go with the pfikingr many times since being caged, which still seemed strange wrong crazy strange wrong, so what did they need dragons for too?
The strange kind-of-dragon-talking pfikingr came to see him twice per day, which Toothless could still track by the light or dark wafting in from the mouth of the cave, visible through the one open window of sight in the cage where the door was. Mostly the kind-of-dragon-talking pfikingr just brought water when he grew thirsty, touched his head, and tried to talk dragon to him. Or at least…what he thought was maybe dragon.
He'd chatter things that sounded somewhat like safe friendly safe hello friendly peace friendly, but it was hard to be sure. Even if that was right – and what was there to say it was since pfikingr could hardly speak anyway? All except his Hiccup-self that he didn't consider a pfikingr even if he looked kind of like one – Toothless was adamant not to trust it. Dragons could lie so it only stood to reason that pfikingr would lie and trick too and Toothless had no reason to believe it wasn't a lie or a trick after they had hurt him with sharp shooting things and separated he and his Hiccup-self and tied them up in cages where they were trapped apart.
He's hissed back bad distrust pfikingr hurt separate you me we us bad away stay away distrust no separate bad no back no trust enemy bad not safe, but the pfikingr didn't seem to understand very well, if at all, and Toothless had quickly found himself frustrated because the pfikingr could kind-of speak but he couldn't listen and what was the use of one without the other?
At the very least, his wing was already fine after the pfikingr had removed the sharp shooting thing and it had brought him water but he was so hungry. The pfikingr did not bring him food, though Toothless could smell food-scent on him and sometimes somewhere else in the cave, and he had not eaten since before they had first flown to this pfikingr nest.
It had been a long time since he had not eaten at all like this. He suspected that his Hiccup half probably didn't get food either, but his smaller half didn't need to eat like most dragons did. He could go longer with less or sometimes even none at all, even if the hunger-pains plagued him, but dragons needed lots of food to survive for long.
Toothless perked as he heard noises like one of the other cages being opened, on the far side of the row. Curious and wary, he stretched before getting up and moving as far as he could, craning his head forward to see. Several of the pfikingr were milling about the entrance of one of the cages, which stood open, some of them holding more of the binding things.
The dragon tilted his head to listen, catching hints of them garbling to each other, but mostly it was the kind-of-dragon-speaking pfikingr, though his voice was odd and not at all like the dragon sounds from before. It was a strange sort of hollow murmur that lacked any sort of variation, so Toothless could not distinguish what kind of things he might be trying to communicate and whether what he was saying was good or bad or happy or angry or sad or anything at all.
The kind-of-dragon-speaking pfikingr made a few motions though and the others went to where he pointed, walking to the other cages, peeling back some of the soft coverings on the sides to about halfway, so that the dragons inside could see each other.
Toothless growled subtly at the pfikingr as they came to his cage, who noticeably hesitated, but did the same. He snorted at them as they started to retreat, and one jumped into the air, before scuttling away faster, casting a scared look over its shoulder. Toothless narrowed his eyes and laughed a dragon laugh at the back of his throat at the scared creatures.
Toothless!
The dragon perked at the sound and looked for his smaller partner, spying his head of brown fur hopping up to see over the wings of other dragons in the two cages between them. Toothless almost squealed a not-so-dragon sound of delight and stood on his hind legs up against the bars, splaying his wings in elated greeting and pawing towards his other half through one of the gaps longingly.
Best yet was that he could see that his Hiccup looked unhurt by the nasty trapping pfikingr and energetic, jumping up and pacing to try and see him around bars and other dragons that were now shifting about curiously and interestedly checking out the odd little dragon, starting to block them from seeing each other with their bulk. Toothless hissed at them to move so he could get a better look at his other self and be sure he really was completely okay, and Hiccup's eyes were scouring him as well.
Hurt wing hurt Toothless love okay love hurt wing? Hiccup chattered worriedly.
Fine fine not hurt no okay fine hungry fine not hurt wing good Toothless answered, batting his wings against the bars and showing off they were fine and still strong though the jaw-trap thing still made him somewhat off-sounding.
Good yes relief good delighted worried scared Toothless-love relief happy good love worried miss you love love happy yes need you love relief, Hiccup sang fondly and was soon joined in answer by Toothless crooning back yes missed you worried scared relief happy good love need you affection love yes longing here here miss you love love you me we us you me we us!
Their sort-of reunion was interrupted by a loud, quick banging that had both of them faltering, attention shifting to the kind-of-dragon-speaking pfikingr as he bashed a metal thing on another, the sound echoing around the cave in a way that made Toothless' ears sting.
He seemed satisfied to have silenced them though and turned his attention back to the open cage, where Hiccup and Toothless followed his gaze to it.
Several of the pfikingr held onto binding things as a fire-skin cousin slowly wandered forward, looking wary and chattering soft noises of nervousness and uncertainty as it stopped just within the cage as though unsure then placed a clawed wing forward and slung out into the open. Several shiny binding things hung off places it wrapped around and pfikingr held onto the far ends an all sides from a distance.
Toothless was watching them carefully, going as far as the chain would allow and sitting to observe. The fire-skin cousin stretched out its wings a bit further and tried to splay them, but the pfikingr kept it from doing so with the metal binding things, so it crept forward along its belly instead, growling at them in distrust.
The kind-of-dragon-talking pfikingr came to stand in front of it toting a pfikingr thing with fish in it that immediately caught Toothless' hungry attention, the fire-skin cousin stopping and shifting in an uneasy way, chattering confliction danger human bad human fish smell fish hungry bad good food fish human fish good bad wary alert bad good distrust hungry fish bad good wary danger friend food danger human bad good?
The fire-skin cousin turned his head to follow a fish the kind-of-dragon-speaking pfikingr held up and waved around with a tongue swiping over sharp fangs and Toothless found himself licking the inside of his own teeth, shifting eagerly where he was sitting and belly pinching in want.
The human tossed it forward and the fire-skin cousin immediately snapped it up, scarfing it down whole. Already the pfikingr had another fish in his paws, taking a few steps back. The fire-skin cousin eyed him warily, but followed at the same distance, following the fish.
He tossed another to the dragon and it snapped it up like before, continuing to follow, though not without glancing around at the other pfikingr that kept taking a few steps around it in a circle, holding the binding things, chattering again nervously.
Toothless perked as he heard the sounds again that the kind-of-dragon-speaking pfikingr had made at him, warbling a sound like safe reassurance peace friendly reassurance safe friendly follow friendly safe peace which made the dragon noticeably confused, hesitating. The pfikingr tossed another fish to it and continued to make those kind-of-dragon noises and led it forward, one fish at a time.
Immediately falling back into that equally odd, hollow pfikingr garbling, he motioned something to the others of his kind and they pulled the binding things out, the fire-skin cousin screeching alarm confused danger bad trick bad human no friend confused!
Toothless snarl-growled distrust and hatred at the pfikingr as the fire-skin cousin writhed and shrieked, spitting fire as its body lit up so that a few pfikingr had to scatter back, though they didn't let the fire-skin cousin free.
He and his dragon-boy were waiting to see the tell-tale glint of a pfikingr sharp thing coming to kill the cousin, but it never did, the smaller pfikingr approaching carefully from the side and continuing to warble trick noises of peace and friendliness that Toothless hardly believed at all but after a time the cousin tired and gave up struggling, making a mournful noise of fear scared danger bad tricked me bad human!
If the pfikingr understood at all – and Toothless knew he didn't – he only continued to make the same sounds back as if he didn't know how to speak anything else. He offered more fish, but the estranged dragon cousin didn't take it this time, instead snarling no bad distrust danger bad human tricked me bad scared fear distrust bad!
After a while, the pfikingr gave up, tossing the last fish in front of the dragon, but the cousin still didn't go for it, watching the pfikingr walk around and pick something up from the long wood pfikingr thing where they often ate. Toothless was still expecting a sharp thing to kill it, but instead the pfikingr picked up what he recognized as paper and a thing to draw with, casting a sidelong glance as his dragon-boy partner and watching him perk interestedly as he also saw it while other dragons also watched with curious uncertainty as to what was happening.
The kind-of-dragon-speaker glanced in his and his Hiccup-self's direction as though making sure they were seeing what was happening before he took a seat on the very top of the wood food-eating thing with the paper and said something to one of the other, bigger pfikingr that nodded and took a loose rope with knots in it and started to walk around the beast with another smaller, more nervous pfikingr that had reddish fur in-tow.
They held the rope out between them just above part of the dragon and spoke their gibberish to each other, then the kind-of-dragon-speaker started to do something with the paper which Toothless could only guess was to draw like Hiccup did whenever he could get his hands on paper.
The strange kind-of-dragon-speaker kept glancing at the fire-skin cousin that was stretched out by the binding things as the other two moved about it with the rope stretched between them and returned to drawing every time they said something in their strange tongue, looking like he was concentrating hard on what he was doing.
Toothless could make no sense of it as the pfikingr continued to walk around and the kind-of-dragon-speaker continued to draw on the paper and eventually the rope was tossed aside as the two pfikingr kept walking around, pointing with their paws and making noise and the fire-skin cousin chattered its nervousness and confusion and confliction at them without answer and a black croaking bird of a kind that was annoying and tricky but not stupid and easy to eat like seagulls were landed on the kind-of-dragon-speaker's shoulder peering curiously at what he was doing.
After some span of time had passed, the kind-of-dragon-speaker stopped and held up the piece of paper and stared at it and the fire-skin cousin for a long moment, glancing between them before setting it aside and standing. He made more hollow noises at the other pfikingr who moved somewhat closer, no longer pulling it stretched out.
The kind-of-dragon-speaker moved around the dragon again, the black bird flying off to some far corner, and he moved close to the beast, pulling off some of the binding things that made a weird rattling sound as they came off and then stepped back.
At first the fire-skin cousin didn't move, frozen and huddled in on itself looking more confused and at a loss of what to do than ever as the pfikingr backed away to gain some distance. It blinked slowly and looked around at the pfikingr and then the other dragons like it was asking what to do, then started to ease up a little and stand back to regular height, chattering confused wary uncertain free? Free? No hurt tricked? Bad? Good? No hurt no bad good? Confused uncertain free?
It momentarily tested what would happen by starting to crawl forward, watching the pfikingr uneasily, then quickly snatched up the last fish that it hadn't touched and launched into the air, flying out of the cave unchallenged.
That was the point that Toothless was also completely at a loss.
Had the pfikingr just… let the other dragon go free? He tilted his head toward Hiccup's cage and could sense similar confusion from his dragon-boy. Soon the other dragons were quietly murmuring similar things to each other in a hushed, interested, baffled sort of way.
If the pfikingr were catching dragons and then just letting them go again unharmed, then just exactly what were they hoping to gain…?