Ghost's Reign If You Teach a Dragon to Fish, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 14, everybody! Now for the payoff of that other chapter. XD

So when I wrote this chapter we had recently gotten our middle Dalmatian and I was inspired after spending a day playing with him in the yard and watching him leap around after a toy and play tug-of-war. :D In our case, it ended because one of the other dogs came in and wanted to play—then I was second potatoes. XD

Obake's quoting the first Jurassic Park movie and possibly Dean from The Iron Giant, by the way. Fred, meanwhile, is quoting Oprah and Atlantis: The Lost Empire. And there are several instances of animals problem-solving and using tools (crows are a much-cited example) so dragons aren't too big a stretch. On a different note, being able to play an instrument is a mark of intelligence, I've been told. Obake has been told this too.

So. To be fair Obake was aware that he had other obligations for his time, but those were also obligations he wasn't feeling inclined to fulfill today. Like getting beat like a drum by Momakase, or guilted into chiefing by Carl, or thrown around by Tadashi. No, today was going to be a personal day, one that he'd much rather spend doing something he wanted that had a high chance of turning out right.

Besides, he couldn't let this go on too long without interaction from him—Hiro might go getting wild again.

Which was why he was leading the little dragon into the woods early that morning, leash clipped to the saddle as Hiro trotted along next to him. Hmm.

"Heel," he told Hiro, making the little dragon look up at him. Point beside him, where Hiro was keeping. "Heel. Good boy, Hiro."

Hiro chuffed, sat down.

"No, that one's stay," Obake said. "Heel means you stay close. Come on—heel."

So that one was going to have to be one that they worked on, but by this time they had found a nice clearing that he was reasonably sure they wouldn't be disturbed in. Kneel, unclip the leash before opening his rucksack and flipping open a little oilcloth.

"Okay, before we do anything else, let's go through everything again," Obake said, holding up a little fish. "Sit, Hiro."

Good news, Hiro still remembered how to do all the commands, went through sit, sit up, high five, stay, come, lay down, and roll over. Consider him while he was on his back.

"Play dead, Hiro."

"Whhf?" Hiro noised, rolling upright to face him.

Hmm, this was a new one he hadn't done yet. Work him through it, have him roll over before gently putting a hand on his barrel chest to keep him still, repeating play dead, do this several times before this started sinking in.

By then though he had run out of fish to act as the reward, moved on to playing fetch with a nearby stick, did this for a while before tugging out a little idea he had had to present to the little Night Fury when he came back.

"Wrr?" Hiro noised around the stick, tipping his head.

"Yes, well, probably not as engaging as the stick, but worth trying," he said, waving the length of rope that he had knotted several times over Hiro's head. The little dragon watched the end—

He yanked it back when Hiro snapped at it.

"Sorry, you have to be quicker than that," he teased, flopping the rope down next to him and slowly pulling it away. Hiro pawed at it—squawked when he flung it away, ran after it—

What followed was more teasing and waving the rope around, encouraging Hiro to follow it and sometimes leap for it. He was pretty sure Hiro could easily clear Obake's own height in a jump, but it was interesting to see how he calculated for a jump intended to catch something only a few feet above his head, watching the little body torque and spin as he leaped and landed, sometimes not catching himself—

The first time Obake had checked him with some concern, only to lose the toy when Hiro took the advantage and grabbed it. Clever boy, he'd grant him that, took a while to get it back and then had to play tug-of-war with it when he did. Second time he didn't fall for it, instead dragging the toy around his head before Hiro finally decided to snap at it.

The next time he tried it made something occur to him.

"Play dead, Hiro," he said. "Good boy."

Hiro lifted an ear nub, evidently processing this—Obake folded the toy behind his back while the little dragon's eyes were closed, crouched down next to him—

Hiro squealed and squirmed at getting his exposed belly tickled, rolled to bat and paw at him with claws pulled back, growling with no real venom.

"Oh yes, you're absolutely terrifying," he teased, standing up but still leaning over. Hiro did his best to sell this by wiggling around on his back with a gummy grin, barking something at him before once again focusing on the toy he brought back around.

It was really a very entertaining way to spend the morning, requiring just enough focus to keep him rooted in the present but not so much that it distracted from the rest of his thoughts, was actually rather enjoyable. It was also low-effort on his part while still being sufficiently distracting and entertaining for Hiro, and was honestly something he could have spent most of the day doing.

So of course, something had to come along and ruin it.

Hiro had managed to catch the rope again and was tugging on it, putting his full weight into it and arching his back—Obake was just barely able to keep from tipping over from it, growling back I'm not letting go—had been filling the clearing with growls and indignant squeaks.

The point was, he was familiar with Hiro's growls, and the deeper, louder one did not belong to him.

Let go of the toy, startled, him rolling one way and Hiro rolling the other—scrambled to his feet—

Tadashi stalked into the clearing, ears and nubs flat as he glared at Obake.

"Ah," he noised, wondering if he dared risk straightening up. "I thought we'd skip the saddle today, if it's all the same to you."

Tadashi snorted—looked when Hiro popped up next to him, barking about the toy—

Watched with naked alarm when Hiro ran the toy over to Obake.

"Please don't goad your brother into killing me," he said.

Hiro made a noise at that, dropped the toy in front of him and nosed it over—squawked at Tadashi's growls, watched Obake a moment before grabbing the toy and flinging it away, running and retrieving it before dropping it in front of him again and barking. Possibly explaining the concept of fetch.

Tadashi was looking distinctly unimpressed, however. Gingerly pick the toy up—

Hiro seized the other end and started yanking, growling his little play-growls and leaping, body torquing and losing most of his pulling momentum—probably didn't matter, the point was entertainment—

Tadashi bit down on the rope and yanked it clean out of Obake's grip before sitting down and lifting his head, leaving Hiro to dangle from the other end.

Hiro, for his part, kicked ineffectually at Tadashi's neck before letting go and squawking at him, huffed and nosed at Obake as he pushed himself back up.

"Let me guess," he wheezed, spluttering dirt. "You don't know how to play this at all."

"Wuff," Hiro noised, before glaring at Tadashi, who looked distinctly unimpressed—snapped his head around, flinging the toy away. Hiro scuttled after it, brought it back, offered one end to Obake.

"Rrr," Hiro noised around the rope—yanked a little. "Rrr RRR."

"Yes, you're terrifying," Obake assured him—felt a shiver of ice when Tadashi lowered his head and grabbed the other end of the rope, felt it settle in for a blizzard when Hiro let go and Tadashi eyeballed him. Oh this was going to end badly—

Which was when Tadashi yanked hard, sending Obake rolling across the clearing. Laid there splayed out for a few beats, Hiro running over and bouncing around him in concern—

"I think that's enough fun for one day," he managed finally.

"You are SUCH a jerk."

"Oh, I'M the jerk?" Tadashi countered. "I wasn't the one who took off this morning without telling anybody, Little-Brother."

"Hey I was FINE I was with Obake," Hiro said.

"Oh yeah taking off with your kidnapper gee I stand corrected."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Maybe sometime after the earth hits the sun."

Huff, sit up for Obake when he reached his nest, paw at his leg until he looked down, paw at the saddle loops. He had the feeling Tadashi would insist on hunting, and he didn't want the extra pieces of leather clinging to him while they were doing that.

"You're supposed to be giving this a fair shake, Older-Brother," Hiro pointed out.

"Well gee, all things considered I'd think me even being here counts, don't you?" Tadashi asked. "Like, it wouldn't be THAT hard to grab you and tell everybody 'hey it was fun but we're leaving now.'"

"Yes it would, there's a lot of dragons who have started training Yokai. You can't ask them to leave them behind, it'd be mean."

Tadashi huffed and grumbled at that, looking uncomfortable enough that Hiro felt kind of bad for hitting him there. Yes, technically as alpha he could force the flight to do as he wanted…except he didn't want to be that kind of alpha. He wanted to be the kind that listened to his flight and made decisions based on that, and at this point a good chunk of the flight was starting to swing towards Hiro's opinions. They liked the idea of an exotic pet that was also low-maintenance; that they were also highly deadly was just a bonus for some dragons, a little bit of extra danger to add some fire to the whole thing.

Tadashi, however…yeah Tadashi had basically lived through his worst nightmare of something bad happening to Hiro and yes Hiro was aware of the fact that asking him to play nice-nice with the same Yokai that shot him down (and they couldn't even lie about it, Obake was the only one with that skull-face) was asking a lot. Really going to have to work on considering all the angles here…maybe he'd ask Baymax for some help with all the noodley bits regarding the touchy-feely stuff like emotions and expectations and stuff. In the meantime—

Tip his head, ear flaps up, Tadashi doing the same at the sound of triumphant dragon roars. Obake, confused, went out the front entrance to his nest, Hiro following—

To see Fred and Wasabi coming in with a net that was sagging with fish.

"CANTO ONE-FORTY-FIVE!" Fred bellowed as they came in, settling down in the main nest clearing with their haul. "Once used to rip dragons from the sky, now used by us as away we fly, seeking the flicker that promises lunch, bringing it all back in one tasty bunch!"

"OKAY Fred I helped you with the fish and the rhyme scheme and the meter help me get this off my foot now," Wasabi said, wings outspread as he tried to keep from overbalancing, trying to work his foot free of the net. Carl came over, started untangling his claws. "Uh, thank you?"

"Ooh I sense we need to add a few more lines to the canto," Fred said, vibrating as Hiro, Obake and Tadashi drew near. "In the meantime—YOU GET A FISH! YOU GET A FISH! EVERYBODY GETS A FISH!"

Obake ducked the fish flipped at him, Tadashi angling to catch it before it went too far—seemed mostly baffled. "What—"

"TA-DA! We figured it out," Fred explained, gesturing broadly with his wings as several Terrors darted forward to steal a few fish. "So now we can do one BIG catch of fish so the Yokai don't starve. Hey by the way how's the plant part of that going I have questions. Like 'does seaweed count' because we got some of that too. Not entirely on purpose."

"The dragons caught this in a net," someone said.

"Again, the emphasis on them being intelligent," Obake stressed, still obviously floored by this too.

"Okay, Hiro, this one's for your Yokai," Fred added, flipping a larger fish at them. "No offense my dude, but if he turned sideways he'd disappear we saw fatter mackerels on our way back."

"Ahem."

They looked over as Sky-Blue-Zippleback landed, several carry-things dangling from their mouths.

"After much observation of our Yokai," one head started, putting their cargo down.

"Yes, we've decided that the one that smells like healing herbs is ours," the other head said, imitating the first.

"We've tracked down other plants on other islands that we theorize the Yokai can ingest."

"Obviously we're going to have to test this."

"More observation is definitely required."

"But it's a start," both heads agreed.

So in other news, Obake had a lot to write down so far as observations went today.

Okay let's start with the dragons apparently taught themselves how to fish with a net because no one was copping to being the one to teach them. Again, this pointed to the dragons being intelligent, enough so that they figured out tools they didn't really need, considering how many of them had been coming back with large mouthfuls of fish. Well, nice to know dragons had a return policy when it came to all the fish they had stolen over the years.

But it did make him wonder.

Finish up the sketch he planned on fielding by the fishers later (probably delegate to Carl, he'd know who actually did up the nets—hopefully not someone who left with Callaghan), put it aside and go flipping through his notes. Let's see let's see…there. That sketch Hiro had done, once upon a time, possibly explaining why the dragons had attacked to begin with.

I should hope that's not to scale, firstly.

Consider this, tapping his pencil against the table. If there were, in fact, large dragons that drove the other dragons to attack settlements…it bore asking the question of where the one for this particular flight was. Couldn't be out there lurking nearby, he thought, it'd be obvious that they were out there still feeding it, most certainly wouldn't be bringing food here after robbing them for so long. No, it had either died or been killed…but how?

Obvious answer was the dragon that the others now deferred to: Tadashi. Made sense, Night Furies were dangerous in their own right, although now it made him wonder if there was just—a whole species of alpha dragons, or if once a dragon became an alpha it would then grow to immense size.

Had a brief imagine window of Tadashi squashing him like a bug before dismissing that. Hiro had shown that he could draw Night Furies, and the creature he had drawn that day was not a Night Fury.

So. The takeaway was that he didn't have to worry about some massive, possibly untamable dragon in his future. That was good, he could live with that. Far better to focus on some of the issues in front of him, like fiddling with the saddle design some more. Do that until Carl came by with fish fillets, traded him the net designs, telling him to tell the fishers to figure it out, shooed him out before he could make anything of it. Oi vey.

Hiro squeezed in a while later, bounding over to him and squeaking in curiosity at the fish cooking in sauce as the rice and tea heated.

"I felt like trying something different today," he told Hiro. "By the way, I'm curious, did your brother tell the dragons to start bringing food here, or was that you? Decided to make up for years of thievery, did we?"

"Wuff," Hiro noised, hopping up on the edge of the fireplace to nose at the frying pan sitting in the coals—pushed him back before he could burn his nose, leaving him to watch with interest as he used a spatula to flip the fish over.

"Well, despite what Momakase might think I'm not completely hopeless in a kitchen," he told Hiro, watching with amusement as Hiro sniffed at the spatula. Licked—yes, exactly what he thought, Hiro recoiled in disgust at the taste. "Now don't go telling me you agree with her."

Hiro probably did, considering his offended look could probably be considered how dare you ruin a perfectly good fish. Which, fair. Heat the spatula over the fire to burn the germs off, hang it back up as he checked the rice and the tea…probably good enough.

"Sorry, Hiro, no bones for you tonight," he said, taking his dinner over to the table. "Carl brought this over already cleaned. But I suppose you could tell that Nightmare that it might have a better net to work with soon."

Opened his eyes back up after his moment of silence to see Hiro sitting at the table, head resting on it as he glowered at Obake's plate.

"We've established that you don't like this, there's no point in me wasting food like that," he told the little dragon. Picked a small pinch of rice and put it in front of his nose when he huffed. "There, if you're so certain."

Hiro sniffed at the rice, licked it up—gagged, spluttering—Obake had to shield his food from that reaction. "I did tell you."

Hiro gave him an aggravated look that persisted through the rest of his dinner.

"Oh come now this was a good day," he told Hiro. "I didn't get pummeled by Momakase, I mostly avoided getting pummeled by Tadashi, Carl and the Yokai are sufficiently distracted, said Yokai are eating like kings tonight, Jian is swimming in herbs to dry, and soon we'll have herbs, spices, rice, seeds hopefully…granted I'm putting too much stock in other people but I can't imagine them failing that badly, can you?"

Hiro still grumbled, probably upset that he didn't get any fish out of the deal. Offer him the plate, wasn't surprised when he turned his nose up at it. "Well then don't get fussy at me over it, I offered."

Hiro still got fussy, grumbling and yowling as Obake cleaned up, finally prompting him to turn around and consider the little dragon.

"Come on, follow me," he said, heading upstairs. "It's not food, but it might be distracting enough."

And besides, he was in a good enough mood to try it.

Honeysuckle angled back for the Yokai-nest as the sun settled down for the night, moon hunting the sky instead and making her scales shine. Which meant it was about time for her to settle down for the night too—Night Furies might blend in well enough, but Light Furies had to cloak to keep from being seen after dark. Light down on the top of Obake's nest, settle down on the main spine, deciding she'd wait a minute to see if Tadashi showed up. She was very interested in discussing the day's events with him, although he might still be having his ear flaps talked off by Fred recounting his and Wasabi's epic tale of catching fish with a net.

And then Honeysuckle paused, ear flaps perked—there was a strange sound coming from inside Obake's nest.

Slip down, find the door, hesitate—inside a Yokai-nest was potentially fraught with peril. It was their domain, closed in like a rabbit warren, could be collapsed but could also have an angry frightened Yokai with teeth and claws ready to slice open something vital.

That was not the sensation she was getting, though—cautiously stick her head in, gingerly pad in, one footstep at a time, ear flaps up for maximum hearing….Still that strange sound, like a dragon singing. Did—there wasn't a Deathsong on the island, was there? She had heard about them but never seen one—no one saw a Deathsong and survived to tell it, simply because if you were close enough to hear it you were already trapped. Maybe…did Yokai have that same talent?

Except she wasn't feeling bewitched—she could turn around and walk back out right now. It was just…something about the music made her want to investigate, figure out just why it was coming from this nest and where.

Up in the higher spot of the nest—gingerly pad up the even ridges, careful not to stub her claws or slip—peer over the edge….

Hiro was sitting there, ear flaps up, watching Obake fiddling with what looked like two sticks with strings—and if she didn't know any better, she'd say that was the source of the haunting music.

"Hiro," she hissed.

Hiro's ears twitched—turned his head, saw her—smiled and motioned her forward.

She glanced back at Obake—his eyes seemed closed, seemed more interested in teasing out more music from the two sticks. Mince forward, body low…carefully lower herself down to nestle next to Hiro.

"What is he doing?" she asked him quietly, indicating Obake.

"I think he's singing," Hiro said. "But not with his own body—he's making those sticks sing."

Look at the sticks critically, watch for a long while as Obake pulled them across each other—certain movements made similar sounds, all of it together making a hauntingly beautiful noise.

"I didn't know Yokai could do that," she whispered to Hiro.

"I didn't either," Hiro told her. "I think maybe it's something they do when they're happy—he seemed pretty satisfied when we came back."

Pensive noise before settling down to listen—that made sense. She sang sometimes when she was very happy—it was just kind of odd that he used sticks to do so, instead of his own voice. But they used metal-claws in place of real ones and sticks to draw so…maybe this made sense.

Definitely pretty-sounding, she decided as she wrapped a wing around Hiro and hugged him close, Hiro leaning against her and purring softly. And maybe it was like a Deathsong song—at the very least, it had two Furies captured.

Except when he stopped, Obake seemed kind of stunned to see them there watching him.

"Oh you like that, do you?" he asked when they purred appreciatively, bobbing their heads and warbling. "I wouldn't know why—I haven't played in years."

"Oh please—more?" Honeysuckle asked, shuffling forward a little when he made to put the sticks away. He paused, considered them….

She and Hiro settled down as he made the sticks sing again. It felt nice, inside—like how drawing in the sand made her feel.

Maybe singing sticks was like that, only instead of drawing in sand he was drawing in the air.

It was a pretty enough mental image, at least.

Obake was honestly very pleased with this new wrinkle—dragons liked music. Or at least, Furies liked music, he wasn't so sure about going out and testing it on other dragons.

Mostly because doing so meant he had to play outside, and really he was in here because he didn't want to deal with an audience.

Except one had gone and found him anyway—oh well, at least dragons were less critical.

"I do have other things to do," he told the dragons when he finally put the huqin aside, looking their disappointed faces over. "Maybe later."

But this was interesting—yet another moment of could he have changed things when he was younger? Answer: probably not.

Learning how to play had been at Granville's suggestion, figuring it would give him something constructive to do—and it did, something to do by himself, away from people who were once again critical of what he was doing. This time, of all things, for picking up and learning to play the 'barbarian's fiddle.'

But Granville praised him for doing so well—that one thing that was just—it was that sweetgrass that the dragons went crazy for. He'd jump off a cliff if it meant getting her approval—anything to get to that final endgame.

And if it soothed the dragons….

"That ghost worked some magic on the dragons—get rid of it!"

…Yeah, that daydream petered out pretty much where he expected it to.

But there were benefits, as he found out the next day—making himself dinner, Hiro again the only dragon to come in and beg for the scraps—

And then Honey Lemon came downstairs, the huqin carefully in her jaws—padded up to him with a hopeful look. Consider….

"I guess I don't have anything to do after dinner," he decided.

It was nothing he could do for back then, but for the here and now, it made him feel a little better.

And the best part: two Furies sitting as audience, docile and content.

This, he was willing to bill as progress.