Learning from the Masters
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfic
Based off of Le'letha's "Nightfall"
Two days after Alekt finished gathering his drawings of dragons and their wings and tails is when it becomes busy. This time it isn't hunting and capturing dragons alive, nor is it planning to raid a rival Viking camp for their dragons or supplies or anything of the like. This is something a little different, but its something that Norsemen are almost as famed for as their viciousness.
The late morning was filled with orders and activity. The horses were given a proper stretch and warm-up for work and the carts readied for them to pull. The dragons - the Fury pair included - were alert and watched with a sort of edgy wariness and kept their distance as men gathered axes and pickaxes, milling about the entrance.
There were three groups, each with an assigned task; one to gather large stones, another for tree-chopping, and the last for gathering brush and smaller wood and branches. Only two men stayed behind. Alekt accompanied the rest out. He figured that curiosity had won out once the grouping Vikings had left the cave enough that Tt-(click)-th-uhp-ss followed to observe and find out what they had planned.
One group spent a good part of the day locating loose boulders and stones of all sizes, and other pieces they found that were good for their purpose and just needed a little bit of chipping to separate them from larger stones and walls. With a team of four horses pulling from the front, and several of the men pushing the cart from behind, they relocated the collected stones back to their camp in the cave, arranging them to form a sort of shallow pen in one corner. Every stone was placed meticulously and with a purpose to keeping the whole structure together, with open slots running the entire length one way to form rows.
The group gathering dry brush and twigs and similar material returned next. Brittle grass and leaves and other flammables were packed into the long slots in the stone with coals, and then more stones were added on top, deepening the rock pile, and another layer of brush was packed in. A last top layer was added to form a flat platform.
The Fury pair hung back but were watching curiously, making noises that sounded curious and interested but undeniably still cautious. Like the wild things they were, they kept what they deemed a safe distance and stayed out of the way of the men, who worked and barely even took the time to notice the two, or at least did a good job pretending not to.
The last thing they needed then was the wood, which arrived in the form of a tree trunk cut into segments, each somewhere between three and four feet long. With many heavy, downward swings of an axe, they sheared the outer bark from all the sides, then split each log into two halves with a large maul axe and some hammers.
Norsemen were known for a lot of things - their savagery; their metal weaponry; their Pagan gods - but there was another thing that they were well known for, and that was their woodworking. Judging from the somewhat startled, awed look from the feral dragon rider as they worked, he guessed that (click)-uhp was getting a crash course in exactly how Vikings made the things they did.
They went through splitting huge log chunks with practiced precision. One log was laid out where it wouldn't move and escape as one man brought the maul down hard so that it bit into wood. Then from each side, two others took their turn to hammer it in, interchanging with perfect timing like opposite human pistons - one, two; one two; one, two - until the solid piece cracked in half and either side fell in opposite directions. Then another segment of tree trunk - THWACK, one-two, one-two, one-two, and so on, and so on.
By the time all three tasks were fully done and the horses unhitched, the men were tired and hungry, as were the horses, so he dismissed them to go about whatever they chose for the rest of the night. Alekt still had his own work he intended to do, so he didn't retire the same as the rest to cook, eat, and tell stories. He retreated to his usual table off to the side, taking a couple of the trunk halves with him.
The last couple of days he'd spent tirelessly pouring over his drawings and trying to do calculations. Wings that were too big like those of a Timberjack wouldn't be workable. Small wings like those of a Gronkle wouldn't work very well either with how quick they had to flap to stay airborne. Finding the right balance in size was a good portion of the trick, but so was shape and angles. There was a lot to account for, and there was no guarantee of his plan for false wings working.
He had studied birds as well, but birds were another matter entirely. They were smaller and built lighter than humans, though it was to his own advantage that he was relatively small and thin himself. It wasn't simply a matter of coming up with something that would get himself off the ground - though it was a start - but to also figure out a design that would work for his heavier fellow Vikings. In that regard, dragons were a much better model to work from.
And then there was also (click)-uhp.
Just a few days ago, he'd seen the feral man splay out what looked like crafted wings of his own, albeit more like a flying squirrel than a dragon. He wondered exactly how practical they were in reality, or if they were merely aesthetic. If it turned out the dragon-man could actually fly with them, then that at least proved it could be done and that his time wasn't wasted on the endeavor. He wouldn't be able to say for sure though until he saw it for himself.
What he had in mind wasn't really the same kind of thing, though he would certainly consider the design if it proved useful, maybe with a few tweaks of his own. It would be more accurate to say that he wanted to glide than actually fly, because he wasn't so sure humans had enough strength and energy in their arms to use the same as birds or dragons, but something that could stay in the air long-term was the intended goal.
It was with that in mind that he was working on a frame. It had to be lightweight enough to stay in the air but strong enough to hold the weight of a person. Spruce was the best available to him at the moment. He took his while to refine one of the blocks into more of a slab and then drew out lines for the frame shape of the wings with a piece of charcoal. The smaller pieces he'd shaved off the edges he made into small blocks, only maybe an inch or two thick, and figured out their placement following the lines in places where he wanted the frames to be bent, nailing them in firmly to where they wouldn't swivel or become misaligned.
He caught the motion of a black shape in the corner of his sight and turned his head to where the Fury pair were as they returned, plopping down near the recovering dragons and talking with them in their own language. What had once been some confusion and wariness - Alekt guessed they were not dragons that knew each other from the same group before now - had turned into more comfort and relaxed stances between the Fury pair and the rescued dragons.
The injured dragons were still visibly wary of him and his men, and Alekt was mindful to give them their distance, but they seemed fine with (click)-uhp and Tt-th-ss. With that being the case, he left the dragons to the dragon-man. He wondered if it had been explained that they were free to go whenever they were well enough to, but he supposed he could always try asking. (click)-uhp seemed to understand enough human tongue for that particular subject.
Going back to work, he separated off a few more pieces of wood, refining them into longer strips of wood. For now, they were just straight bars, and he was still shaping them with careful swipes of a blade, but eventually they would be the frames that held everything together.
Its while he's still working on it that he saw the dragon-pair approaching, but he found that they were more willing to get close when he didn't make a point of acknowledging their presence until (click)-uhp indicated for his attention with a few curious clicks. Any and everything crafted that wasn't a weapon, the dragon-man seemed to have an infinite curiosity for. As far as he was concerned, that was a good thing, because it meant there was a higher likelihood the Fury and rider would stay longer and potentially help them more.
Questioning eyes were all that he needed to know that Tt-(click)-th-uhp-ss wanted to know what he was doing. Grabbing the paper with his blue-prints, he pointed to the bar of the wings on the paper, tracing a finger down its length, and then at the wood he was working on and the frame for setting the shape. (click)-uhp hums in a way that says he only understands half of it. The next sounds - chattering and a whistle Alekt recognized as a question and a sound like wood splitting - cleared up what he found confusing, after a few moments considering how to decipher it.
"Normally, yes," Alekt nodded, picking up one of the smaller scrap pieces and bending it till it broke. "Dry wood. But with hot water or steam," he said, picking up a cup of water and making a noise and motion with his hand to indicate fire, "you can make it bend." Taking another piece and flexing it without breaking, he indicated 'no' and then a snapping sound.
(click)-uhp looked as though he at least understood the gist of it and chattered wonderingly with Tt-th-ss. As he expected, a lot of the crafting arts were entirely unknown to (click)-uhp. He'd thought of boiling and bending the wood in the morning, but decided now was as fine a time as any. If nothing else, he could explain and prove through real result what he was talking about.
Straightening up - he noted that the Fury rocked back a little bit when he did, intent on keeping a comfortable distance - he picked up the slab frame for setting the shape and the pieces that would be the skeleton of the wings and went to the pile of rocks and debris they'd gathered.
The first thing was lighting up the kindling, using a piece of flint and stone to make sparks, and then giving the embers breath until they grew into a flame, feeding it further with a large bellow made of wood and leather. After that were the pots that he set atop it and filled with water. It would take a while for the water to reach its boiling point, so he spent that time further refining the edges of the wing frames.
When both were to his satisfaction, and the water hot, he slid them in and covered it. It would take some time before the boiling would be done, so he occupied (click)-uhp's attention in the mean time with how to weave cordage rope from the leftover inner bark and roots, since he would need it already anyway. After a couple of hours, he retrieve the long wood pieces and wedged them into the shaping frame.
The hardest part was trying to communicate that the frames needed to be left alone to cool and set their shape, though he managed to get the message across most of the night and until early morning. By the time Alekt was up, (click)-uhp and his dragon companion were already prying the frames free with curious whistles and chirps, the smaller of the two testing the strength of them with trying to bend them into some other form with his full weight. Much to Alekt's own satisfaction, they survived the stress amazingly well and held their new shape.
Caught red-handed, (click)-uhp retreated back to the side of the Fury as Alekt approached, watching for what he'd do with them now and thrumming in interest.
He needed a central frame to keep it all together, which was his next task, crafting a top and bottom piece that would fit together and having to carve out slots for the base of the wing skeleton to fit into. It was time-consuming, but he took his while to make it an exact match so it would all fit together snugly. The last part - at least for this first prototype, since he was predicting he'd need to make changes - was fitting the whole frame with something to keep it airborne.
He pondered whether leather or ship canvas would be the better option. Leather was the more readily available material though, and would be more water-resistant than cloth would. They have boar and deer hides already. When they have to hunt again to re-supply on meat, they'll have even more.
(click)-uhp is less interested in his stitch-work than he was in the wood bending or rope-weaving, maybe understandably so if he made his own clothing and saddle. They already had leathers which were cured, tanned, oiled, and dried - though he would have to have more done that way to create more wings after he worked much of the kinks out with his prototype - so all he needed to do now was cut and sew.
Once again, the trick was to make sure it was sturdy enough to stay in one solid piece, but light enough to catch air. Too heavy, and all but the stormiest winds wouldn't take it off the ground. Luckily, strength was not something he needed to worry about; wild boar had some of the toughest skin of any species. He was more concerned about weight.
He cut the large pieces to fit where he needed them to against the frames, and the end pieces he used as strips to wrap around the wood skeleton and stitch to the larger pieces. The edges that went to the box halves where he set in the wood frames of the wings, he also slipped the edges in between and nailed it all together firmly, with the earlier woven cord stitched from wing-tip to frame so that the leather would have something to hold its form on the side opposite the wooden wing frames.
He'd already accounted for a way to hold onto it, with a small space between leather and frame closer to the base that he could slip his fingers through. The only thing left was to test his weight on it before giving it a first fly.
He accomplished that with some rope tied to a higher tree branch, with the dangling end tied around the thickest part of the frame, so that he could hang from the wings and see how much he could stress them with his weight and how well they'd hold. Better to test that now and have them break than to try and fly with them and careen from the sky.
One could always hope that Tt-(click)-th-uhp-ss might actually look out for him if something went wrong and he fell, but he couldn't take the off-chance that they'd simply let him fall to his death either, and that seemed more likely than them saving him.
He did a lot of pulling, twisting, and bouncing from the frame, and everything held as it should. None of the nails came loose or the stitching undone. Now, all that was left for them was a good wind.
In the night, there was a tension in the air. He knew it well, because that was what was most familiar to him. The breeze was crisper and humid, heralding the promise of a storm. In the morning, there were incoming clouds, and by afternoon, the winds had picked up considerably. There would be rain some time before the sun set, but for now, the sky was clear of droplets.
He missed that tension. Where he came from, there were many harsh storms. Even when the storms ceased, there was still that feeling in the air, and in the seas, there was usually a similar looming presence. Lately the air had been too calm and relaxed for his liking. The air of an incoming storm was more like home.
When the first peel of thunder broke, it became clear that he was not the only one enjoying the shift.
(click)-uhp and Tt-th-ss immediately noticed, but they had been somewhat more fidgety all morning. There was a lot more chatter, and (click)-uhp - who had previously been drawing on extra sheets of paper, which Alekt communicated was okay so long as he stayed away from his own plan drawings of wings - yelped an excited dragonic sound and clamored onto the Fury's back. The Fury cried its own similar sounds of excitement, quickly stretching out its wings as if to take off any second.
Standing, Alekt shed his usual cloak, which would be more of a hassle and only get buffeted by the wind if he wore it. He whistled at the Fury-pair before they could take off, the same moment that he was retrieving the wings he'd crafted, so that they could figure out that he wanted them to wait for him before dashing off. Flying, though he knew how it worked, was a new experience to him, and a familiar one to them. Even if they had no intention of actively teaching him, he could at least go off of observation.
By the time he caught up to the dragon and rider at the cave mouth, they were faintly trembling, but not with any sense of fear. They launched as soon as they saw him reach where they were, up onto the rocks above.
Climbing with the assembled wings was much more hazardous than he'd first predicted. The winds were consistent, leaving little if any breaks between gusts. A few times climbing up the rocks, he was almost carried off before he was out of the ravine and ready to do so, though luckily he managed to stay clinging to the cliffs with his sickles.
He climbed until he found a higher, small cave, the wind blowing into it so it wouldn't carry him or the wings off never to be seen again. He tied the base of it to his back properly before ascending higher, which took all of his concentration and careful movements (he made a mental note to try for a design where he could fold the wings in in the next model), before reaching a space that was fairly open and clear of things to run into.
The only thing that kept him grounded were his weapons, hooked into small crags and ledges in the rock, but if not for that, the winds would have already carried him upwards. He sheathed one of the blades, one hand holding the frame of the wings, continuing to hold onto the rock with the other, and drank in the static air, feeling it whip his hair back and sting at his eyes; and the heft of the wind under the wings he made.
The Fury landed next to him, boy and dragon crooning curious encouragement. (click)-uhp spread the webbings of his clothing, which the wind buffeted greedily, but stayed well-placed on the Fury's back; Tt-th-ss opened up his own and was effortlessly lifted airborne from the rock, well into the sky in only moments.
Inhaling deeply and exhaling, Alekt similarly let go of the rock, kicked up, and let the wind catch underneath the wings.
Even for someone with nerves like steel, the first few seconds were enough to make him queasy. The feeling of ice that ran through him was because of more than just the cold gale sending goose bumps across his exposed skin. It was hard to say if the wind rushing through his nose and mouth was responsible for making it so hard to breathe, or how rapidly the land was shrinking below him, while the heavy winds tried to launch him sideways instead of ahead.
Steadying himself in the air and getting the angles and direction he wanted was much harder than he thought it'd be, trying to bank his weight to one side, and then compensate by angling himself the other way when it was too much. The slightest change in angle or direction had a huge effect on his momentum and direction, and drastic changes were not even considerable.
For someone that prided himself on getting small details right in everything he did, the subtleties of flying were a lot more complicated than he gave proper credit towards.
Even so, while difficult and admittedly terrifying, it was also exhilarating. There was no other experience like it, or even close to describing it. Sailing the oceans; climbing great trees or mountains; fighting blade-to-shield to victory; or even fighting against creatures much bigger and fiercer like sharks or bears or dragons.
There was nothing else in the world that he could think of that was like flying. There was nothing else that could match the pull of the sky, lifting him higher than any Viking, maybe even any human anywhere in the world (present company of dragon-man excluded), had ever gone. Heights that, before now, were impossible for anything not already born to the sky.
He closed his eyes - he didn't need to see to know which way was up, and they were too high for trees and cliffs here to run into - and felt the movements and the wind with his whole body, letting instinct and intuition be his guide, getting an idea for the currents and streams of wind that he couldn't see but he could feel tug at his hair and ghost over his flesh, curving all around him, and roaring in his ears.
This was what he'd wanted.
This was what he'd been missing.
Flying was living.
Feeling a little steadier, he cracked his eyes open, observing now that he was starting to get the hang of it, though it still took a lot of concentration and effort to adjust his movements accordingly. The island was well below and the winds had taken him a fair distance off-coarse of it already, but he wasn't terribly worried. So long as the winds continued - and he knew that they would - he could figure out directions and movement back towards it.
It was only now that he watched the Fury and (click)-uhp in the air, the rider on Tt-th-ss's back, making the task look effortless, but he imagined that - for them - that truly was the case. This was not even close to a new experience for them. Without doubt, it was as common and natural to them as walking or running was for most other species.
(click)-uhp whooped with joy and untangled his hands from the saddle he'd made to stay on Tt-th-ss's back and leapt off fearlessly, only off-setting the dragon's flight path by a small margin, before spreading his own limbs and gliding with the crafted webbing of his clothes easily. The animalistic cries of the dragon-man were ecstatic and filled with laughter, gliding comfortably. He made it look easy as well, likely as practiced as his Night Fury companion.
It gave Alekt confidence, but not envy; he didn't expect to be that good at flying on his first try, and he wouldn't try to catch up to being that good on his first attempt either. Everything took practice; skill came with experience, and experience took time and repetition. In time, he would grow to be good at it, but even flying at all, truly flying, high in the air, was a good start.
(click)-uhp and Tt-th-ss swooped upward and down, banking and turning at will - Tt-th-ss much more easily using his tail; (click)-uhp a little less so with his whole body - and seeming to know just how to move on instinct to go wherever they wanted. At one point they let an updraft keep them aloft, facing each other and simply twirling in a full circle, crooning and warbling and trilling happily.
They didn't even really seem to notice or care that he was there at all, when normally they were vigilant and wary. Now though, they were relaxed and complacent with his presence. Probably because this was a place they were very at-home in, and by comparison, he was only like a hatchling that barely grew into its wings, clumsy and unthreatening.
Having gotten comfortable with keeping his balance and at least being able to somewhat control his forward direction, he decided that he would try and get a feel for more complicated maneuvers, even though he was still working on the most basic control. Even if he made a mistake, they were incredibly high in the air, so he predicted he would have time to correct his course before ending up in a dangerous position.
He banked to the side with a shift of his weight and twist of his body, trying to adjust to the wind's pull and push and figure out exactly how much he needed to angle for the direction he wanted to go. It wasn't quite so easy as having a set amount that he had to turn. Sometimes it took only the slightest tilt, other times it took a great deal more effort and angle.
From so high above, he could see the ocean currents, divided and visible only by the waters traveling in different directions side-by-side, and the air was much the same, only with nothing to visually mark the separate currents. He had to feel the pull of the wind and how it changed from one place to another, and that was not an easy thing to do when he could only rely on physical touch and personal perception, and the wind currents were as varying and twisty as those in the ocean.
It wasn't merely a matter of figuring out his own positioning, but in reading which way the sky wanted to pull him, which was turning out to be a skill all its own, and the only other sort-of-human who could teach it could not be asked and could not explain it. Even if he could speak proper Norse, Alekt wasn't sure he would know how to teach it in more technical terms for someone of a technical mind like his own.
That left learning only by observing, and by doing.
(click)-uhp glided past him and angled to drift in a circle, whistling a shrill sound that he took to be a question. The dragon-man usually made the sound when he was curious or unsure and wanted something shown or explained.
This time was undertoned in amusement and he could only guess his (likely not very good) attempts at flying were humorous, but then, flying Vikings probably sounded like the punch-line of some terrible joke, just like flying pigs (or sheep, depending on the village).
As much as he was enjoying himself, the air was cold, and he would have to land some time, preferably before he went numb or became exhausted. Now that he knew it was even possible to get airborne, he needed to work on improvements, which meant he needed to return to land, alive and preferably not maimed by a horrible crash.
He motioned with his head towards the island deliberately, hoping the message was clear enough. He was met first with a hough hough hough sound he assumed to be laughter directed at him before (click)-uhp angled himself and dove closer towards land. Alekt figured - not wrongly so - that if he followed the same path, the air current would take him downward. Even knowing that, and trying to let the wind do most of his work for him, it was tricky. (click)-uhp rejoined his dragon-partner part of the way down as they neared land, but Alekt remained in following them, unsure whether they minded or not.
As terrifying as his first taste of flight was, landing was a much more daunting task. Coming in too fast could still be lethal, and if it didn't kill him, it could still cause serious injury. He tried to align himself to the water, but he wind disagreed with his plan and he overshot the ocean waves by quite a ways, heading more towards the rocky hills. He decided he'd have to aim for the water on the other side, but he'd have to stay airborne long enough to reach it, and he couldn't get the right angles to steer where he needed to go.
He barely avoided a collision with an outcrop, and couldn't avoid running into a wall further out, though he tried to minimize the crash and pushed off and away from it with his legs. If not for the wind, his loss of momentum would have sent him falling, but the gusts kept him in the air long enough for the wing-tip to scrape the walls and off-site his direction into a downward spiral. By then it wasn't a long drop, but it was far enough that one of the wings snapped on landing and he got several decent scrapes and bruises rolling the rest of the way down.
He winced after untying himself from the device and sitting up, guessing he'd probably pulled something the wrong way in the roll. Couldn't be helped. If that was all he got away with, he considered himself lucky.
An audible thump alerted him to Tt-th-ss landing not far away and the dragon-pair rumbling in question, though he wasn't sure whether or not he'd call it concerned.
Sighing, he glanced at the broken piece of frame for the wing, still accounted for only because of the leather used as the webbing. If he could've simply steered the damn thing, he probably would've had a much easier time of it. The next model was definitely getting a tail.