Lightning And Death Itself Ending #1-b
A/N What will Hiccup do – stay in the nest or return to Berk? I couldn't decide which of two endings was best for this story. So I'm posting both of them. Here's the second half of ending #1.
WARNING: this story contains general (not detailed) descriptions of a burn victim. If one of you readers has been through that, or is close to someone who has, I don't want to blindside you.
o
The nesting box never got used, though. Toothless hadn't had time to tell Hiccup and Astrid everything about being dragons, and one of his oversights was the annual flight to the northern island where eggs are laid and hatched. (The omission was understandable, since Toothless had never gone on one of those flights.) The Night Furies' first clue was when, in the middle of their preparations for Snoggletog, a great cloud of dragons flew overhead, loudly inviting all the dragons of Berk to join them.
As the Nadders and Nightmares around them sprang into the air, Astrid turned to Hiccup. "I'm feeling something, like we should go along with them."
"I feel it, too," he nodded. "It must be one of our new instincts. Let's go!" They leaped upward and joined the huge migration.
Word quickly spread among the other dragons. "Night Furies!" "Night Furies are coming!" "The Night Furies are going to lay eggs with us!"
Hiccup flew alongside an unusually chatty group of Nadders. "If you don't mind my asking, why is everyone so excited about us?"
"Don't you know?" the leader exclaimed. "Our group of nests hasn't seen a Night Fury egg in over sixty years! Your baby is going to be very special!"
Hiccup glided back to rejoin Astrid. "I get the idea we aren't going to have much time to ourselves on this trip."
He was right. When they landed on the rocky shore of the warm-water lagoon, it seemed like every female dragon on the island stopped by to greet them, and make sure Small-night-fury was feeling okay. "We know this is your first egg, but don't worry," an old Gronckle chattered away. "Just do what comes naturally. And don't you dare keep it a secret!" The two black dragons stretched out on the rocks and waited for nature to take its course.
Later that afternoon, a fuss arose on the other side of the lagoon. "Astrid, will you be okay for a few minutes? I think they need a Night Fury over there." She nodded, and he glided over to see what the problem was. Two late-arriving young Nadder couples had both landed at the same time, and they were both claiming the last open stretch of shore line, which clearly wasn't big enough for all of them.
"New-night-fury, is there any fair way to settle this?" one of the males asked. "I don't want to deny that one her egg-laying place, but I really think we got here first."
The other male was about to reply, but New-night-fury held up a paw for silence. He pondered for a moment. "How about if both of you males roost on the cliffs, right up there? That leaves plenty of room for both females on the shore, and you'll still be able to see everything, so you can tell when you're needed."
The other male smacked himself in the head with his wing. "Why didn't I think of that? Thanks, New-night-fury; you're awesome." The males winged up to the higher rocks, leaving their mates to start swapping dragon-girl-talk.
"No major problems," he told Astrid when he returned. "I was just doing what Night Furies do."
"Me, too," she smiled, and swung her tail aside, revealing a single jet-black egg, about seven inches long, in a secure place on the rocks. She looked very pleased with herself.
Hiccup stared at the egg, his mouth hanging open, speechless. He looked back and forth from Astrid to the egg several times before he was finally able to stammer, "Uhhh... uhhh... wow!"
Half a minute later, the commotion started. Someone else noticed the egg, and it set off a mini-migration. Every female on the island wanted to see it! There was much ooh'ing and ahh'ing, and some speculation about whether it would be a girl or a boy. "Most of us have never seen a Night Fury egg before," several of them told Astrid as they looked on.
In the middle of all this, Astrid cried out softly. Hiccup was at her side in an instant. "What's wrong?"
"It feels like the egg did, but I've already laid that. What else could it... ooh, there it is again!"
Hiccup thought hard. Finally, he smiled. "Small-night-fury, don't twins run in your family?"
"Yes, my mother is a twin, and my father had cousins who were identical... oh, no! Hiccup, you don't think... but Toothless always said one egg a year! Just one!"
"Toothless doesn't know everything," New-night-fury said. "Everyone, take a step or two back, please! I think we've got another egg on the way!" They all backed up in complete silence, and a minute later, there were two jet-black eggs on the rocks.
This was something new! No one could ever recall a Night Fury laying twins before; it was completely unheard of. For some reason, this made the dragons esteem their Night Furies even more highly, especially Small-night-fury. "They act as though we did something to make this happen," New-night-fury said to his mate.
"Well, we did," she grinned. "We just didn't know what a good job we were doing."
The dragons all changed her name to Night-fury-mother-of-twins that day. It took her a few days to completely adjust to her new name, but it wasn't a hard transition. "It always kind of bothered me, being reminded that I'm smaller than you," she told New-night-fury. "Now I'm famous!"
For the next three days, Astrid curled up protectively around her eggs and went nowhere. She had a steady stream of visitors who were checking up on her (and the eggs), so she wasn't out of the social loop. Hiccup joined some of the other males as they caught fish to bring back to their mates and early-hatching babies. His ability to stun a whole school of fish with one firebolt was much appreciated by the others, who let him gather all he could carry before swooping in to help themselves to the rest.
After dropping off a couple of redfish for his mate, Hiccup said, "I just noticed – Toothless isn't here."
"He wouldn't be," Astrid replied. "Only the egg-laying females and their mates come here."
"Oh. That's right." Hiccup looked a bit sad as he headed out to sea again.
Near the end of the third day, the eggs began to wobble. "Move it, Hiccup!" Astrid ordered. "Don't bother running to get the midwife, because there isn't one! It's time!" She retracted her teeth, picked up the nearest egg in her mouth, and dropped it into the warm waters of the lagoon. He did the same with the other egg. They both watched and waited.
After about a minute, they heard a muted underwater explosion and watched a cloud of bubbles rising to the surface. A few seconds later, a tiny black dragon, less than a foot and a half long, stuck his nose above the water and took his first breath. Then he paddled to the shore, where his parents met him. He instinctively rubbed noses with Astrid, then Hiccup. "Ma-ma! Pa-pa!"
Hiccup went completely to mush. "Awww, look at him! He's beautiful!" A few seconds later, they heard a second submerged blast. This time, a little girl dragon poked her head out of the water. Hiccup thought his heart might melt.
"Here's another thing you did right on the first try," Astrid smiled. "Go ahead! Do the 'proud papa' bit. You know you want to."
"Well, they did say we shouldn't keep it a secret." He flew straight up about a hundred feet. "Everyone! Listen up! I have something important to say!" He waited until the usual dragon hubbub had died down. "We just got two brand-new little Night Furies! A boy and a girl!"
What happened next was not a mini-migration; it was more of a stampede. Everyone, male and female alike, had to see the newest additions to their favorite family. Some walked over, others flew over, and everyone was ecstatic. The littlest Night Furies lay curled up between their mother's forelegs, blinking with curiosity at all the attention they were getting. Hiccup basked in the compliments, until Astrid swatted him with her tail and made a swallowing motion.
"Oh, that's right! I'm fishing for four now." He flapped seaward in search of fish, grabbed a big one for Astrid and a gullet-full of little ones for the babies, and returned to feed his son and daughter their first meal. He was powerfully struck by the sight of his tiny children sitting with their mouths open, completely trusting him to feed them and keep them alive. I just became a father, he thought. This is scary; I saw how my dad struggled with it. And yet... I'm starting to think I might even do this right.
The next two weeks flew by. Hiccup and Astrid took turns looking after their babies while the other went out for food. Their children grew fast; they took their first tentative flights at eight days, and were soon zipping all over the island, playing with the other hatchlings. They always came back exhausted, and the four of them curled up to sleep together every night.
"If you'd told me a year ago that my son would be black and scaly, I would have had a heart attack," Hiccup murmured to his mate early one morning.
"You'd have had a heart attack at the thought of even having a son," she replied. She looked up; dragons were beginning to rise into the air all over the island. "I think it's time for us to head home," she added. "What do you think, kids? Are you ready for your first big adventure?" They nodded excitedly. Four Night Furies joined the stream of dragons who were winging their way homeward. The little ones didn't quite have the stamina to fly all the way, so they rode on their mother's and father's backs for the last few miles.
Ruffnut was waiting for them on the cliffs. She'd seen some dragons arrive already with their babies, so she knew what was going on. She also knew her own dragon was a male, so there weren't any dragonets in her immediate future. But her friend Astrid would certainly be coming in with a little one.
She saw the two Night Furies from a distance and waved her arms at them; they altered course and landed on the cliffs, one on each side of her. She noticed the baby dragon on her friend's back and started to ooh and ahh over her, then saw the other little one on Hiccup's back. It took a second to register.
"You had twins?" They nodded. "Excellent! Twins are awesome! I should know." She ran off to tell everyone.
Young-boy-night-fury and Young-girl-night-fury quickly became the talk of the town, even though they were only two of many brand-new dragons there. They were about three feet from nose to tail by now. Their parents had trained them about humans and some of their strange ways, so they adapted to village life easily. The children adored them, the adults offered them fish until they couldn't eat any more, and even Stoick smiled at the sight of them.
"They're not quite what I had in mind when I dreamed about having grandchildren, but they're a fine-looking pair," he beamed as he hesitantly scratched behind the little boy dragon's ears.
Astrid's parents were a little more hesitant about the whole thing. The shock of learning what had happened to their daughter still seemed fresh to them; their minds understood that this was Astrid now, but their hearts had trouble accepting the new reality. They readily acknowledged that the two little Night Furies were Hiccup and Astrid's children, but the family connection to themselves... not so much. Hiccup and Astrid were patient; they knew first-hand how hard it could be to adjust to that kind of change.
The breakthrough moment came when Young-boy-night-fury climbed into Edda Hofferson's lap and rubbed his nose on her chin. She laughed and rubbed his neck, which made him purr, and which made Young-girl-night-fury join her brother in their grandmother's lap for her share of the attention. She shed a tear and smiled at the same time, and said to Astrid, "They're beautiful." From then on, things got better between the human side of the family and the dragon side.
Toothless' reaction to meeting them was classic. New-night-fury had firmly instructed all the other dragons to say nothing about his children when they returned, so all Night-fury had was curiosity... and he was seething with it! He flew into Berk the morning after the dragons returned, eager to see the newest addition to his species, and caught Hiccup's family as they were rising. He noticed Young-boy-night-fury jumping on his mother's back, and was about to congratulate her when he saw Young-girl-night-fury curled up next to her father. He swiveled his head back and forth between them, stammering incoherently, until Hiccup and Astrid had to laugh.
"You're the one who told us to help repopulate the Night Furies!" Hiccup beamed. "Don't blame us if we took you seriously. Kids, say 'hi' to Night-fury, but you can call him Uncle Toothless!" They swarmed over him, laughing and giggling playfully until he had to smile as well.
Someone else who was totally taken with them was Guana, the shepherd girl. She seemed to prefer the company of dragons to humans anyway. She always waved at Hiccup and Astrid as she hobbled to the sheep pastures in the morning, and waved again as she made her awkward way home. She took two small fresh fish in her pocket every morning, in case she met the little Night Furies, which always happened because they made sure to seek her out in the pastures whenever they went flying.
"Why does she look so different from the other humans?" Young-boy-night-fury asked his parents one day.
"When she was a baby, her house caught on fire," New-night-fury answered, without saying how that fire started. "She was badly burned before they could rescue her. It's a miracle she lived at all. But her face and her limbs are never going to heal."
"That's sad," Young-girl-night-fury decided. "She likes dragons so much. Why don't people like her?"
"They... aren't comfortable with the way she looks," Night-fury-mother-of-twins said. "People are cruel like that sometimes. That's why she's happier with dragons."
She glanced at Hiccup. He was suddenly wearing that "let's do something crazy" expression that she knew so well, both on his human face and on his dragon face. "Kids, why don't you go visit her in the fields? I think your father wants to talk to me about something."
"Okay, Mom!" The little dragons winged away easily; several of the other young dragons followed them.
Hiccup turned to Astrid with a smile. "You know me too well. I just had an idea. Guana is brave, and she seems to be pretty smart. She sure isn't happy in the body she's got, and –"
"Whoa, Hiccup!" she interrupted. "I see where you're going, and it might be a good idea, but are we going to just hit her with it? Just like that?"
"No, it wouldn't be right," he nodded. "We need to ask her first."
That evening, as Guana made her painful way home, the two adult Night Furies met her at ground level and invited her, by scratched runes in the dirt, to visit them in the Dragons' Nest. They carried her up on Astrid's back so she didn't have to climb the stairs.
The discussion lasted well into the night, mostly because it took so long for the dragons to write in their sandbox. As soon as she understood what they were suggesting, her answer was an emphatic "yes." Most of the time was spent making sure she understood the implications, especially the permanence of it. They took her for a ride on Astrid's back, just to make sure.
Two days later, Toothless dropped by for his weekly visit to Berk. He was surprised to find his friends' home empty. But there was a message in their sandbox. He was still learning human runes and he didn't understand all of it, but he recognized the word "cove." That could mean only one place.
When he landed, he found Hiccup and Astrid supervising their children as they took target practice against the rocks with their fires. "It's Toothless!" Hiccup shouted. The whole family gathered to meet him, led by the young Night Furies.
"Hi, Uncle Toothless!" they cried, and rubbed noses with him. Toothless expected a quick TrueSight from Hiccup and Astrid, but they both declined contact. That was very unusual.
"What's going on?" Toothless asked, his eyes narrowing. "Are you two trying to hide something from me?"
"Oh, not much," grinned Hiccup. "We'd just like you to meet someone. Guana?"
From out of the shadows of the trees stepped a Night Fury.
A female Night Fury.
A drop-dead-gorgeous female Night Fury.
Toothless' mouth fell open. He stared. She gazed back.
"Hi," she said shyly in a low, liquid voice. "You must be Toothless. Hiccup has told me all about you."
Toothless gulped. He couldn't utter a word. Finally, Hiccup nudged him with a wing. "Come on, bud! Say something! Do we have to change your name to Speechless?"
Toothless finally managed to blurt out "Hi!" He glanced back at Hiccup, looking for some kind of explanation.
"Don't look at me," he grinned. "Astrid is doing her part for the Night Fury population, in every way she can."
"She transformed me yesterday," Guana added. "I love what I am now! Look at me! I don't hurt all the time any more! And... and I'm beautiful!" She stretched out her left wing and turned to admire it. "I'd much rather be a perfect Night Fury than... what I was. But I don't know much about being a dragon. It was a long walk from the village to here, even though walking doesn't hurt any more. Hiccup says you're good at giving flying lessons?"
"Uhhh... yeah! Yeah, we can do that!" The implications of a single female Night Fury in the neighborhood...
"We'll leave you two," Astrid said with a wink. "We'll be at home if you want to visit." She rounded up the little dragons, and they winged away.
Hiccup prepared to follow them, but Toothless tapped him with a wingtip. He leaned over to Hiccup and whispered, "I'm still half-speechless. How can I thank you?"
"We didn't do it to be thanked," Hiccup murmured back. "We did it for the Night Furies... mostly.
"But if anyone needs to say 'thank you,' it's me. I've got a wife, two children, a nest that looks up to me, a colony of Night Furies that can grow in safety, an amazing life, peace between dragons and humans, and the best friend a guy ever had. It's all because of you.
"Now, go teach that pretty lady how to glide. Give her a good dragon name, like Lady-night-fury.
"And... thank you for everything, you toothless reptile."
THE END
(of the first ending)