Chapter 21, everybody! Happy Dia De Los Muertos!

Oh look, more HTTYD characters! And, also, while the first book had the movie's antagonist, since season one's antagonist is technically our protagonist, we're moving on to season two's antagonist. In other news, Barb gets Aunt Cass's early movie rant and we're quoting Jurassic Park again.

Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney

How to Train Your Dragon © 2010 DreamWorks

Trader Johann had come and gone and left the Berserker tribe with interesting news.

"So. For literally ever no one has ever seen a Night Fury, and suddenly they're coming out of the woodwork?" Dagur demanded. "What is it, my birthday? Two Night Furies?"

"Ah—you know one of those could be already dead," some goon asked. "The one we saw the Yokai with?"

True…but Trader Johann had brought up some interesting tidbits (for a fee). Selling bits of it when the whole Fury would fetch a small kingdom's worth of goods…it wasn't dead. They were keeping it alive, for some reason.

"Probably the same reason they're keeping an obake around," Dagur decided, ignoring the confused looks from his council (who'd probably meet the fate of his old council if they kept aggravating him). "They're collecting a menagerie of freaks for some reason—wonder if they're going to start charging admission."

"Uh, sir?" one of the council members said. "That uh, that delegate you mentioned—the one that sent the letter and everything? Well they're—"

"Okay you know what you," Dagur said, pointing at the guy behind the now-dead council member. "You've got his job now. Now what was he talking about?"

"Ah, no," the guy said, gesturing a little as he stepped in. "I'm actually the delegate he mentioned—I do believe my mistress has been in talks with you?"

"What is he talking about?" Dagur asked the nearest council member.

"The plan involving the Yokai," he supplied.

"Oh right! So actually I'm going to put you in touch with—who remembers the plan? Dirk there, who's going to then introduce you to these other guys…you said she specifically wanted an obake?"

"She wants anything out of the ordinary," the guy said. "Dragons, spooks, spirits…she makes a habit out of studying these things."

"Ooh, I've heard of this—the sort of study where they pin things down and cut them open?"

"Something like that."

"Even better. And while it pains me to have to pass on this particular hunt, we have a preexisting feud to focus on and my counsellors tell me I should really only focus on one front at a time. You get it, right?"

"Of course—and I'm sure you want to be paid handsomely for this too."

"Well considering without us providing the information and—what's the word? Networking that's right—considering we're the ones providing that you wouldn't even know about this guy so…."

The guy sighed, reached into a pocket and pulled out a sack of coins, from the sounds of it. "How does this work for you?"

Dagur snatched it away and weighed it in one hand, considering. "Seems a little low, considering I'm giving you an obake AND a Fury."

The guy considered this. "Well…my mistress does dabble in potioneering—little something to give your men the edge they need in their next battle?"

"Are you implying they can't hack it?"

"No…but imagine your men with skin as tough as dragon hide—a little extra resistance goes a long way."

"Sir," one of his council members said. "This stinks of a snake-oil salesman. It smells fake," he clarified when Dagur glared at him.

"He's got a point," Dagur said, tossing the coins on the table. "You're either going to have to shill out or prove it."

"Fine," the guy said, extending an arm. "Just try it then."

"I beg pardon?"

"You wanted a demonstration."

Dagur considered the guy, wondering if he was serious, if he was totally okay with a guy taking a knife to that perfect skin that didn't even look like it had seen a papercut, let alone a serious battle—

Decided that the guy definitely wasn't seeing an axe coming.

Dagur almost didn't either—dodged the axe head ricocheting away—looked at it, back at the guy whose arm he was sure he had hit—

Pinned him down this time and sliced a knife along his skin—again, staring along with his council as the knife failed to cut.

"Get me a better one," Dagur growled, tossing the knife away.

"Seriously?" the guy asked. "You got a full demonstration. It works. Do we have a deal or not?"

Dagur let the guy back up, considering. The Berserkers were dangerous and everybody knew it, it took forever to take one down once they got into their fury.

If they were invincible on the side?...

"Enough to serve a small army," Dagur said finally. "Then we've got ourselves a deal."

"All right, but you're going to have to be judicious as to when you give it to them," the guy said, dusting himself off. "Some things don't last forever, you know."

"Oh, I'm aware." But it'd be worth it—he only needed to use it before the big battle. After that….

Well potions might not last forever, but his Night Fury hat would certainly last a long time.


Obake woke that morning with a vague feeling of dread, decided when he got to his forge that that probably stemmed from the large crowd milling outside of it. Pretty sure it was the whole remainder of the tribe there, and he was pretty sure he could guess for what.

"Unless you actually have a dragon present for measurements, there is no point in asking," he announced, making the nearest ones jump. "Leather is at a premium and I am not making a generic saddle because you failed to deliver."

Which succeeded in dispersing most of the crowd, leaving him with a handful of people to deal with.

"Unless you have a rider, making a saddle is pointless as well," he announced, prompting the much larger cloud of dragons crowding around to disperse. The ones that were left were mostly Gronkles—apparently his earlier suppositions about Gronkles being more open to this sort of experiment was right on the money.

Although whoever had brought Enoka had obviously had their work cut out for them.

"You know you can do better, correct?" he asked the dragon as he took measurements—Enoka had been the first to volunteer and was being nice enough to behave and show the others how it was done.

"Hey," Dave protested.

"You can definitely do better."

It was well after lunch when Obake was done dealing with measurements and taking stock, despite already knowing just how much they actually had.

"Put trading for leather on the to-do list," he told Carl when the latter brought some baked fish.

"A trading party already set out for that," Carl said. "As I understand it they were motivated."

"Then what were they before!?"

"Leery," Carl said, shrugging. "I mean, just having dragons around period was a pretty big lifestyle change. Now you're proposing riding around on them, if they'll let us."

"I had a crowd of dragons here bigger than the crowd of people—I'm pretty sure they'll let us." Seeing as how none of them were named Tadashi. "Do I dare ask if there's anything else, or are you going to leave me to my own devices now?"

"I wouldn't mind a saddle too, and I know Dibs wants one."

"Get a dragon, then we'll talk."

Carl waved, prompting Wasabi to duck down and look in. Oi vey. Well on the positive side, a Stormcutter and a Nightmare was a change of pace from a bunch of Gronkles. Definitely had his week plotted out, unfortunately.

It also meant that Momakase poking her nose in wasn't appreciated.

"Go away," he said, waving at her, mostly preoccupied with figuring out how best to maximize the leather he had.

"Huh, so you are making saddles," she observed. "I thought that was just overly-hopeful nudniks talking."

"That's probably the accurate description of them currently," he said, sitting back and looking up at her. "What do you want? I can't go to the kill ring to be trounced today, I'm too busy."

"I noticed," she said, pondering his situation—startled him when she spoke again. "I'll give you a week off if you make a saddle for me."

"I beg pardon?"

"Should I say it in code so you understand me?"

"You need a dragon first."

At that, a yellow Nadder head dipped down to peer into the forge as well.

"I think I might be able to produce one," she said drily.

Huff. Well, it was the first Nadder he had to measure, so it'd be interesting enough.

And later, as he went over the orders, for lack of a better term, he pondered them in terms of priority and self-satisfaction. Doing several saddles for a similar build would be tedious, better to space them out in-between the other orders. Design the saddles based around body shape, considering….

"Pity there aren't any younger dragons such as yourself," he said to Hiro. "It would be nice to test this on smaller shapes."

"Whff," Hiro noised. Not very helpful.

But back to brass tacks—giving Carl a saddle would allow him to do everything with more economy and hopefully leave Obake alone. Doing so for Momakase would buy him some much-needed peace. Ergo, those two were the priority.

This also required borrowing the two dragons over the course of the next week and having to deal with their antsiness as he made sure the saddle conformed to their body types—at least Enoka (who he had prioritized out of convenience) was kind enough to stay still for him, although that could have been from him working with her previously. And he was more than a little certain that if it weren't for Hiro barking at the assorted dragons, Obake would have been burned to a crisp.

But at the very least, he had a saddle for Carl done soon enough.

"There," he announced, stepping back and watching as Wasabi stretched and tested his mobility with the saddle on, Hiro bounding around him and yipping excitedly. "That should make addressing jobs easier."

"You're not still trying to shove chiefing off on me, are you?" Carl asked him.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "And then once that's done Momakase can move on to killing you instead. Hmm, perhaps I should give it to her instead, save the bloodshed."

"Momakase doesn't want the job."

"You don't know that."

Carl's response was cut off by Jian being herded their way by a Zippleback hassling him.

"So when we said that we weren't killing dragons anymore, did we mean all dragons?" Jian demanded when he was near enough. "Because this one has been giving me a hard time and I've just about had it."

Obake considered the setup, realized what the Zippleback (which was now huffing at him) was after—

Couldn't help the "HA!" he barked at Jian.


Carl testing Wasabi's saddle had unfortunately gotten rid of most of Barb's arguments against dealing with dragons. Carl was a stolid voice of reason, losing him meant that Juniper had a bigger argument about the dragons.

Granted a bigger chunk of Barb's aggravation was directed at Obake, but she definitely wasn't letting him know—he had been terrifying before, with his cunning and craftiness and capability of holding a grudge. Now, on the back of a Fury….

Obake was proposing they ride dragons. This was a level of insanity she had never even dreamed of.

And unfortunately, this particular spark of insanity had gripped Juniper—she was more than sold on the idea of training and riding a dragon, and no amount of dissuading was stopping her. It was enough to drive Barb to give Carl a piece of her mind when he finally came back down to earth.

"Sorry?" Carl noised, the big green Stormcutter doing its best to hide behind him. "I mean yes I get your concerns but…."

"Coolness factor!" Dibs cheered, still on the saddle where he had been sitting behind Carl on the flight. "I mean once you get over the absolutely terrifying part of it but—I'm sorry I don't have one yet!" he barked when the blue Nightmare jabbed its snout at him.

"Am I the only one who remembers that we used to kill these things because they attacked us?" Barb demanded. "Because I feel like I am."

"You're not," Carl said. "But that never really went anywhere, now did it? It was just a vicious cycle—we might as well give breaking it a try."

She huffed at that, annoyed. "Can you at least tell Juney no—Juniper."

"The rest of us get saddles?" Juniper demanded, bouncing around Dibs as he slid off of an increasingly-nervous Wasabi. "When? How? Is there a list I need a dragon."

"There's a list and limited resources," Carl told her. "Even if you had a dragon, you'd have to wait a while."

"Thank you," Barb breathed, a hand to her chest.

"No big I can pick one out while I wait," Juniper said.

"Yes! No!" Dibs quickly amended at the sight of Barb's glare. "Wait why aren't we going for this?"

"Mama's doing the concerned-parent thing again."

"Do I not have justification?" Barb demanded. "For twenty years I've done the best I could to keep you safe! Was it easy? No. Did I get rid of all threats? Absolutely. Should I have picked up a parenting book? Probably…where was I going with this? I had a point," she said to Carl.

"She has valid concerns about your safety," Carl told Juniper, pointing at Barb. "But she is also an adult," he told Barb, pointing at Juniper. "I know this makes no difference, but it is going to color her motivations."

"Please please please," Juniper begged.

"I just don't feel comfortable letting you on some monster's back unsupervised," Barb said.

"No wait I'm having a thought hold on," Dibs said, scurrying off.

"Where does he think he's going?" Juniper asked.

"You gotta go, you gotta go," Carl said. "But back to you two. It would be best if you talked this out."

"You've got to let me try things, Mama."

"Not if I know it'll end up hurting you," Barb countered.

"Everything could hurt me—I could trip over a rock, hit my head and die. The dragons aren't special."

"The dragons are why your father isn't here."

That made Juniper pause, even though it made Barb ache to pop her bubble like that. But realism would work better in this situation, hopefully—

"The dragons are why a lot of people aren't here," Juniper said finally. "And…what better way to conquer this? To overcome it? Maybe Dad would have been cool with this idea."

Sigh, pressing her hands against her face—this was not the sort of argument she wanted to have.

"We won't know," she replied, lowering her hands. "We won't know and we won't ever know, because of them."

"I know," Juniper said, gesturing. "They've killed hundreds of us and we've killed thousands of them—I'm really tired of keeping up with the tally marks. We try this—Obake's weird experiment. And if it doesn't work, we kill them."

"I'm thinking we don't," Carl said, noting the way Wasabi and Fred growled.

"Sorry."

Barb took a deep breath, debating.

"Okay fine," she said finally. "But you do it how I say it—no dangerous stuff, no trying to do whatever unless I clear it first. Understand?"

"I…guess I can work with that," Juniper said, fidgeting.

"Good. Hopefully this doesn't go sour." Like she had honestly been expecting it to since day one.

"Here, let's try this," Dibs said, leading a Hideous Zippleback over. "This is Noodle and Burger."

"Remember how Obake revoked your naming privileges?" Carl asked. "I don't recall him giving those back."

"And this is something you don't need to share. Anywho, two heads, two riders?"

Barb circled the Zippleback, eyeing it critically—one head tried to keep her in sight, the other preoccupied with the rest of them. "Hmm, I don't know…what do you say, Juney?"

"I mean I guess we could try it," Juniper said, sounding unconvinced.

"We won't know until we do," Barb said, snapping her fingers. "Come on then Noodle-Burger boy!"

Carl wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the Zippleback looked worried.