Learning from the Masters
A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction
Based off Le'Letha's "Nightfall"
Hiccup purrs contently against Toothless's side, humming a victorious you me we us fast strong fastest-together won us yes to his dragon-beloved. They understand games and competition and winning and losing. Dragons love games and Hiccup has used them many times when he has been clearly outmatched by an angry nest-mate to distract them from being angry and turned their attention to something fun and fair. Dragons play chase-games and hunting-pretending games and hiding-finding games and racing-me-fastest! games.
They know that these are games that pfikingr know too, like the she they know as Uh StrrrTT and the blue-spikes cousin that is Flies-in-Storms.
They know too to watch, even though it seems that E-e-kTT has given up the game to them, because they know too of revenge-games when one has lost and that it is a game that this time they started first. So while they are relaxed as any dragon could be in the company of humans and a no-prey Hh-rrsss, they still have one eye watching and waiting for retaliation.
Toothless too purrs content happy yes together-us fastest good and rolls away to leave Hiccup without a flank to lean on, stretching out wings and wriggling his back along the ground and thrumming deep and loud with happy sounds. The clearing that the E-e-kTT stopped in after the chasing and trick-playing has lots of tall silly-grass that all the dragons of the flock like more than any other plants and almost can't resist at all. The rumbling in Toothless is one that Hiccup can feel easily when against his other-half.
The plants have a strong scent, he knows, but he doesn't quite understand the appeal that makes other dragons both deeply happy but also to a point of unwariness and dulled senses. Most times he would insist they stay away from the fragrant grasses when there might be pfikingr or other dangers close by, so that an enemy does not catch Toothless's soft belly while he is enjoying a roll through them to make the grasses give up more of their wonderful scent, but for now he feels fine with only his own pair of eyes watching, because E-e-kTT is not a threat to them and is focused instead on fixing the broken side of the made-wings.
The only thing here that he is still uncertain of is the Hh-rrsss that the E-e-kTT rides, which he does not miss is watching him and Toothless as much as Hiccup is watching it.
It doesn't seem interested in them beyond watching, stepping through the shorter grass that does not lure in dragons and ripping it up to eat. He can't help observing with rapt attention, crouched between it and Toothless, as it goes about grazing. The fact that it eats grass and things dragons do not isn't a thing that is strange to him - he has seen many species eat many things that he and Toothless would not, just as there are dragons who eat things they wouldn't, like large rocks or, compared to Hiccup especially, raw meat from things other than fish - even dragons which eat eels! Eels are a thing his flock avoids like a bad sickness, hissing and growling whenever even small ones are near and teaching it as a bad-to-eat thing, so Hiccup too avoids it.
What is most interesting is the mouth on the Hh-rrsss that he can't help tilting his head at.
He has seen dragon lips curl and knows mouths can manipulate things a little bit and he's watched prey-things graze when stalking them, either to hunt or just for fun, but he has never seen a mouth like this one that wiggles and moves as intricately as his own clever paws. He wonders how having paws as a mouth is even possible, though it is probably a great help for something that has toeless stones for the paws at the ends of its legs.
The hh-rrsss is not completely comfortable with his stalking it, pinning its ears back at him, and it is in his wild dragon nature to know to be wary, but he is also curious. While it is sometimes better for dragons to avoid the formidable and the unknown, it is also sometimes just as good to learn about it the same as Hiccup and Toothless have still been learning about pfikingr all their lives despite them being dangerous and enemies to dragons, because understanding just enough about their enemy prepares them to be safe later.
He tries to pretend not to be watching too closely and turns his sights elsewhere, but always he keeps the shape of the hh-rrsss on the edge of his vision and watches its movements as it steps along the ground searching out the best plants to eat. A slight but audible stomp warns him that the hh-rrsss still thinks him too close, startling him into putting a few bounds of space still between them and stretching out on the ground, relaxed but still with his paws ready under him to leap away if anything decided to try and pounce at him, the hh-rrsss included. At the very least, the hh-rrsss seemed to lose some wariness about him too.
Something like a bug maybe makes him itch underneath scale skin, scratching lightly with claws, or maybe it is with the knowing of being-watched that makes him fidgety. He isn't sure. He sits up more alert, listening and watching for something that might be there but that he has not noticed, thrumming to Toothless scent danger here you maybe anything?
He gets no helpful answer from the lulled black dragon who may as well as be nose-dead now as Hiccup is normally, making the dragon-man roll his eyes and shoulders in exasperation. He is normally the reckless, more unfocused one, but not with the pleasant-smelling silly grasses around.
It's while he is focused on Toothless that he is pounced, small claws finding purchase in the fur on his head. He leaps immediately, startled, and whirls with a snarl at the fluttering black shape of the crow overhead, making cawing-mocking sounds at him. He had known the being-watched itch was not from the hh-rrsss, and now he knows the culprit. Hiccup glares up a tree the crow perches on, knowing from many other times of being harassed and chased and chasing that it is little use for him to try and reach the bird before it can fly away. Seagulls are loud and dumb and can be tricked, but crows are another matter, sneaky and difficult to catch unaware and good at thieving.
The crow watches him for a short while, idly swiping both sides of its beak on a branch and waiting to see what he will do. When he does not move and stays still, though he knows that not moving will do nothing to trick the bird that he isn't there like it sometimes does with other animals, it flies off the branch and lands in the grasses over by where Toothless is, looking curiously at his beloved-partner, but is unconcerned by the stretched-out dragon.
Hiccup crouches and stalks forward, using Toothless as his cover and deciding to try and blend with his same colored scales. The crow doesn't move, but he thinks that it knows his game already with how it watches him. When he reaches Toothless, he sees it tense as if to fly again, but when he goes into a completely-still crouch, it relaxes again for a moment.
He can imagine a tail twitching behind him with the tremble in his legs and shoulders, wishing for one to be there, but knowing that at least a tail that lashes but is not really there will not give him away in stalking-hunting. After some moments of wait, he pounces clear over Toothless's belly and ends up empty-clawed when the crow flies away from him, leaving the small dragon to pace and hiss in mock frustration. He does not think that E-e-kTT would like for him to hunt the crow-companion in seriousness, but it is a thing to do, and if he does manage to catch the bird he will be careful not to wound but proud all the same. To catch a crow is no easy task, either in seriousness or play.
He spends some more of his time stalking-hunting and pouncing the crow, but each time he comes up short. He expects this, but it is still a disappointment that he has not even a snatched-away feather to show for his efforts.
Huffing and grumbling to himself, he turns his sights back to E-e-kTT, who has spent the entire time ignoring that he and Toothless are there. He likes that better, just a little bit, than if he had been stalking them as the Uh strrrTT often did when she first met them on the shoreline of the island called Buh-rrrrKK. He sees them in small glances and turning his head without looking at them in a way Hiccup knows that E-e-kTT is listening and watching from the corner of his sight, but does not try to follow or hunt them, even if the hunting is the playing-hunting of a nest-mate or humans who think Hiccup should be a human nest-mate as some of the pfikingr of Buh-rrrrKK seem to believe, most notably the St-t-t-t-t-t-kk who claimed to once be their mother's mate before Cloudjumper.
He whistles attention curious you wondering and motions at the wood-thing in E-e-kTT's paws that?
E-e-kTT shows rather than tries to explain in human words, taking a piece of leather between parts of the wood E-e-kTT had been cutting away at and lining it up with a long spine-piece on the made-wings. Hiccup recognizes it instantly.
It is a tail!
He can't help trilling want want want longing envy want me-too tail want! at the sight of it, imagining again what it would be like if he could have one of his own.
Tails are useful things, but there are times when he is filled with sorrow longing want sad because he knows since Uh strrrTT showed him how human his body is that he is not going to grow one like his dragon kin, the same as he never grew wings because humans do not grow wings or tails and are not meant to fly.
It lessens the hurt sad longing feeling that hits him when he thinks of this that he can still fly because of the wings he made for himself from impatience of waiting for his real wings to grow.
He would still like to have a tail.
He has thought of making a tail for himself just like he has made wings but he has not yet figured out the how. Even if he cannot have a tail the same as Toothless's that is useful for hanging from and curling and sweeping and knocking over and fighting, he reasons he can still have one that helps him fly better, one that can help him steer and maneuver better than he already can with only his wings.
It is a desperate longing he can feel aching in his chest, which rises out into a whine, prowling a fair distance around E-e-kTT onto a cluster of rocks where he can perch above, crouched in a ready-to-pounce position and watching with more intensity than any hunts he can remember going on. It is a long-known thing that humans make things that dragons cannot comprehend. There are many things he can do with his own clever paws to amuse the nest that his flock do not understand but he does, and there are more things still that pfikingr do that he does not understand either because he is still dragon in all but physical form, and that to he is always looking to find a way to change to be even more dragon than he already is.
A tail would be a thing that would make him more of a dragon. He wants it so, so, so, so badly. A tail would make him just a little bit more like his Toothless-heart-of-mine and the rest of his flock. He would be less different than he ever was in the best of ways.
E-e-kTT does not seem to mind him crouching and looking and hunting hungrily with his eyes to see how E-e-kTT makes a tail. He is a dragon - this is a true thing - and while he doesn't particularly like the thought of having human form when the thought is alone, he knows that his clever human-paws could probably mimic E-e-kTT's to make a tail if he pays attention and learns.
E-e-kTT takes his while to cut and stitch the leather webbings and fit them exactly to the wood-bones of the tail until they are a solid piece, not attached to the rest of the made-wings yet. There are also metal pieces Hiccup sees, though they are nothing sharp so he holds no fear of them. The metal pieces are two that connect together and move separately so that they spin, which E-e-kTT attaches one side to the spine of the made-wings and the other side to the tail into one piece.
He can't help but purr a little, impressed, once he sees it all secured. It is not only a tail that is for show and sits stiff as one piece to the wings, but it twists and swivels like one too! Not like the long tail that Toothless has, but the shorter tails of birds that angle one side to the other. It is wings for a big crow that is stuck in a human body, just as he is a dragon.
Perfect for a bird, but what about a tail that is perfect for a dragon without one of his own already?
He grows bored of sitting still and doing nothing, so while E-e-kTT is focused on the made-wings, he creeps around behind and takes some of the paper that E-e-kTT brought with him, ones that he made sure are blank before stealing them so he has all the room for himself to draw on. E-e-kTT doesn't notice, or doesn't care, as he finds a place back near the rocks.
He already has a charcoal stick ready and sets to work drawing his thoughts. He first draws Toothless and himself as he thinks of as being almost the same as Toothless, but this time he draws himself with a tail, chirping want want want in voice of his drawings.
He thinks first of a long tail like the one that Toothless also has, trying to work on the image of it first in his mind. He knows he cannot have a tail that is as good as the one Toothless has, just as his wings are not as good for flying, because they are a made-thing. He thinks of the things he could try and make them out of, but gets no good ideas and snarls frustration as he rubs away the tail along with the thought of one that is big and long the same as his flying partner's.
He plays with the idea of a tail like the crow tail that E-e-kTT made for himself, shaping it in experimentally. He thinks a little of the nest and the curiosity that would rise from it. He plays pretend games often, and he has pretended before to be a bird with sticking feathers all over him because it was fun. He wonders if his nest-mates will think he made himself a bird-tail as a pretend-thing, because he does not know dragons with tails like the ones that birds have, and decides unhappily that he does not want a bird's tail.
He wants a tail for himself, but he does not want a tail that others will think of as a pretend-thing. He wants a tail that will make him more of a dragon. He wants it to be seen as another real part of himself just as the nest thinks of his wings as his own. So it cannot be a pretending-bird tail. Again, he rubs away the tail that he has tried to draw on himself.
He thinks and remembers the nest-mates and the tails each of them have. In thinking, he draws many different kinds of flock mates and cousins. Most dragons he knows have long tails. Some of them end in fins like Toothless's tail, like Cloudjumper and the King. Others are simply long with nothing special to note about them. There are others that end in a single sharp spike. He knows dragons like the blue-spikes cousin have sharp edges all down their tail. Others have only one fin along the top, like the fire-skin cousins. Only the rock-skin cousins have short tails that are almost indiscernible from the rest of them, from what he has seen, but still they have tails.
In drawing different dragons, he starts to think a little less of tails and more of the nest itself. He has come to learn that there are humans who are allies to dragons, though E-e-kTT was not the first nor the one to thank for that revelation. Still, he much prefers the company of dragons, and while this is not the longest he has been away from the nest, he finds that the extended close proximity to humans makes him miss the nest more and being around other dragons who he feels more comfortable with.
He does not think that E-e-kTT will hurt the rescued dragons, but he does not want to leave them here when they are not well enough to fly away, and he does not know that he trusts any of the other pfikingr not to be a threat. He reasons from what things he has learned that E-e-kTT is not entirely human, but something else born in the wrong skin, the same as him. He wants to be more the crow he feels he is inside the same as Hiccup is a dragon simply born from the wrong kind of egg (or however it is that humans hatch from, as Uh strrrTT insists to him that humans do not come from eggs, and he cannot imagine anywhere else he would have come from, because dragons and birds and snakes and lizards and frogs and fish and many, many other things all come from eggs).
Crows will eat from dead things, but they are not threats to live dragons, so because E-e-kTT is a crow, even though he looks human, he is an exception and not a threat to dragons. The other pfikingr are not the same as E-e-kTT, so Hiccup still distrusts them the same as any other. They are still threats to dragons.
These thoughts he draws just as he drew the dragons, etching the shape of crows amongst pfikingr that hold sharp-claws and heavy-striking things in their paws. One crow is bigger, mostly taller, like the humans around it, and the other is normal-sized, for the smaller real-crow that E-e-kTT is bonded with just as he and Toothless are bonded.
He draws on a different sheet pieces of the nest that he can remember. He draws the good King that rules over their flock, and amusedly draws little hatchling-dragons all around and on the King who have not learned to hear his voice or showing-respect as the adult dragons have and that their King always and forever patiently tolerates because they are small and young and do not yet know better.
He thinks of and draws dragons he last saw before leaving the nest in search of E-e-kTT and his flock of not-hurting-trappers, dragons that he thinks of as Nervous At Nothing and another two who are Mimics Sounds and Pretending Innocent that like to play stealing tricks together often even when there is no purpose to stealing things except to do it.
They had seen Likes Rain and Shark Snatcher come back from hunting to take over watching the nest of hatchlings so that their mates Flies Highest and Skydropper could stretch their wings and Hiccup and Toothless had flown with them too, flying up as high as any dragon could go and free-falling and flying high up to do it again.
He and Toothless had played a hunting-stalking game where they were the prey so that the little hatchlings from the nest of Night Spots could pounce at their tails and backs and practice sneaking for when they grew up and had to one day get food for themselves and the flock and their own hatchlings when they are old enough. He wonders how much bigger the hatchlings must have grown since he has last seen them. They will still take many seasons to grow big enough to start flying and a good many more before they will be able to fend for themselves as adults, but it is a thing that hatchlings do not need to worry about in such a big nest protected by many dragons and their great King, who protects them in his great ice nest from all the dangers outside of it.
He draws many dragons all together. One dragon he knows as Never Hunts Always Begging who bothers dragons for their catches often with whimpering and crooning and being playful. Next to him he draws a female who are Always Annoyed and another who is Always Patient from the same nest when they are hatchlings. He hums laughter in the remembering that Never Hunts Always Begging tries often to persuade Always Patient for her food but is nervous of her clutch-mate who does not like him but has not yet managed to drive him away from ever coming back.
He starts to leave his thoughts of dragons and the Nest long enough to notice being-watched where he didn't notice before. It is a habit but one not usually carrying as bad a risk with Toothless watching over him. A quick glance to where his dragon-love was rolling in the silly grasses tells him that even though the larger dragon hasn't been hovering over him as Toothless usually does, he has still been keeping his eyes on Hiccup and E-e-kTT, watching for signs of a threat from anywhere.
The being-watched this time is not from the crow that is a flock-mate to E-e-kTT, but is E-e-kTT himself, though it is less of Hiccup that is being watched and more of his drawings of the Nest and many dragons that the other is looking at. E-e-kTT had made no sounds to interrupt Hiccup's thinking-drawing before, but now that he is noticed he warbles a sound that Hiccup decides to interpret as curious and a small motion of his paws to indicate that?
Hiccup has to think a moment how to communicate it. The crow-sounds are much easier than pfikingr sounds to understand, they are closer to dragon sounds, but they are not the same. E-e-kTT seems to think both in the ways of humans and crows, so he thinks and decides of birds who make nests that are mostly all the same and draws that with eggs and dragons inside them to indicate his thoughts. He does not know that E-e-kTT would understand Nest from the image of the outside ice spikes that defend their home, and he knows better than to reveal his home to anything that is not a dragon of his own flock anyway. It is a foolish thing to do that not even fledglings will make the mistake of, so he does not draw the outside that strangers would see first and then know it is a dragon nest. Crows are not threats to dragons, but everything is a threat to eggs, even birds like crows and seagulls who are not welcome inside it.
He does not mind E-e-kTT seeing his drawings of the other dragons in the nest. There is nothing there that would give away its location, so that is fine, and he does not mind that E-e-kTT knows there is a great Alpha dragon who defends the Nest, because that would mean it is a bad idea to intrude where there are greater, stronger ones than E-e-kTT and his small flock of pfikingr.
E-e-kTT hums understanding at him and doesn't inquire too much more about it, his eyes flitting over what Hiccup has drawn and making sense of it.
Hiccup has his own curiosities to satisfy. He tries to think little of it, but he knows that he is human in body amongst a flock of dragons who were all born in the right skin. He wonders then of E-e-kTT, who is the closest other who is not a dragon that he can find a similar place to relate to. E-e-kTT still stays around pfikingr, but Hiccup now sometimes goes where some pfikingr are too, like Uh strrrTT and the St-t-t-t-t-t-kk human-Alpha, so that is similar but not the same.
Does E-e-kTT have an all-crow flock that he goes with when he is not with pfikingr?
Do the crows see him as another crow the same as Hiccup's own flock regard him as just another dragon?
What kind of nest would E-e-kTT return to? Hiccup has no problems finding a space in his own nest made by the great King. Their Nest is spacious with many members and voices, but bird nests, Hiccup knows, are small and only big enough for a few hatchlings and their mother, and crows are much smaller than humans. Hiccup has never had trouble fitting into the Nest that belongs to all the flock or the smaller nest that is his and Toothless's nest only, because Hiccup is smaller than even most hatchling dragons, but now he wonders if only briefly about the troubles of being too much bigger than flock-mates and not being able to be inside the nest.
Do crows sometimes have bigger nests with many little nests?
He draws these thoughts as crows sitting in a nest in a tree and a bigger one outside of the nest, whistling and chirring curiosity and wondering-sad noises, and thinks for a moment he sees amusement flicker across E-e-kTT's face. E-e-kTT turns for papers that Hiccup has not yet stolen and points to the drawing stick in Hiccup's paws, motioning give.
As soon as he has it, he sets to work drawing, which seems to be the most common neutral and successful territory of communication between them. He perches a little bit above E-e-kTT to watch him draw jagged lines across the top, and flowing lines down from the highest points. The top points he leaves mostly blank, and shades in the bottoms a little bit, and at the bottom are shapes that are easily discernible as many small trees to show that it is a very tall mountain with snow at its top.
Some places he does not draw trees, instead etching in shapes that Hiccup knows as pfikingr homes, and close below them he draws a long line that makes waves, with shapes of fish drawn beneath the line to show it is the ocean. He draws small silhouette shapes and verbalizes that it is a pfikingr place. Up close to the top of the mountain, he draws another shape that is like the pfikingr homes, but this one with a bird's nest inside the shape, and draws both bird and human shapes all around it, so Hiccup can guess that there are probably many human-crows like E-e-kTT who nest on the mountain.
He knows though that there are humans who quarrel and fight, just as there are different flocks who warn away strangers and sometimes raid or defend from a raid by other dragons, and he does not know that all the pfikingr he has seen in E-e-kTT's flock consider themselves like crows the way E-e-kTT does. Hiccup ponders it aloud, taking out and showing-pointing where he drew the E-e-kTT crow amongst pfikingr earlier.
E-e-kTT only looked thoughtful for a few moments, trying to figure out what exactly he meant, before making a dismissive motion, as if saying not-of-my-flock. This came as mildly surprising since he had seen E-e-kTT lead them as an Alpha would, even being smaller and younger than others. E-e-kTT elaborated by indicating that those pfikingr were from the nest below the mountain, and he from the one at the top, implying that they were not the same even though both had humans.
Briefly he drew humans fighting, one side drawn with crows fighting against pfikingr too, but at the end he swiped the image away into just a blur. Hiccup straightened up then, face showing his understanding, because it is another thing that is similar. The pfikingr at the bottom of the mountain and the flock that E-e-kTT belongs to were enemies once, and now they are not, just as the pfikingr of Buh-rrrrKK had once fought and killed dragons and now they were friends.
He remembers then E-e-kTT mentioning before that he needs wings to better fight pfikingr enemies, furrowing his brows in confusion. He tries to search for the words to communicate that, but comes up short, instead whistling in question and directing at the made-wings, then back at the blur that was the pfikingr and crow-flock fighting.
E-e-kTT didn't seem to quite understand so he began trying to show with pretending, playing being an angry pfikingr on one side and then quickly switching to face where he used to be to show another, tumbling and clawing as if fighting an invisible enemy that is right in front of him, vocalizing you flying-fighting enemies pfikingr not dragon yes? Who fighting? Pfikingr dragon not fighting who then?
That appeared to be enough to get his question across.
E-e-kTT drew ships in the ocean then, ones that were different from the kind he was used to seeing from most pfikingr and with square leaves at the top of ship-trees with pictures that he did not recognize - Hiccup knows that humans often like to draw pictures on their ship-leaves. E-e-kTT drew many of them, marking each with sounds that were unfamiliar, that they were ships from places far, far away carrying enemies that were not pfikingr like his friend-flock was. On a new piece of paper, he drew the mountain-territory smaller and drew islands out far across the ocean, with human nests there and Viking ships attacking.
He was starting to recognize then, when E-e-kTT drew crows flying over the far-away not-pfikiingr nests, that he did not want wings only to fly and defend their own nests. They wanted to fly to be raiders as well.