Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, and knowing my luck, I probably never will. All rights go to the author of the books, Cressida Cowell, and the company that made the much-loved films and series, Dreamworks. However, I do own Brenna Bloodsword and Starlight the Night Fury, as they are my OCs. This disclaimer will change over time, as I may add more OCs to this story.
A/N: Here's a code I made up for you so this is easier to read.
Bold: Dragons are talking
Italics: Humans are thinking
Bold italics: Dragons are thinking
Underlined: Any language being spoken that isn't either Norse or Dragonese by bilingual/multilingual characters. It will be written like this for humans:
*Language goes here "Insert speech here."
And like this for dragons:
*Language goes here "Insert speech here."
If there isn't a language in front of the speech, assume that they are speaking Norse if they're human and Dragonese if they're dragons. Sorry about giving such a long A/N, but I felt I had to explain this for you.
Brenna was in a surprisingly good mood when she woke up. The Terrible Terrors were currently chirping on someone else's roof, the sun was shining, she felt really refreshed. Her day never started off this well. Something was supposed to be going wrong right about now. But what?
"Oh, Brenna!" Starlight sang, waltzing into Brenna's room with a big, smug grin. "Lookie lookie what I've got! It's really cool! Look!" 'It' happened to be Brenna's prosthetic leg. Horrified, Brenna tore off the blanket to properly inspect her body, to find that her leg was actually gone. Starlight definitely wasn't using one of her spare legs to mess with her. Her eyes weren't playing tricks on her after all.
Why, that sneaky, trick-turning Night Fury.
"Starlight, you give that back! It's mine!" Brenna protested. "I need that and you know it!"
"I know, but this is so fun!" Starlight gloated. "Come on, Brenna! Come get it! You know you - AAARGH!" Without warning, Starlight had the leg tugged out of her grasp by a magical force. She lost her balance and fell onto her face.
Yes. A magical force. Brenna Bloodsword's three big secrets that she was worried about exposing to her new friends was that she had a Night Fury, she used a prosthetic leg and that she was a witch. Currently, the people in Berk were OK with the first two things, but the third secret was the biggest of all. She knew of places where witches were killed on discovery and barely escaped from a few places when she went there with Starlight travelling. Was Berk one of them?
"Finally, you decided to hand it over!" Brenna smiled. "Thank you, Starlight! I knew you'd see sense eventually!"
"You're welcome, you short-tempered sorceress," Starlight growled, as she got up. "No need to do anything remotely polite, like thanking me or anything."
"You can be sure that I won't," Brenna grinned, as she attached her prosthetic leg to the stump and went about her day, starting with her breakfast. She made herself some porridge with dried berries on top, with some milk on the side to wash it down. As she ate, Starlight walked into the dining room and started nudging Brenna. "Yes?"
"Brenna, I'm hungry!" Starlight whined. "Do you have anything for me to eat? Like maybe a basket of nice, juicy cod? Please?"
"Oh, I left it outside for you," Brenna told Starlight off-handedly. "It's next to the massive plant with teeth."
"Outside? Brenna, are you crazy?" Starlight snapped. "I bet a bunch of Terrible Terrors have eaten it already!" She raced outside to get to as much of her breakfast as she could, only to find a bunch of petrified Terrible Terrors perched on the roof. "What are you looking at?"
"S-s-scary plant," one of them whimpered. "It's got huge teeth and it tried to eat me! I just wanted some fish!"
"Yeah, it does that a lot when it's guarding stuff," Starlight lied. "Brenna made it guard my food, you know. It's defending its prize. Now get away from here before I set it on you."
"G-g-got it," another Terrible Terror replied, as they flew off. The female Night Fury watched them leave.
"Terrible Terrors: annoying, but hilariously gullible," Starlight muttered, as she took her breakfast back into the house. "I didn't think this would work, but it did. This is one of Brenna's ideas that I wouldn't disagree with, which is pretty rare."
"Oh, hey, Starlight," Brenna smiled. "Wanted to eat inside, huh?" Starlight glared as she ate the cod. Brenna, after she was finished, went into the garden to check on the progress on the toothed plant. It wasn't the same size as the plant they'd got the seed from, but it was growing fast. Unfortunately, it seemed to be wilting. Its green leaves were becoming yellow and crinkly and all the fertiliser she was using wasn't helping. "What could it possibly be? It's in the prime position for receiving sunlight and it gets plenty of water. What could it be?" Her musing was interrupted by a crash from inside the house. She went back inside to find Starlight on the top of the stairs, whimpering.
"Eel," she whimpered from her new favourite place in the house, pointing a claw at her basket of fish. There, next to the overturned basket, was a long, dead eel. "Get rid of it, Brenna . . . please!"
"All right," Brenna said, taking the eel (levitating it with magic so she didn't have to touch the slimy, dead eel) and going outside. As she passed the toothed plant, it snapped at the eel, eating it, almost taking Brenna's fingers with it. The witch let out a high-pitched squeak of surprise and jumped back away from the carnivorous plant. Her mind was spinning. This shouldn't be happening. Am I dreaming? Someone, something, tell me that I didn't see a plant eat an eel out of my hand! Maybe I'm going crazy. Brenna elected to not tell Starlight about it as she looked at the plant. She looked at the plant, and couldn't help but notice that it didn't have such yellow leaves any more. They now had a tint of green to them, and they weren't wilting quite as much. Odd. She was about to check on them more, but then she heard a knock at the door. "Wait a minute, I'll be with you soon," Brenna called, as she freshened herself up. When she opened the door, she found Fishlegs Ingerman, of all people. He had a blank notebook and some charcoal. What could he want?
"Hello, Brenna. Do you mind if I talk to you for a little while?" Fishlegs asked. Brenna was confused.
"What about?" Brenna asked.
"Well, I'd like to see if you have any more plants like the ones I saw on the island," Fishlegs asked. "I've never seen anything like them and I know there's no way you could possibly have taken them with you when you came to Berk. Do you . . . maybe . . . have any left?" He was really nervous about it.
"Oh, of course! I brought seeds with me and I'm planting them right now in my garden! If you want to look, come on in!" Brenna invited. "Just go straight forward and you'll find the garden; I'll go get some things." Fishlegs let out a squeal and rushed into the garden, hurriedly muttering his thanks. Brenna went upstairs and starting to rifle through her things. She really wanted to help Fishlegs and figured she had just the thing for it: her own notes. She'd taken plenty of them over the years of travelling, and Brenna was sure Fishlegs would love them. She collected her notes up, took a deep breath, and went to the garden.
Fishlegs was examining them very closely, with a look of complete wonder on his face. They were confusing and amazing to him and everything, absolutely everything was new, and not many things were new to Fishlegs in the world of botany. He thought that he'd seen it all . . . until now. He knew better than to go near the snapping plant with teeth, though, after his last experience. But the beefy boy was sharp-eyed enough to notice that the plant that had tried to bite him looked bigger before. "Uh, Brenna? Did this plant look bigger before? I remember looking up at it the last time."
"Oh, that's not the same plant. That's a plant I grew from a seed I got from the first plant over on the island," Brenna explained. "Anyway, I have something for you." Fishlegs turned around to see Brenna with a big, well-thumbed notebook. Several of the pages were dog-eared and one was ripped a little, but Fishlegs didn't mind, so long as the writing wasn't blurred. He'd seen books in much worse condition, after all.
"What's this?" Fishlegs asked.
"These are my old notes," Brenna replied. "All my notes on all the plants that I have here that I've collected. There are sketches of them in the book, too. Figured it would save you the trouble." Fishlegs gasped.
"Brenna, it's too much," Fishlegs politely refused. "This is years of work."
"I know, but if botanists never shared their knowledge, we'd never get any further," Brenna explained. "So, from one botanist to another, here you go."
"This isn't seriously mine to keep, is it?" Fishlegs stammered.
"Oh, why not? I've basically memorized it anyway," Brenna smiled. "So, do you want it?"
"Of course! Thank you so much!" Fishlegs babbled. As he looked around the garden, he noticed the only plant that wasn't in perfect condition was the snapping plant with teeth, yellowed and wilting. "What's wrong with the snapping plant?"
"I don't know, but I have a theory. It's crazy, but I think this is it," Brenna explained. "I think that this plant eats eels." Fishlegs did a double-take.
"An eel-eating plant? I've never heard of such a thing before," Fishlegs stammered. "But I guess it's worth a shot." Brenna left to get an eel (which wasn't hard to find, since there was one in the middle of the market and dragons were terrified of it) and came back with it squirming in her hands. Starlight, who had just been recovering from the earlier eel encounter, flew away from the house screaming. Tentatively, the ginger-haired girl waved it in front of the plant, seeing if it would take the bait.
It did.
"Oh my gods!" Fishlegs screamed, as he saw the plant eat the eel in one gulp, sucking it down like a modern day strand of spaghetti. "It ate the eel!" As Fishlegs freaked out, Brenna watched the plant. It seemed to be losing the unhealthy look and becoming greener, growing larger and even beginning to sprout another, much smaller leaf.
"And look! It's becoming even more green! It looks almost like a healthy plant now!" Brenna pointed out.
"Oh man, this is amazing! THERE IS AN EEL EATING PLANT WITH TEETH RIGHT HERE ON BERK!" Fishlegs cheered loudly. He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Brenna answered it, finding a terrified Viking woman at the door. She had accidentally overheard them.
"Did you just say that you had a plant with teeth in the village?" she stammered. Brenna was about to say no when Fishlegs interrupted her. He was still hyper about finding a carnivorous plant that now lived on Berk.
"Yes! There is a plant in her garden that has massive teeth and I saw it eat a whole live eel! Do you want to go in and see it?" Fishlegs asked. The woman screamed with terror and ran away. "Huh? What's going on with that lady?" Brenna was watching the whole thing with her mouth open.
"This isn't going to end well," Brenna groaned.
"I'm sure it will," Fishlegs replied optimistically.
"No, it won't," Brenna replied.
Brenna was later proven to be absolutely right. When she had lunch with the gang later in the Great Hall, Mildew approached them, angry as usual. Usually the only company he had was his loyal pet sheep Fungus, but now he had a group of followers. Granted, there was only ten of them, but it was a following nonetheless. "You there, ginger one-legged girl," he snarled. "I need to talk to you."
"About what?" Brenna asked.
"About the giant man-eating plant that you keep in your garden," Mildew snapped, his terrified followers agreeing with him. Brenna was shocked.
"Giant man-eating plant? That's crazy," Brenna disputed, but Mildew wasn't having it.
"Don't lie to me, it's all over the village," Mildew sneered. "You smuggled a man-eating plant into Berk!"
"But it's not man-eating!" Fishlegs chimed in.
"Then prove it," Mildew snapped. "Bring the plant to the Great Hall at the first given opportunity, or I'll have you thrown out of the village, do you hear me?" Brenna nodded, terrified that Mildew would actually carry out his threat. "Good." With that, he and his followers walked away. The twins giggled with anticipation.
"We get our first look at the snapping plant with teeth! This is awesome!" Ruffnut squealed.
"I know, right?" Tuffnut grinned. "I hope it eats Fungus!"
"I don't seriously have to bring the plant to the Great Hall, do I?" Brenna asked. "I mean, it's a plant with teeth, and the Great Hall is filled with people. Mildew doesn't actually want me to bring a plant with teeth into a crowded place, does he? I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."
"You know, crazy as it sounds, maybe you should just do what he says," Hiccup decided. Everyone stared at him as if he was going crazy. Toothless was concerned about the resident nerdy brunette.
"Hiccup, are you OK?" Toothless asked. "You're really beginning to worry me."
"What are you thinking?" Astrid yelled. "You think Brenna bringing a dangerous plant into a Great Hall is a good idea? You heard what she said about it! I barely know her and I agree with what she said!"
"Thank you, Astrid . . . I guess," Brenna muttered. "Anyway, I have a massive plant to dig up. The sooner that Mildew guy shuts up, the better."
*Norse "No. No, no, no, no, no. You are not going to dig up a plant with a full set of teeth and unleash it on an entire village full of innocent people!" Starlight refused. "This is crazy! You're not seriously going to do this on the say-so of a crazy guy! This is a trick! Why doesn't anyone see that this is a trick?! If you do it, he'll try to get us kicked out anyway!"
"Starlight, the way I see it, I'm done for either way. If I do it, I'm damned and if I don't, I'm still damned. If my last day on Berk is spent scaring an irritable, bitter old man who never liked me anyway, then I'm fine with that," Brenna replied, as she walked home. The twins cheered. Starlight groaned.
"Man, my human is dumb," the female Night Fury groaned. "I hope that plant doesn't eat the old man. Then again, maybe not. I don't like this guy."
"Oh, you don't? Join the club!" Toothless replied. "Mildew is known as one thing: the grouchy dragon-hating old guy."
"Really?" Starlight asked.
"Yeah, pretty much everyone hates him because all he does is complain," Toothless divulged. "He says there are too many dragons on Berk and they cause too much damage and they're too wild. And he totally picks favourites, or rather, least favourites. Everyone knows who his least favourite is."
"Who's his least favourite?" Starlight asked.
"Me," Toothless grinned, snickering at the thought of Mildew's angry face. "That guy hates my guts."
"Why?" Starlight asked.
"Apparently, Night Furies like you, me and literally nobody else in the whole world have a reputation, at least, around here, for being the unholy offspring of lightning and death," Toothless explained to a shocked Starlight. "He thinks that Night Furies are evil and bring bad luck and will destroy humans and other things that I've either forgotten or don't want to repeat in front of you."
"Oh my gods! He's going to hate me and Brenna!" Starlight gasped. "Do you think he'll try to actually kick us out?"
"He hasn't got the power to do that," Toothless told her. "All he can really do is yell at people and complain until they do what he wants them to do. He has no real influence to use against anyone."
"He doesn't?" Starlight asked. "Well, that's a relief. This means Brenna and I won't be forced to leave." Then she started walking away. Toothless was surprised at the sudden end to the conversation.
"Wait, where are you going?" Toothless asked.
"I have to tell Brenna!" Starlight told him. "I've gotta go! Bye, Toothless!"
"Bye, Starlight," Toothless greeted, as Starlight took off and flew away. He knew that Starlight wasn't leaving because of him, but he still didn't want her to leave. That was when it truly hit him that he was in love with the island's only female Night Fury. "I wish she could have stayed longer. I could have talked to her for ages."
Starlight, meanwhile, was flying home immediately to give Brenna the good news that Mildew had no real influence in the village. "Brenna, Brenna! You'll never guess what I just heard!" Starlight blurted out.
"You've decided to take a permanent vow of silence starting tomorrow?" Brenna asked.
"No, no, it's - Brenna, I'm not taking a vow of silence!" Starlight snapped. Brenna smirked.
"Then what is it?" Brenna asked.
"Mildew can't kick you out of the village! All he ever does is yell at people like he did to you! He won't do anything!" Starlight eagerly divulged.
"Well, that's a relief," Brenna sighed. "So I won't have to show this plant to anyone unless someone with authority asks." There was suddenly a knock at the door. Brenna opened it to find Stoick the Vast there.
"Brenna, good day," Stoick the Vast greeted. "I would like to talk to you about some rumours about a dangerous plant. People say that there is a giant, man-eating plant you have in your garden. Is that true?"
"No, sir. I was about to bring it to the Great Hall to prove it," Brenna replied.
"Good. The sooner this is cleared up, the better. I'll see you there," Stoick replied. Then he left. Brenna looked at Starlight. Starlight looked at Brenna.
"Well, I guess I have a good reason to bring this plant to the Great Hall now," Brenna sighed.
"Why does this have to happen?" Starlight groaned. "And just when I wanted to make a point, too!"
"Shut up and help me move this plant," Brenna sighed. Together, the dragon and human helped load the plant (now inside a plant pot and not the ground) into a wheelbarrow and wheel it in front of the Great Hall. From there, Brenna had to carry it to the Great Hall. There had once been a large mass of people, but once they saw Brenna, they parted like Moses parting the Red Sea to make a path for her to walk down. The redhead was met by Stoick and Mildew. Hiccup, Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, the twins and the aforementioned people's dragons were there to witness the entire story. The twins were even eating popcorn.
"So, girl, where's the plant?" Mildew asked. "Are you holding it now?"
"No, Mildew, this is clearly a full-grown bear," Brenna sassed. There was scattered giggles from the assembled villagers. "Yes, I'm holding it."
"Don't you talk back to me," Mildew snarled. Brenna remained firm. "Now show me the man-eating plant." Brenna carefully laid the plant down on the floor. Almost immediately, the plant began to move its leafy green head around, as if it was trying to see all the people in this strange new room. Grown Vikings screamed and backed off. Mildew used this as proof. "See? I told you! That plant is liable to kill someone!"
"It doesn't eat people!" Fishlegs yelled. "It eats eels! I saw it eat an eel myself!" Heads turned to look at the beefy boy, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The Vikings stopped screaming to process this bizarre new bit of information. Mildew didn't believe him.
"You're lying, boy. I can see it all over your face," Mildew sneered. "An eel-eating plant is crazy!"
"So is a man-eating plant!" Brenna chimed in. Mildew glared at her.
"Not another word out of you," he snapped. "I've never heard such rubbish about a plant ever in my whole life. You know what I think, Brenna? I think you and Fishlegs are lying about this plant eating eels, and I can prove it, you hear me?" With that, the old man stormed out, Fungus in tow. People started awkwardly looking around at each other, wondering what the old man was up to now.
Mildew's motives were revealed when he came back with a live eel, still wiggling in his hand. Starlight and the other dragons present backed away with fear at the nasty eel. Mildew strode over to the plant and waved it in its leafy green face, moving the eel around to see if it would follow it. Nothing happened. Mildew started to chuckle, which eventually turned into flat-out laughter. A few other Vikings started to laugh too.
"So you were wrong the whole time!" Spitelout Jorgenson howled. "You know what? Let me properly prove it now. Mildew, give me that eel." Spitelout went over to Mildew, to take the eel, but then the plant reached out its neck/stem and grabbed it right out of Mildew's hand. The old man screamed and ran back a few feet. The fear that had just gone away about the plant was back with a vengeance.
"You should have listened to Fishlegs, Mildew," Brenna remarked. "After all, he did tell you that it ate eels."
"But I thought he was wrong!" Mildew stammered. "I thought maybe he was lying!"
"But he wasn't and he wasn't," Brenna replied calmly. Spitelout started to regain his brash confidence. After all, a plant with teeth never bit him; what did he have to worry about?
"Don't worry too much about it, lass, I doubt it would have bitten anyone," Spitelout scoffed smugly.
"Then where do you think I got this from?" Brenna asked, rolling up her sleeve to show a bite mark. People screamed and ran away, halving the size of the crowd in seconds. Some of the women fainted. Some of the men did, too. Spitelout's newly-acquired patience evaporated, as did the colour from his face. "Luckily for me, the bite isn't poisonous and it wasn't as big as it is now. At its current size, it could easily rip an adult's arm off from the shoulder. Mildew's lucky he got away from it in time." As she talked, the plant with teeth slowly trailed towards Brenna, who had her back to it. Spitelout tried to warn her, but couldn't get the words out. He was terrified. "What is it? Are you OK?" Then, just before the plant tried to bite her a second time, Brenna grabbed it by the throat (or, at least, where the throat would be if it actually had a throat and wasn't a plant). It tried to get out of her grip, but she was too strong. "I can handle this plant. If it ever tries to take a bite out of me, I'll be eating salads for lunch for a month." The plant, as if registering the threat, stopped thrashing. Once Brenna let go, it retreated back to its plant pot, and almost seemed to cower before her as she took it home. Everyone stared in shock.
"That was beautiful," Ruffnut whispered.
"Like poetry in motion," Tuffnut whispered back, wiping a tear out of the corner of his eyes.
"Something's telling me that Brenna will be able to handle that plant just fine on her own," Hiccup remarked. Astrid nodded, a little shaken. If this girl could handle a killer plant, then she could definitely handle her.
"Yeah, I'm sure Brenna will be fine," Astrid agreed nervously, wiping off a thin layer of sweat off her forehead.
"Now that's a cool plant," Barf and Belch chorused.
"Forget the dumb plant, think about the human! Starlight, your rider is so cool!" Hookfang complimented.
"How did she see the plant coming?" Toothless asked.
"Does your human do this a lot?" Meatlug asked.
"She's done this a few time before," Starlight answered. "You get used to it after a while."
"Really?" Toothless asked.
"No," Starlight whispered. "Not at all. I'm still freaked out by it." As she stared at Toothless, she suddenly got very nervous and couldn't think of anything else to say to him. "I'd better go. Bye."
"Nice talking to you," Toothless replied. Hookfang didn't notice the Night Fury's disappointment and went over to talk to him.
"Things have been real crazy recently," Hookfang thought aloud. "Mostly to do with Brenna. What other things could she possibly be hiding?"
"Let's just wait and see," Toothless said.
Later that night, Toothless walked by Brenna's house for any sign of Starlight, when he heard an enchanting song being played. It made him stop to appreciate it more. Toothless lost track of how long he spent listening to the beautiful music until Hiccup found him.
"So that's where you've been!" Hiccup laughed. "Come on, bud. You can dream about Starlight at home." Hiccup led Toothless home like he was a toddler. The strangest thing about it was that Toothless didn't protest once. He had Starlight in his head.