Ghost's Reign Chapter 10: Ants on a Log, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 10, everybody! Another musical chapter title, this one being "Ants on a Log" by Randy Travis. My absolute fav singer….

So one of the interesting things about xenofiction is the fact that the non-human protagonists obviously don't know the human logic behind things, so in describing it you have to feel along using that foreign mindset.

In the other camp…like Tadashi said that doesn't all go away overnight. And Helga and Obake do have some history we'll be getting into eventually. The trick with the moon, meanwhile, comes from my Dad—if the moon has a haze on it, it's going to rain; another sign of rain he told me is if the moon is tipped on its side and therefore pouring the water out. The dragons, meanwhile, are smelling the rain coming.

Tadashi had absolutely no patience for Yokai water-travelers and now very much understood why most dragons viewed them as targets: they moved as slow as tree sap and were about as interesting.

Unfortunately, Hiro was still hung up on this whole training a Yokai thing, which meant that after figuring out how to get into the little cave at the back of the water-traveler he was spending all his time in there with a sick and miserable Yokai.

"No, I'm not flying ahead with you," Hiro said when Tadashi tried to convince him to leave again, sitting firmly on the nest-bed. "My Yokai NEEDS me. For emotional support."

That was about all Hiro was offering in this regard, Tadashi thought, narrowing his eyes at the smug look on the younger Fury's face. Yes, he could go in and bodily drag him out, but Hiro knew that he wasn't about to risk going in and getting trapped by the rest of the Yokai. Dangit. Back out, growl at the Yokai looking at him, leap up to the top of the little cave and flop down in irritation. Older-Light-Fury had flown ahead to let the others know where they were and that they had found Hiro, but that was the extent of this so-called good news.

Honeysuckle landed lightly next to him. "Still won't come out?"

"No," Tadashi huffed. "Little-Brother's hung up on this Yokai and it's driving me nuts. Am I the ONLY one that remembers that this is the same Yokai who shot him down to begin with!?"

"No you're not," Honeysuckle assured him. "But I also remember that you listened to Little-Brother when he told you that they could change, that some were worth saving. There's got to be a reason."

"If there is, I haven't found it yet," Tadashi grumbled, glaring at the Yokai scuttling across the back of the water-traveler.

Honeysuckle made a pensive noise, watched them work for a while.

"It's weird," she said abruptly. "They travel between islands on a chunk of wood but they've got more control over it than ants on a log would. The fake-trees seem to have like…wings on them…how do they figure this sort of thing out? Like I understand they have to because they can't fly but HOW."

"No clue," he said, aware he sounded huffy—but his mind was already leaping ahead to all the implications of a predator not bound to a single island that hunted dragons AUGH why was being an alpha so HARD.

"You're upset again," Honeysuckle observed.

Tadashi closed his eyes and buried his nose between his front paws. "I'm screwing everything up," he groaned. "We're living on an island with dragon-killers and I'm out here instead of there protecting them we shouldn't even be there to begin with WHY did I listen to Little-Brother on this."

"Because you love him and you trust him," she told him. "And he does have a point—without their old alpha they seem…well they're still nervous around us but they're not trying to kill us anymore."

"We don't know that," he countered. "They could just be behaving themselves right now—with both alphas gone—" Don't think about it don't think about it—

"Then they're still outnumbered," Honeysuckle pointed out. "But…it would be awful, if we went back and it was all burned to the ground."

"Would it?" he muttered, glancing away.

"Yes," she said with such certainty that he looked back at her—she was looking away, across the water, watching a seagull skimming low over the waves before dipping down and flying away with a fish. "This thing…it could be a good thing. The start of a better thing. Something where, yes we have to worry about predators, but maybe we have one less to worry about. It's obvious they're smart—wouldn't you rather their intelligence be put towards keeping other bad things away from us?"

Tadashi considered this, turned it over…he wanted to, he really, really did. One less thing to worry about, when his life suddenly had a thousand worries dumped upon it because now he was responsible for everyone, not just the dragons in his immediate circle? That would be nice.

But at the same time…he couldn't count on these not-dragons. They were dragon-killers, had been up until recently—one did not simply break an ages-old hunting habit because their alpha woke up one day and decided against it.

What about Mountain-King? flitted through his head like a dragon arrowing for the ocean—it couldn't be that Mountain-King decided that yes, sending his flight to attack not-dragon nests was more economical than fishing. And what did he, Older-Brother, himself do once he was capable? Tell everyone to stop attacking not-dragons for food.

Shake his head—one couldn't apply draconian senses to not-dragons, it was like dragonizing the fish you were getting ready to eat. Yes, these not-dragons were intelligent, but so were so many other creatures, like parrots or dolphins or those furry tree-dwelling things in the jungles to the far south—they weren't necessarily on the same level as dragons were.

Honeysuckle made a noise, stood, nudged him. "You're overthinking this," she told him.

"I am not," he protested.

"You are—I can see the steam coming out your ears," she teased. "Come on, let's go fishing."

"What about Little-Brother? I can't leave him here."

"You can ask him, but I'm pretty sure he'll be fine."

Huff, growl at the Yokai when he slipped down to poke his head back into the nest-cave. "Little-Brother, come on, we're going fishing."

"You can go without me," Hiro insisted.

"Little-Brother…."

"We've been over this, I am NOT leaving my Yokai."

"Come on, Little-Brother, you can't keep an eye on your Yokai if you keel over starving," Honeysuckle said, leaning over the edge of the nest-cave to poke her head in. "And then you can bring a fish back for him, too."

Hiro made a pensive noise, like he was seriously debating the pros and cons…finally poked at Obake's back. "Hey—HEY. I'm going fishing I will be right back don't go anywhere."

"Will you let me die in peace?" Obake groaned.

"Is he okay?" Honeysuckle asked, concerned.

"As it turns out, alpha-Yokai specifically don't take well to water-travelers," Hiro said, padding out to them.

So that was potentially helpful but not in an immediate sense—nudge Hiro away from the nest-cave and towards the railing. "Come on—and when we're done you can take a bath, you smell."

"I do not smell YOU smell," Hiro barked—leaped after him when Tadashi laughed at him and took off.

And as they did so, a little tendril of worry choking his heart loosened a bit. Maybe Honeysuckle was right, maybe he did need to go flying a little bit.

Maybe he just needed the assurance that, despite everything that happened, his little brother would still fly with him.

For the record, Obake had really, really not wanted to sleep in the captain's cabin. It was Callaghan's berth, meaning it was the chief's berth, and he really didn't want to add to the foolishness now making the rounds through Yokai. Yes, he had accepted the role for all of two seconds, but when he realized just what it entailed he was more than happy to shove it off on Carl.

Darn the man for being insistent.

But the important thing was, the looming issue with the other mercenary tribes was successfully averted for the time being, he could try to eke out of this mess in relative peace. Probably starting with getting that dragon (or a dragon) saddled and trained so he could fly out of here—

Another reason he hadn't been keen on this particular berth was because it was Callaghan's berth, and twenty years of walking on eggshells around the man, vacillating between being the indispensable planner and the ghost he fully expected to stab him in the back, meant that absolutely nothing about this cabin made him calm. Every scent, every creak, had him convinced that Callaghan was lurking about and coupled with his dizzy seasickness that did absolutely nothing for him.

Neither did the hand grabbing his shoulder.

"Sorry," Carl said—oh boy he hoped that scream hadn't been heard outside. "I brought tea."

"Gah—will you people let me die in peace!?" Obake demanded as soon as his heart stopped trying to climb into his throat.

"Seems counterintuitive," Carl said. Waited until Obake sat up and took the tea before posing his next question. "So what do we do once we get back?"

"Preferably you take the role of chief and I disappear, never to be seen again."

"You know that's not funny."

"You know that wasn't a joke."

"I'm aware," Carl said. "But you can't just get rid of upper management and then leave everybody scrambling. It just isn't done."

"Ah, all the more reason to do it," Obake countered. "Because you see, if it hasn't been done before then that means we get to experiment. Make sure to document how things go."

"I didn't say that, I said it just isn't done."

True, most of the villages where they had taken out the chief and those immediately under him had generally resulted in one or two outcomes: either having their spine thoroughly broken, or galling them into blindly fighting back. Either one would be interesting, but wouldn't be a good idea if he were anywhere near the fallout.

Unfortunately, this also left him in the unfortunate position of playing along, at least until he was assured of his escape. And unfortunately, this also meant he had to be constantly watching his back—his willingness to give the role to anyone else aside, someone angling for chieftain of the Yokai would not simply go up and ask him.

No, if he wanted to survive this then he'd have to play it very, very carefully.

"Fine, I'll keep playing patsy," Obake hissed, throwing the empty cup away. "Now will you leave me alone? If you're not going to let me duck out of being chief you can at least let me get some rest before I have to go back at playing the role."

"You getting more sleep would be a good thing," Carl said.

"Good—now leave me alone."

On the positive side, Carl did, which left him to curl up on a bunk that wasn't his and do his best to try to ignore the queasiness in his stomach and his sloshing thoughts enough that he'd be able to drift off to sleep. He had almost achieved it too—at least until Hiro came bounding in and spat a fish at him.

That had him scrambling for the window in a hurry.

Helga had been watching the dragons circling off in the distance, glanced over when she heard Carl leave the cabin.

"Well?" she asked when he was close enough.

"He's agreed to it for the time being, but I don't have a good feeling about it," Carl reported. "His terminology leads me to believe he's not taking this seriously."

Helga considered this against what she knew of Obake personally—he had always been content to be the one behind the curtain, pulling everyone's strings and orchestrating everything. If it hadn't been for him snubbing Callaghan to go after that Fury, she would have bet good money on him being content in the man's shadow forever, being the one actually in charge while everyone—Callaghan included—believed otherwise. After all, she hadn't joined the Yokai particularly because of Callaghan.

She felt her face twitch at that thought—yes, technically she herself had no qualms with Obake, but that didn't change anything, not really. Obake still always played things close to the vest, never trusted anyone, and did things to suit himself. Not exactly the sort of traits you'd want in a chief.

"Is he still trying to shove the job off on you?" Helga asked Carl—not that she disagreed with the assessment, but she was wondering if he was actually starting to warm to the concept, or if he was staying in the captain's cabin because he was still just barely functional on a boat.

"At this point I think he'd give the job to anyone who asked," Carl said. "Please don't ask, by the way."

"Now see, I think I'd do the job well." Debate on whether she'd have Calhoun or Carl as her second, decide on dismissing that fantasy in favor of reality. "We can't keep gimping on like this forever."

"I'll keep talking to him."

Sure he would. And in the meantime, they had other things to worry about, not least of which was the dragons.

As though the thought had summoned them, the Furies dipped down, touching lightly onto the cabin roof and ignoring the flinches and stares—apart from the smallest one, who bounced down to run into the cabin. The other two seemed content with lounging on the cabin and occasionally giving the rest of them pointed glares.

Furies. The offspring of lightning and death itself, and Obake had not only tamed them, but the whole of the flight they reigned over. And judging by the way they behaved….

Helga had to do her best to suppress that shudder. If Obake didn't want the role of chief….

Well she really had to wonder just what it was he was after.

Tadashi really had to wonder just what this Yokai was after.

It had been a couple of days after the water-traveler had reached the Yokai-nest, after Obake had recovered from whatever illness traveling on water brought, and now the fool not-dragon was after this again.

Hiro was not helping.

"Come ON, Older-Brother, this is IMPORTANT," Hiro whined, bouncing around him. "Please please please please—"

"Little-Brother, NO," he said, turning to try and keep him in sight—whipped around to growl a warning when Obake tried to approach. "I still fail to see the wisdom of having a YOKAI on my BACK."

"Because if SOMEONE was willing to carry a Yokai on his back, we wouldn't have spent so long on some boring water-traveler," Hiro countered.

"We spent that long on that water-traveler because YOU wouldn't leave."

"Because I had to take care of my Yokai."

"Yeah by the way I don't want him throwing up on me that's gross."

"Well we won't know if that'll happen or not unless you get him on there, now will we?"

Dangit. "If he hurls on me YOU have to clean it up."

Hiro grimaced at that, but by that point Tadashi was having to deal with the Yokai putting the stupid saddle on him and ew none of this felt right he didn't like the idea of this clinging to him and then a Yokai clinging to it to boot.

Obake, meanwhile, wasn't making this any easier, pacing around him and pausing to peer at crucial joints—Tadashi growled while he tried to loosen the hold this thing had on him, but other than flinching slightly and glancing at him that didn't do much to dissuade Obake.

"So obviously there's some minor length issues with the straps," Obake said—lifted Hiro a little to look at where the 'straps' were on him. "I'm going to say it's the difference between muscle and fat."

"I AM NOT FAT," Hiro protested.

No, honestly Hiro was about the right size currently for a small healthy Night Fury and the fact that he had gotten there under a Yokai instead of his own family still chafed at Tadashi worse than the saddle did—at least the latter went away when Obake undid it and scurried off with it.

Unfortunately it made a comeback the next day and wasn't as tight in places. Also unfortunate: Obake wanting to get on.

"Older-Brother, you're just making this take forever," Hiro protested as Tadashi continued to hiss and back away from Obake. The Yokai would stop, hesitate, sometimes bribe with fish before trying again. Not doing it.

"Okay you know what I am SO SORRY that I don't trust this thing. Or the saddle," Tadashi countered. "Like gee, maybe there's REASONS. Like watching it shoot my little brother down."

"You're just going to hold onto that until you die, aren't you?" Hiro asked, unimpressed.

"Which is going to be soon if we keep this up LITTLE-BROTHER—"

"Hey you agreed to this!"

"Because YOU put me up to it HEY!" he barked, whipping around when Obake apparently decided that there was nothing for it but to leap on him—Obake squawked, let go and rolled away and off in the face of flashing teeth, but the fact that he tried it still rankled.

"Older-Brother, that was the POINT of this seriously," Hiro groused, leaping up and sitting on the saddle instead. "See? Mwahaha, now you must fly me wherever I wish."

"This is not even remotely selling me on this idea."

"Well you have to fly ME wherever I want because I'm your brother. Obake…I mean it'd be kind of stupid of him to attack you while you're super-high up in the air and a fall would kill both of you. I mean I THINK he'd be smarter than that, but then again…hey, want me to tell him about that time you stepped off a cliff?" Hiro asked Obake.

"I really hope that's you convincing him of this," Obake said, glowering at Hiro sitting where he wanted to be.

"Not hardly," Tadashi said flatly when Hiro looked at him.

"Come ON—one try, one try!" Hiro insisted, bouncing back off. "Just let him hang on, short flight. Right?"

Okay, that he could do.

So when Obake tried to hop back on again, Tadashi was quick to shoot out from under him—a small bolt of panic ripped through him when he felt long paws flailing for his tail, but by the time Obake got enough sense in him to grab on Tadashi was already well above him and flipping back around as the Yokai tumbled to a halt on the ground.

"SERIOUSLY?" Hiro demanded angrily when he touched back down.

"You said a short flight," Tadashi pointed out. "You didn't say how short."

That was enough to have everyone sulking as they headed back to the nest, Obake grousing as he hid the saddle from the rest of the Yokai, growling some more when he spotted the big Yokai, Carl, heading their way.

Granted, Hiro could agree with his grumbling and grousing—shot another pointed look at his brother.

"Sorry Little-Brother, but I am SO not apologizing to your Yokai," Tadashi said.

"You could at least THINK about it," Hiro grumbled.

"Sure. Okay, thought about it." Tadashi sniffed the air. "We're not going hunting tonight—rain's coming."

Hiro nodded, went in search of Obake, figuring he'd figure out how to tell the Yokai that rain was coming like a responsible Yokai-Tamer—

Reached him just in time to hear Carl say "Haze on the moon—rain's coming."

Hiro looked up, as Obake did from his leaf-papers, did indeed see a haze around the moon—flipped his ears up in interest at this information.

Obake huffed. "Well the good news is, there's less of a risk of an attack," he said, separating some of the leaf-papers and slapping them against Carl's chest. "Make sure everything that needs to be is in from the rain, and don't bother me with the details—just do it."

"All right," Carl said, heading off. Hiro took the opportunity to scramble up Obake's hide, looked at Tadashi when he came padding up.

"Yokai can tell when it's about to rain too!" he reported, excited at this news.

"Huh," Tadashi noised, head tipped and expression critical at Obake scratching under Hiro's jawline before heading back to his nest. He could tell by the stony silence that Tadashi was deeply wanting to ask, his resistance would break eventually….

Hiro stuck with Obake as he entered the nest, not wanting to deal with rain—was kind of surprised and not surprised at Tadashi poking his head in several long minutes later, well after Obake had leaf-water (that he called tea and it was better than the bean-water he called coffee which was its own kind of gross) and his yucky sauce-fish on rice sitting on the table, face buried in his hands during his moment of silence.

Was a bit more surprised at Tadashi coming in, Honey Lemon mincing in after him, Cass bringing up the rear with ear flaps flat and a snarl on her face. Judging by Obake jerking back, he noticed too.

"This doesn't mean anything," Tadashi told him, a claw up. "I just know that I'm not sleeping out in the rain, and I sure don't want to listen to you bellyache all night long about getting dragged away from your pet Yokai—which, by the way, I still have opinions about."

"Great! You can have opinions later," Hiro announced, jumping off of Obake and onto the table.

Obake, meanwhile, still seemed majorly concerned about Cass, who snarled at him before looking the inside of the nest over, launching herself up an indoor-tree to perch on one of the branches, where she could pick him off without presenting a target.

"I will be VERY upset if you kill my pet Yokai, Older-Light-Fury," Hiro called up.

"I'll get you a new one," she said flatly. "This has been causing me stress I'm getting fat like this STRESS-EATING, BOYS."

"Sorry," Hiro and Tadashi chimed.

Honey Lemon, meantime, looked interested as she examined the interior. "I thought this would look like the inside of a log or something I wasn't expecting everything to be so clean and dry it's almost like a cave-nest especially with the rocks here and there and—there's a fire in here how is it not burning everything down?"

Hiro bounded over, happy to explain. "See, Yokai can make tame fires, which are nice and make things tasty for them. It still bites when you poke it though," he added, when she poked it with a claw experimentally. "That metal-egg over the fire has something he calls 'tea' inside—it's like hot leaf-water and I think it tastes gross but Yokai seem to like it."

"A metal egg?" Honey Lemon asked, tapping it. "Who laid it?"

"Um…I don't think anyone laid it, I think Obake makes stuff like that in his forge—he bangs stuff together and it turns into new stuff. Don't know how it works," he said, glancing over at Obake, busy being preoccupied with the concentrated attention of two Furies riveted on him. "Guys, seriously, leave him alone it's HIS nest."

Tadashi snorted at him, padded over to investigate the tame-fire, sat down in such a way that he could fire an easy shot at Obake if he needed to. Okay, so he was expecting this sort of thing…maybe he could move it along.

"So how's flight practice?" he asked.

"So that's seriously a thing," Honey Lemon asked. "Little-Brother, you really think Yokai on our backs is a good idea?"

"It's a work in progress," Hiro hedged. "Anyway—Older-Brother, you were wanting to ask me something?"

"Yes," Tadashi said, settling down a little and in a way he could still shoot his fire at Obake if needed. "I want to know what you're thinking doing this crazy stuff."

"No, I'm pretty sure it's something more recent—like wanting to know how Yokai can tell when it's going to rain."

"How do they?" Honey Lemon asked, intrigued. "I didn't think their noses were that effective."

"Haven't figured out how to test that yet, but Carl was talking with Obake and said that it was going to rain because there was a haze around the moon." Ear twitched as rain indeed began to patter on the roof. "And there you go."

Honey Lemon made a pensive noise, turned her neck to the tame-fire. "I think I like the tame-fire."

"Honeysuckle, please, I can't lose you too," Tadashi groaned.

"Search your heart, Older-Brother," Hiro said. "You know you want to."

"Little-Brother, what I want to do, you wouldn't approve of."

Probably true, but the important thing was, resistance was breaking. If they kept this up, eventually Hiro would get what he wanted.

He just had to keep at it.