Ghost's Reign Chapter 15: Discussing Economics, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 15, everybody! Do you remember? The twenty-first night of September?

Obake's quoting the second Pirates of the Caribbean film, and waiting for goods to come in is a mood I've been that way when waiting for my desktop to come back from repairs. And I've only had a few dogs not fall for the fake-throw don't lie we've all done it. XD Hiro trying to shove Obake off the bed is very much based on my own dogs, by the by.

Providing enrichment is a very important thing to give animals and is a big thing zoos focus on—for a HTTYD example, someone broke down the sheep-game at the beginning of the second movie as being enrichment for both dragons and Vikings. Also sheep-tossing between Fishlegs and Meatlug in the series. Japanese is read right to left to give one example of Hiro's consternation, but Atlantean—from the movie Atlantis: the Lost Empire—reads both left to right and right to left and alternates per line. This, I know because I was very much a big geek for that movie and was fortunate enough to get the Disney Adventures issue focusing on it when it first came out.

Obake's drinking coffee Uncle Scrooge would be proud of, and very much channels me I cannot stand standing around if we're doing something then let's do it I got writing and art to do. Obake's also obliquely referencing The Croods and Jack and the Beanstalk.

The next day was when the trading ships were supposed to return.

And to say, that day, that the Yokai were perfect pictures of calm, would be a gross exaggeration that tempted down lightning bolts. So much for hoping that the dragons would be sufficient distractions.

In the meantime—okay fine so Obake planned to distract himself with the new and improved saddle, here was hoping it would let him last longer than five seconds. Good news: the new improvements netted him ten seconds, doubling the time was progress. Maybe.

So now here he was, grumbling in his forge while he waited for the new supplies and going over the design again. Okay, a means to quickly latch himself in and get back out was imperative, Tadashi had shown that he wasn't above rolling over and crushing him to get him off, but he needed to be able to stay on when the dragon took off…wondered if there was a way to steer him too, he could just see Tadashi scraping him off on a sea stack at high speed.

"Hey you," Momakase said, sticking her head in. "Come on, I need a distraction and I missed throwing you around yesterday."

"I know, it was a very good day yesterday, I'd like a repeat of that," he said, sparing her a glance before going back to work.

"Uh-huh. Bold of you to assume I'm not above dragging your butt there."

She was indeed not above dragging him there, topped that embarrassment by giving him a solid schooling that ended with Jian coming along and giving him some painkilling tea.

"I'll suffer through it, thanks," Obake said, still laying where she had left him.

"Sorry, Carl insisted," Jian said. "Plus for once we actually have a surplus of the stuff so I'm happy to use it."

Obake wasn't, but considering Jian wasn't above tying a person down to make them take their medicine, it was easier just to take the tea. "This isn't spiked, is it?"

"No, Carl wants you upright for when the ships come back, and he's reasonably sure that'll be today." Watch him drink a minute, which struck him as suspicious. "By the way, whatever whammy you put on the dragons I very much appreciate."

That statement nearly caused the tea to go shooting back out his nose. "Do what?"

"Well that's the prevailing rumor."

Oh good night save him from superstitious louts. "Go count your herbs, Jian."

The good news was, Jian did leave him alone and the tea did not knock him out. The bad news was, Carl decided to find him and bug him.

"Are the ships actually here?" Obake asked, sitting up. "If they're not, then I'm not going to be standing at the docks like I'm pining for a lost love—I have better things to do."

"Such as?" Carl asked.

Oi vey. "Other. Things. Last I checked you weren't my mother." Struggle upright, groan when that hurt—ow, pain, pain pain—

"Maybe I ask Momakase to give you a break," Carl said. "Give you more time to focus on being chief."

"Yes to the first, no to the second," he groused. "And I told you the plan there."

"I would rather not be chief. I'll take second, but not chief."

"And why not?"

Carl shrugged. "Pretty sure you'd be better for the job."

Oi vey and then some. "The way you talk you'd think Momakase had hit you over the head."

"Where are you going?"

"To my bed to recuperate and disassociate. Don't wait up."

"Can I come get you when the ships come in?"

"Yes. When that happens, by all means, but not before." Because he definitely wanted first crack at some of the more important things, like the leather. Food could wait.

He had a dragon to tame.

Obake spent most of the rest of the day in bed, scribbling in his dry-leaves, only really dragging himself back out of bed to make himself some leaf-water and dinner before crawling back in, groaning in pain.

Hiro, after spending some time with him for emotional support, went back out to try and continue marketing Yokai to dragons. The literal new toy he had would do nicely.

"So Yokai like to play," Hiro explained to the small gathering of dragons he had collected. "One of the most basic games they like to play is 'fetch,' where they throw a stick or a toy such as this for you to bring back. Sometimes they will fake throwing the thing—do not fall for this.

"They also like to play tug-of-MINE with a toy—Mochi here will be helping me to demonstrate," Hiro continued, gesturing at the calico Terror sitting next to him.

"Grr, I'm a big scary Yokai," Mochi said. "Fear me and my dragon-slaying reputation."

"Very good. You grab the other end."

Hiro and Mochi played tug-of-MINE for a while, Mochi gaining a bit of ground because Hiro kept bleeding off traction—finally let go, sending Mochi rolling.

"SORRY—sorry are you okay?" Hiro asked.

"I WIN," Mochi gusted, paws up.

"Good. Please remember that Yokai are much weaker than we are so it'd be more like playing with a newborn hatchling—some of you bigger dragons could basically stand there with the other end in your mouth and provide enough resistance, the point is just playing with them. Um…enrichment, that's what Baymax said earlier."

"Where do we get these 'toys'?" a Nadder asked, sniffing at the toy—Mochi flashed upright, mantling at her and hissing.

"Well that's just a not-vine tied in tangles, so you could totally just get a short piece that no one's using and use that. Might have to toss it around in front of them a bit to get them into the playing mood, but they'll get it. Are we good? Good, class dismissed," Hiro said, nodding and grinning at the dragons as they dispersed, discussing this new thing—Mochi hissed at him before scooping the toy up and flying away. Well okay fine he'd get a new one from Obake.

Speaking of—fly back to his nest, pad in and up, hop into his bed and turn a few circles before flopping down against him.

"To what do I owe the displeasure," Obake groaned, still with an arm draped over his eyes.

"I need a new toy," Hiro reported. "Mochi stole mine. Well I mean TECHNICALLY he didn't STEAL it because he won it in tug-of-MINE but still. Also I need water-travelers explained to me better why is everyone looking like they miss them they have DRAGONS now we are SO MUCH COOLER."

Obake lifted his arm a little to eyeball him, considering…finally picked up the dry-leaves off his chest, sorting through them before holding one over Hiro's head. "Any of these you recognize?"

Ooh yes—roll over so he was on his back next to Obake, peering at the dry-leaves. "Uhhhh this one, this one, this one…this one? That's one of your questioning squiggles, right? And uh…that one, that one…that one…maybe that one?" Outline the questioning-mark next to that one.

Obake made a pensive noise at that. "Maybe tomorrow when I can move without intense pain we'll go over these again—don't want you forgetting any."

"No," Hiro agreed, scanning the dry-leaf—Yokai squiggles were supposed to be read from left to right, although sometimes it was the other way around according to Obake, because there were other scribble-languages which just seemed like complicating an already-complex concept. Still didn't know enough Yokai-scribbles for it to be anything but gibberish to him, though.

"So," Hiro said, flopping his head a little so his ear-flaps and head were on Obake's shoulder. "Tomorrow we're going over runes and you're making me another toy. Sounds like a full day. Also I made a pit-trap, but we'll leave that until I actually catch a nice big fat boar in it. Which will be soon, by the way, I can feel it."

Obake nibble-groomed along the little spines on his head, which he decided meant he was agreeing with him—rolled over a little so he was burrowed against his side with the full intent of falling asleep there.

"You keep doing that you'll shove me off the bed," Obake muttered.

"Good," Hiro purred, stretching. "My bed."

Huffing, but by then Hiro was falling asleep and he didn't remember much after that.

Okay, for the record having a little hot water bottle next to you really helped with the restive sleep.

What didn't help with the restful sleep was waking up the next morning to see a black dragon glaring daggers at you. Start fully awake, end up accidentally rolling out of bed—

Hiro sat up, yawning—squeaked when Tadashi huffed, tried to bolt—was caught and hauled out of there by the bigger Fury. So there went spending the morning teaching Hiro about runes.

Get dressed, make coffee (could it still be considered coffee when it was watered down this far?), sort through his notes and try to make sense of whatever he was thinking at the time, go over the saddle design again—glare at the knock at the door. "What?"

Carl opened the door and peered in. "You wanted me to come get you when the ships came back."

Obake glared at him. "And are they actually back, or is this just some false alarm or getting excited over specks in the distance? I'd rather them be at the docks instead of me milling around instead of doing something useful."

Carl arched an eyebrow at that. "They'll be at the docks and starting to unload by the time you get down there, if you leave right now."

"Are they that close, or is shamble my current speed?"

"Have you healed up from sword-training with Momakase?"

"Oh is that what we're calling it now?" he groaned. Sighed when Carl didn't budge. "Fine, I'm coming," he groused, stuffing several papers into an inside pocket before forcing himself upright and over.

"You know there is that yoga group," Carl offered. "Very good for staying limber, some of the dragons are even getting into it. The Terrors especially."

"Carl, there is only so much nonsense I can handle in a day, and you're wanting me to deal with people, as I recall."

"We need to work on your social skills," Carl decided as they headed for the docks.

Carl had overestimated a bit, but progress was still underway by the time they reached the docks.

"You went shopping for a much-abbreviated village, I see," Calhoun said, going through her notations before scanning the unloaded supplies. "Please tell me you got more than this."

"Look, this is not our fault, the guy stiffed us and we couldn't push the issue without getting uncomfortable questions," Ernest said.

"You could have done better than this."

"Berk had a bumper crop of scales apparently," Dave said. "So no, not really."

Calhoun rounded on him, looking like she was torn between working herself into a fury and keeping from ripping his head off. "This isn't going to cut it! It's not we're restocking, it's we have nothing to begin with! Oh you just wait until Obake gets down here if you think I'm unpleasant right now I'd love to see how he reacts."

"Probably he'll just let you carry on, since you seem to be doing such a good job of it," Obake said drily, making all of them jump. "You had Night Fury scales—you could have gotten more."

"And I quote, Night Fury scales don't go as far as they used to," Ernest spat. "Please tell me there's a different trade island we can go to."

"There are, but they'll ask far more uncomfortable questions," Obake spat. "Once again, you could have done better."

Ernest and Dave proceeded to look everywhere but directly at Obake. "Well," Ernest hedged, tapping his pointer fingers together. "We could have gotten more…but uh, we aren't allowed to raid anymore, so…there's that."

Oi vey. Look over the bare haul, wondering if he had gotten so used to taking everything he wanted that trying to go the plain boring legal route had become too much of a chore. Honestly.

"There's other trade islands, they're a bit farther away, but it's worth a shot," Calhoun supplied.

"Try it," Obake said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "And don't send these two."

"Hey," Ernest protested.

"Don't hey me you couldn't have done worse if you had brought 'magic' beans back instead!"

Ernest crossed his arms and looked away huffily. Oi, did he really want to risk discontentment….

Stepped forward, letting his face flare as he closed the gap between himself and Ernest—was pleased to see Ernest leap back, startled, and fall into the water.

"Fish him out," Obake ordered, stalking back to dry land. "And next time try to make it a proper haul!"

Didn't encounter any opposition, made it to the forge without incident, was able to slam it all shut so he could go in the other room and have a proper sulk.

What a wasted morning.

Calhoun watched as Dave fished Ernest out, looked at Carl.

"Night Fury scales?" she asked, gesturing. "Night Fury scales and this was the best we could do? Who were you dealing with?" she demanded of Ernest and Dave.

"Uh, northern trading league," Dave said. "The one that does dealings with Vikings and the rest of the Meridian of Misery?"

Couldn't help the irritated huff at that. "I could buy the other scales not going for much, but still. Night Fury scales aren't common. People didn't even see them until those two," she said, gesturing at the Furies perched on Obake's house. "My guess is you were had."

"I could believe it of the one guy," Ernest said, wringing his shirt out. "He acted like some kind of expert on Night Furies. Pff—it took everything I had to not start running my mouth."

"Yeah you're definitely staying this time," Calhoun decided.

"I didn't say I did—"

"Hush and get this put up," she snapped, gesturing and making them hop to. Looked at Carl once they were gone. "This could have gone better."

"I agree," Carl said. "But for the record we are out of practice."

"Out of practice, out of supplies…it's a good thing the dragons are fishing for us, because otherwise we'd be starving." Look over the village. "I can't believe that I miss marauding."

"The easy way isn't always the right way," Carl pointed out. "We'll get it eventually."

"Boy I hope so."