Fates, Norns, random chance, whatever you call it, it moves forevermore, threading, plotting, changing-twists, waves and quakes reverbeating all the time, however innocent they may seem.
A storm howled outside, tryig and failing to break into fortress to break into a fortress of thick wood and roaring flames. This was the great hall, currently facing one of its uncountable, but important dramas.
A man kneeled, shaking and glancing around, staunching the bleeding from his arm; literally. There was nothing below his elbow. Behind him stood a grinning teenager with a horned helmet that left only his face exposed, the two horns stretching up and nearly as long as his legs. He had a bloodied two-bladed hatchet in his hand that he spun idly. The right upper tip and left lower tip were elongated, making the weapon look particularly wicked.
Upon seeing this display, the recently woken chief just rubbed his temples. "Dagur, what is the meaning of this?"
The teenager scowled. "Father, I found Outcast trespassers, killed most of them, and this one extended his pathetic life with news you want to hear!"
The man raised an eyebrow. "So?"
The Outcast trembled and burst out. "Great Chief Oswald! I bring grave news! Berk has subjugated dragons!"
Oswald rolled his eyes; honestly, what people are coming up with to save their lives...
His son, in turn, laughed maniacally for just a tad longer than it was comfortable. Then, before anyone could so much as say a word, he swung his hatchet in a great arch, beheading the Outcast. As the head rolled on the ground and blood spilled on the floor, Oswald the Agreeable huffed, exasperated. "Son, don't you remember what I told you?"
Dagur frowned. "What? This was an outcast, and he was trespassing on Berserker land."
"Yes, but he could have known something important, and now..."
The teenager growled like a wild animal. "Know something important!? If he had, he would have bargained with that, not a straight-up lie!"
Oswald nearly jerked; his son was right. It seemed that lessons on reasoning had paid off! "Indeed, I must give you this one."
Dagur smiled. It was such a rare thing to behold...
"So can I lead a raid on Outcasts?"
...And of course, he must have suggested it.
"Dagur, winter is already here, and devastating winter will be arriving shortly. We can't support a war effort now."
"No need to support a war, dad, I need only two dozen men to teach those honourless bastards that attacking our tribe is a bad idea!"
Oswald shook his head. "No, we can't afford to lose-"
Dagur screamed at him, a burst of pent-up rage nearly splitting his ears. "Enough! Enough of your weak rule! Enough of telling me to restrain myself! Enough of 'amiability' and 'negotiations'! We are Berserkers! Ber-Ser-Kir! We take what we want when we want, or die in a blaze of glory trying! I'm going to teach those backstabbing weaklings respect for our tribe; they no wonder lost because of you, and if you try to stop me, I will kill you."
Dagur hissed the last part out, and Oswald's face went red. To be agreeable was one thing. To let your own son speak like that to you was entirely another.
"How dare you speak like that to your father! I will teach you a lesson that you will remember till the end of your life!" The chief strode forward, raising his fist and unsheathing his dagger, only for it to be chopped off. But before he could scream in shock, the elongated tip of the hatchet's blade embedded itself into his chest, straight into his heart.
Dagur looked down with an indiscernible expression, ignoring how guards and advisors froze in shock. "Thank you, father. For everything. I hope that you enjoy Valhalla." The son closed his father's eyes with a distant smile.
Then he turned and grinned at his father's advisors. "Prepare the funeral with all the honours a fallen chief deserves. We will make the archipelago recall the wrath and fury of the Berserkers, giving all the warriors a chance at entering Valhalla and reaping riches and glory! We will win or we will die, but we will live like Ber-Ser-Kir!"
One of them, a priest of the weakling religion, snapped out of shock first. "You—you just murdered your own father! Patricide! Guards, arrest this spawn of—"
Dagur cut him off and announced proudly. "I granted him passage to Valhalla, and I am certain that he will thank me when I join him at the table of kings." The man seethed, but no one did anything. He turned to them, furious, and exclaimed.
"You cowards! It is a transgression for all of our peoples! How can you tolerate it!?"
Dagur scowled again. "You call them cowards for honouring Berserker laws, but you aren't doing anything yourself! Come here and fight if you have honour!"
"No! I cannot kill people, it is against my vow—w-what are you doing?"
Dagur strode towards him, the priest backing away in fright, and others not saying a word even when their new chief struck him down with one blow.
"So what are your intentions?" asked one of the advisors, the most tolerable one for Dagur.
The teenager shrugged. "My father's funeral, destroying the Outcasts, destroying Berk near the end of the devastating winter, before doing the same to the Meatheads and then the Bog Burglars."
A funeral was swiftly prepared. And OBVIOUSLY, some fool thought that he was SARCASTIC when saying ALL THE RESPECT FALLEN CHIEF DESERVES, preparing a funeral way more befitting of a poor commoner.
He beheaded that moron and made sure that everyone understood PERFECTLY what he got wrong.
In the clan house on Berk, in a study, a lone human sat in a study before a desk filled with papers, thoughtfully biting his lip and focusing on a particularly complex problem. It wasn't as if he hadn't faced a lot of those already, but this one was exceptionally tricky to adapt to dragons and could cause much controversy; that was something that should be avoided now, even though the situation had calmed down. He bit at the end of his pen in thought but quickly managed to restrain himself and just groaned, rubbing his temples. A voice called from below, prompting him to leave this task for now.
"Come down here! It is long past time for dinner, and I am not going to make you a dish separate from everyone else!"
He walked down the stairs, stretching in the process. Spending so much time sitting wasn't serving his sore back very well.
"Hello, father," said Astrid, and he nodded in acknowledgment. Similar greetings rang out from around the table, including from a duo of dragons at the back — new additions to the clan, respectable warriors, and in one case, a friend to his own daughter. He sat and started eating; his daughter decided to strike up the conversation.
"So how is it going?"
Bjorn Hofferson shrugged. "Forward. I just had an issue with rendering someone unarmed; dragons can't really have their claws and fires confiscated, and—"
"Bjorn, you vowed not to talk about work during dinner," his wife interrupted with a glare.
Under her gaze, he nodded a little too fast to conceal his embarrassment. "Sorry, dear."
It was quiet for a while, until noises from around the end of the table turned from gulping down food (literally) to chatter that reached all the way up to them.
"But you see, I don't know what I can do to get all this shiny jewellery. I mean, I help where I can in the nest and all, but it is just what everyone does, and to get more money I need to have an actual job, and I have really no idea—"
The Monstrous Nightmare sighed at the Deadly Nadder's high-pitched chittering with exasperation. Bjorn could understand it. Being invited to the clan house for a dish as someone not living there was an honour, but now it was just exasperating for him, sitting near the overly talkative female — no, woman, he reminded himself.
He cleared his throat, and the Nadder looked at him, not stopping its chittering at all. "Oh, you'll think of something great. It is an honour to get help from—"
It was impolite, but he couldn't really wait for her to stop unless he wished to wait for an hour.
"You could join the Berk Guard. I'm sure that your exploits during the battle with the Red Death are enough for them to take you in, assuming of course that you qualify in age. Changes to what age is considered adulthood for dragon races weren't legislated yet, so you need to qualify by human standards, just like Astrid needs to wait until she reaches nineteen."
The dragoness finally stopped her chatter and squinted as if thinking hard, then squawked happily afterward. "Good thing I have five times that."
People fell silent around the table, Grunhilda Hofferson shook her head in bewilderment. "You want us to believe that you are ninety-five years old?"
Stormfly just nodded, and Skyfire hummed before asking a question. "I assume that's a big age for humans?"
They nodded, and Astrid was the one to respond. "Barely anyone reaches it. I think on Berk, only Gothi is that old, but no one really knows since the records were burnt during a raid."
The dragon nodded as well and replied gracefully. "I understand, thank you for the answer."
"How long can dragons live?" inquired Ms. Hofferson.
"I don't know, there weren't any elders in my nest," said Stormfly without her usual excitement. That still piqued the interest of Grunhilda.
"Despite being ninety-five years old, you are not considered an elder?" Stormfly shrugged, and Skyfire responded instead.
"Different kinds live for more or less. My kind can live as much as... what were the words... three times longer than Stormfly, give or take a few dozen."
"And yet your hatchlings grow like weeds." Skyfire bit back a snarl. "Sorry, it's just a figure of speech," apologized his sister, Niff, curtly.
"Understood. But while our young grow fast in body, reaching full size in under a decade, true maturity requires more time. It usually takes four decades for a Monstrous Nightmare to be truly considered more than a fireling."
The dish was soon finished, and everyone went their way; Stormfly to meet the Berk Guard leader in the great hall, Astrid alongside her to train in the only place big and warm enough during Devastating Winter to make all the moves she wished to perfect, Skyfire returned to his patrol duty, flying despite the biting cold, both Grunhilda and Niff went to work on sewing, and Bjorn himself returned to his study and mountain of papers covered in writing in preparation for legislative changes needed for dragons and humans to truly become equal in law.
Pebble planted her paws in the deep snow and dragged the heavy sleigh she was strapped into one more step forward, keeping her wings — grand but useless without knowledge on how to use them — stiffly on top of her back, mindful not to walk too haphazardly and cause discomfort for her passengers. Marks from last time twinged painfully, and she needed no more reminders of the price of failure.
As she approached the end of the square and the stairs to the great den, the howling wind constantly threw icy-cold snow her way, but it deflected off the wooden protection her passengers had. She couldn't stay outside for very long, but she could endure longer than humans without falling ill. That's why she was recently made to drag those things along; unlike prey humans used, she didn't need to be led around, so no one besides her needed to be exposed to the wrath of the elements.
She stopped, finally at her destination, and waited a few minutes in the cold for the humans to emerge. She didn't know what could take them so long, but it wasn't like she had any way to ask, even if her jaws weren't pinned shut.
The enthralled Night Fury knew better than to wait for another order when her master walked up the stairs with his friend. She slid out of the wooden collar, wide enough for her to do so, checked if they closed the sledge hatch, and only then followed them meekly, head lowered submissively, and to hide the thing on her neck proclaiming her lowest-of-the-low status in soundless-speak.
They entered, and she welcomed the warmth with a sigh of relief; the cold was starting to get under her scales. Now she would only have to get her master food and drink without either ending up on the floor. Another series of thin scars reminded her why she really should pay all attention to the task.
The trio made their way to the room her master spent a lot of time in recently alongside other high-status pack members. Two humans sat at the table, and the dragoness was about to slink away, but her task was already completed by someone else, as food and drink were standing on the table. So instead, she sat on her haunches to the left of the door, out of the way, and carefully observed for any sign of some task assigned to her.
"I hereby welcome members of this council, heads of Berk's five clans and their chosen acquaintances. Myself, Stoick the Vast, and Toothless the Gleypir Slayer of clan Haddock, Herring the Stubborn and Fishvoice of clan Ingerman, Spitelout and Snotlout of clan Jorgenson, Sven of clan Thorston, Bjorn Hofferson and Astrid of clan Hofferson, at the 35th Berk council summit of the year 1010 After Arrival, 302 Hooligan Founding."
All of the humans and one dragon nodded in acknowledgment. Bjorn cleared his throat. "Proceed, Lawspeaker," said Stoick.
"Thank you, Chief. The topic of today's summit is not about adjusting the legal codex to the inclusion of dragons, but about laws that remained effectively dead throughout most of the dragon war, but with its end, they are again going to matter. Mainly, laws concerning thraldom."
Pebble's ears pricked up at the mention, and she swallowed in worry.
"During year 742, after suffering from a particularly destructive dragon raid that left Berk's defences in tatters, and feeling hopeless to prepare for the coming onslaught, it was unanimously agreed upon by the Chief, council, and Ting, that everyone who struck down a dragon is to be released from any and all forms of servitude. In the span of a few months, there were no more slaves on Berk, and there never were again. Until now. With the chance of fighting dragons decreasing to an extreme extent, all forms of thraldom are no longer legally irrelevant. This council should firmly state its position on this topic."
Spitelout snickered. "There is no need for change. The weak serve the strong, and the current law allows thralls to prove themselves worthy." Seconds after saying that, Spitelout's brows furrowed. "We should change it to enemies of Berk, though, because with the current one, a thrall may try to slay dragons using cowardly methods like poison, since the beasts live alongside us."
Toothless's head snapped in his direction, pupils slit and a snarl crossing his face. The Night Fury was livid. "Sic semper evero mortem tyrannis!" he shouted as he planted his paws on the table, his claws ripping deep gouges in the wood, nearly clawing all the way through it. Spitelout's face had gone equally angry, but in a human, color-changing way.
"You dare to threaten me, here at this council!? Law-speaker—"
"It was far too general to be considered a death threat," pre-emptively responded Bjorn. Astrid behind him raised an eyebrow at Spitelout and smirked. The man scowled, or rather, scowled harder.
Stoick cleared his throat. "We managed without any thralls at all for the hardest of trials during three centuries of war. I am not about to change that. This is a law used by those too weak and lazy to fulfil their own duties; let's get rid of it."
From his body language, Pebble could discern that he wasn't entirely sincere, but in this case, it was likely the other way around; trying to persuade others to get rid of it by appearing more like them.
Herring, her master, prompted his acquaintance to speak with a relaxed motion of his hand. "Thraldom is an effective way of ensuring that debts are repaid, independently of the material status of the indebted. Ingermans opt for keeping Indentured servitude with all of its adjacent laws and regulations, while delegalizing chattel slavery. The law allowing thralls to be released whenever they kill a dragon, of course, has to go. It does not fit the course our tribe has taken."
Sven frowned. "Most of my clan are descendants of ex-thralls. I am all-in for the abolishment of all forms of thraldom."
So they were at an impasse. Or rather, they would be, as long as the Hofferson clan didn't voice its opinion. Pebble tensed. It could be it. Her status could be raised from non-existent to low.
Toothless relaxed and started eating fish as her musing continued. However, if they failed... and assuming the Ingermans' idea didn't get through, she would have a window of opportunity that would require her to kill someone... Preferably someone of a small kind...
"I do not take a side in it, however, I will prepare the necessary changes to adapt thraldom laws to dragons." Said Bjorn.
Astrid and Toothless glared at him at once.
"Dad, what are you doing? I thought that we agreed that slavery would be only detrimental!"
"Yes, I do, but I will not take a side in it."
"You are the Patriarch of a clan, you can't stay neutral when you have the power to decide over something like that."
"I can and will stay neutral, Astrid Hofferson, and you will not question me so disrespectfully."
Toothless shook his head in distaste and swallowed the herring he had in his mouth, glaring at the Ingermans and Jorgensons. Something flashed in Herring's eyes but vanished just as quickly.
"We may be willing to add some restrictions to indentured servitude though," said Herring and gave a sign to his acquaintance. "Mainly, not trading Indentured thralls and making restrictions on how heavy punishments could be administered to them, as well as excluding some tasks."
It was an improvement, and it seemed that it wasn't getting any better than that, with the Jorgensons refusing to change their stance and the Hoffersons maintaining neutrality.
Hiccup rubbed his palm and groaned at the incomplete Mangler device just as the hatch placed over the massive window opened and the Night Fury stepped from the landing platform made of wet wood on the outside into their room, snarling and proceeding to walk in circles.
Grateful for the distraction from the frustrating task and worried about his friend, Hiccup inquired, "Deep breaths, bud. What is it?"
The Night Fury did as he was told and then replied with a calmness so perfect that it was guaranteed to be false.
"Bjorn brought up the issue of slavery and how the end of the dragon war resurrected dead laws. Half of the council was after letting it stay legal, and the other half was on delegalizing it. Bjorn remained neutral. Finally, the Ingermans decided to break the impasse and agreed to the delegalization of chattel slavery and placing limitations on indentured servitude."
Hiccup cradled the black, shovel-shaped head in his hands, scratching comfortingly at the dragon's cheeks without thought. "I am so sorry, bud, if only I was there..."
The tongue lolled out of the dragon's lips and gave a short lick on Hiccup's nose, the human backing away slightly with a squeak (that wasn't adorable!). "You shouldn't. It is not your fault. They were dead-set on ensuring they got their debts back no matter what, and they had the power to stop this from changing at all."
Hiccup slumped. "Something so important just went under my nose. I should have been going on those council meetings instead of you." Another quick strike of the wet and strong muscle stopped his chastising.
"How is the Mangler reconstruction going?"
Hiccup groaned, brought again to the frustrating piece of parchment. "Guess what? I can't recall how I built this thing!"
Toothless groaned, bringing the topic back up. "Couldn't your dad just order the law changed? I get it that it would make him at odds with others, but really!? He is your alpha!"
Hiccup shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. He couldn't just declare it. The council is the supreme authority to the chief, just as the Ting is to the council."
Toothless blinked in surprise, then slumped. "So I can't challenge him, win his position, and change it. Good that it works this way rather than like in dragon flocks though. Still overcomplicated."
The teenager sent the dragon a bewildered look. "You intended to challenge him?"
Toothless did not respond, just looked at his friend calmly, and Hiccup shook his head. "But it still leaves Iiiiing, right?"
Hiccup rested his chin in his hands morosely. "The council could call up a Ting... or a sufficient amount of people... Bjorn certainly would support this, so it would pass... but there is no guarantee it would actually work."
"They would let it happen? I didn't think so many humans in this tribe are that wretched," the Night Fury muttered.
"It isn't that they are wretched, it is that they are indifferent. Thraldom is something that hasn't happened on Berk for three hundred years. The only way they would approach it is theoretically, and theoretically, at least indentured servitude is paying back debts. It could be spun easily into something no one that isn't careless has to suffer, and then they could add clan conflicts on top of it. Sure, I can speak and persuade people, most of them owe their lives to you, as much as some of them still resent this fact, and Stoick is respected as well, but there is no guarantee, and losing it would result in it being much more established than if it is legislated by the council out of the way and view of most people."
Toothless stared at the floor intensely enough that it could burst into flames. "So you are saying that we need to bide our time until victory is assured?"
Hiccup nodded. Toothless let out a prolonged sigh. "Iiiine."
The human blinked. "I nearly, well, completely, forgot. How is your Islandic going?" Toothless deadpanned. "You heard it."
"Come on, you can do better than that," Hiccup encouraged, as it now seemed, in vain.
"No, I cannot, no matter how hard I try. I just couldn't possibly pronounce some sounds at all. I think it is because of how my body is built. It is the reason why Blitz chose Latin specifically; we could pronounce it correctly at all."
Hiccup slumped. "So you will never chat with most people then. Well, I guess I should go back to my work, it isn't like I could endure flying with weather like that."
Toothless nodded and then stood there for a while, clueless. Then he crawled down the narrow stairs in search of chores to do. Soon the ever-present sound of fire flared up a little, presumably the Night Fury maintaining the hearth, then some tumbling and snarls. Hiccup welcomed the excuse to go down and check what was going on.
It was the most hilarious thing he had seen in a while; Toothless trying to keep a brush on a long handle gingerly between his teeth and clear a floor with it. He burst out laughing. The dragon rolled his eyes, leaned the brush against the wall, and retorted. "Go back to work, we need those things."
The teenager couldn't help but giggle even when working on the Mangler plans. A Night Fury cleaning the floor! If only the proud dragon knew that in some places for richer families servants were doing it - maybe he could start calling him a 'maid'... but it would mean that he would no longer clean by himself after he learned what it meant, and Hiccup would need to do it in his stead.
The parchment with the Mangler on it was moved aside and another, clear one brought under his pen. How were servants dressed in Solarian's land again? He should have a drawing of it somewhere, and indeed, he somehow managed to find it under a years-old pile of random items, as if led by some god (he couldn't manage enough focus to remember which one) and started drawing.
He suddenly froze when the door of his room opened, and then laughed hard when the Night Fury brushed the floor meticulously. Then the brushing stopped and in what seemed like an instant, a pair of light green eyes looked over his shoulder. Hiccup tried to hastily hide the drawing, but Toothless just rested his head on his hands, pinning them down, and looked at the drawing of himself in a maid dress.
Hiccup paled and remarked inwardly with stunned certainty, I am dead.
"What is this? Me wearing human clothes? Hiccup, you were supposed to focus on the Mangler, we need it."
He couldn't breathe a sigh of relief, or else the dragon would get suspicious, but damn, he really ought to. "Yeah, I just can't do it, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it."
"You made it in the first place!" exclaimed the disgruntled dragon.
"And I don't remember how." Hiccup put emphasis on the word; the dragon's tone was getting on his nerves and fast.
"Human non-memory, pathetic. Pity that you need to endure relying on something as flawed. When will you forget about how we met?"
Hiccup glared at him incredulously. "I would never forget that! What is this all about!?"
"We need—"
"Yes, you said it already, like, ten times today, and a thousand times from when devastating winter..." Hiccup trailed off, and the dragon snorted, not looking at him.
"No, I said it exactly two times today, and twenty-six times this devastating winter before," replied the Night Fury irritated. "Which doesn't change the fact that you should focus on it. It's sufficiently small to fit on a dragon the size of a Monstrous Nightmare and above, it will be a great asset against other Night Furies."
"It's like banging my head on a rock; it just doesn't work! Could you give me a break?"
Toothless snatched up the parchment Hiccup was drawing on, a depiction of him, and placed it behind his sleeping plate.
"W-what are you doing?"
"Getting rid of distractions so you can focus."
"I don't want to do it!"
"We need—"
"Stop pestering me! What has gotten into you?" Then Hiccup blinked, recalling his previous thought. "You just don't have anything to do."
Toothless grumbled. "I have cleaning to do," and snatched up the broom again.
"Don't you see it's meaningless? 'It will just get dirty again, why bother. It is a waste of time.'"
"It is a low-priority task, but I have no other," the Night Fury responded curtly.
"Toothless, you need to relax. Do something just for yourself."
The dragon sighed. "There is nothing for me that I can do, so I'll just do something useful."
"Flying?"
"You would get sick in this weather."
"I can make you an automatic tailfin."
Toothless growled. "No. It pinches my living tailfin. And only mimics its movements. And it's heavy. I don't like it."
Hiccup rolled his eyes, and a solution dawned on him as if a candle was set alight in his mind.
"What about drawing?"
Toothless blinked, not understanding.
"The first time I went into the cove, I drew your face, and you drew mine."
Toothless tilted his head. "And now you drew me in human clothes." A bit of sweat gathered on Hiccup's brow. "Y-yeah."
Night Fury nodded and purred. "Yes, this sounds fun! You are the smartest and most amazing person, Hiccup!"
"Glad to be of service — what are you doing!?"
The dragon in question clawed at the wooden floor, looking up upon his remark.
"What is the problem?"
Hiccup shook his head. "You can't do it on the floor, we would need to change the planks! Here, some parchment."
The parchment ended up torn apart in short order.
"Right, what else could- yes, I have an idea. Let's go!"
"You will be sick."
"Come on, it will be short, and we won't fly high. Just a quick hop to our friend's house to ask him for help."
The dragon relented, and soon they were tarnished by the wrathful weather for a while before entering a house at the outskirts of the village, near where the sheep were spending the winter.
"Hi, Bucket!"
"Hi, Hiccup!"
"Toothless has nothing to do, so I thought, could we borrow your paint and brushes?"
Swiftly, the dragon got a crash course on painting, and they went back to the clanhouse.
"How is it?"
Hiccup looked at the drawing of the tailfin on a shield; the shape was mostly flawless, but it was dotted with scattered patches of paint, the dragon unable to handle the brush well enough. "It-It is pretty."
Toothless slumped.
"No, really, it's amazing for your first time. You should have seen how bad my drawing was when I started."
Toothless perked up and looked expectantly at him.
"It was a figure of speech. Those things aren't even around anymore. They got burnt in one of raids when I was taking them to the forge; I threw them at a dragon who was about to fire at someone..."
Toothless chirped and nuzzled Hiccup affectionately. "Brave and selfless, the best person the world does not deserve."
"Don't exaggerate, everyone would do it, besides, those drawings were godsawful."
The dragon circled the room idly and stumbled upon the parchment he had placed beside his sleeping plate.
"I never liked wearing things... but the saddle harness you made is quite comfortable. I wonder, how would clothes be like?"
"Y-you don't ne-ed them!" Hiccup stuttered, trying to quell his panic.
"I don't need a lot of things, and yet they are nice. Who could make it for me?"
Now he was holding up the drawing of himself in a maid dress.
"I don't, I mean, umm." Bring yourself in order Hiccup, your life is on the line!
"It'll cost a lot. It's a lot of material, much more than for human clothing, and it is much more complex as well. I am not sure if there is even one person on Berk that can make it, and you don't have money to pay for it, sooo." He knew the person in question, and he knew that she would do it just for the sake of trying out dressing a dragon, but he would never, ever say it.
"How could I get some?" Toothless still inquired innocently.
"Umm, I don't have an idea, maybe ask someone else, but since there is no one that can do that anyway—"
"You said you aren't sure, I can ask around a bit. Stormfly seems to know a lot of people."
Crap crap crap. "Maybe better focus on paintings now bud, you have talent, but you need to polish it, refine it." Hiccup deflected. And, thank gods, Toothless agreed.
Right after the Ingerman proposition was passed, the male Night Fury stormed out of the room, snarling all the while. There were still more matters to discuss, some of which would benefit from having the opinion of an actual dragon, but the chief let it go; only the gods knew how often he had to deal with rapid outbursts of anger from people, and he knew that he could do naught to calm down the dragon enough to provide him useful advice.
And besides, after something like that, the dragon needed to let off some steam. Else, they would risk Toothless snapping, and that was one person Stoick wasn't sure he could safely restrain if he needed to. The bitterly swift defeat back in the ring during the fight with the Nightmare still lingered in his thoughts. The Night Fury was just too fast to possibly react in time.
After hammering out the details (the Ingermans were surprisingly accepting smoothly all restrictions placed on Indentured thraldom), they discussed the issue of how being unarmed could work for dragons. Muzzles were obviously off-limits; instead, dragons were to expel all of their gas and wear sheaths over their claws, though that created a problem of actually getting sheaths for so many different kinds of dragons; he noted to ask Hiccup for some solution.
Overall it was sufficient, considering that the only time when anyone has to be unarmed was when attending gatherings with very specific rules, and it took hours for their shots to replenish, and for prisoners... muzzles were deemed no more humiliating than having hands manacled behind backs for humans.
Finally, after hours upon hours of discussion, they raised from their seats and went to do their own thing, only... a thought entered Stoick's head upon looking at the enthralled night fury.
"Herring, I have a proposition."
The man scoffed. "What, restrict it further or have another Ingerman banished?"
Chief was surprised, but he gave justice to his name, maintaining a perfect poker face. "Nothing of the kind. How much would it cost to rent Pebble until spring?"
The older man raised an eyebrow. "Didn't we agree that indentured servants can no longer be traded between members of the tribe?"
Stoick huffed. "That law will be enacted at Spring, just like all the others we are legislating. Besides you would want me to pay off a big part of her debt, and we both know I can't do that. I want to rent her, not buy, until calendar spring."
After short discussion they agreed to the price, lofty one, but doable for Stoick, money and 'servant' were to be exchanged tomorrow morning at Haddock clanhouse.
Upon returning to his house at night and onto the storey Stoick expected to find seething Toothless, but instead, night fury was... painting on the shield? There was a brush tied to a stick dragon was holding, and there was half-way completed painting of what looked like night fury head on the shield.
"Hi stoic."
"Hi Dad."
Chief nodded in acknowledgment, letting slide the fact that dragon didn't used his name but Latin description, and sighed, unwilling to break up this peaceful moment, but knowing fully well that maintaining it a secret would do more bad than good.
"I rented Pebble until the spring."
In a split-second, night fury eyes were on him. Hiccup froze, but he managed to explain in more detail before things got out of hand.
"Laws restricting what is allowed to be done with Indentured thralls are coming into power in spring. What do you think they would do with her before then?"
Hiccup winced. "Exploit as much as they possibly could."
Toothless sent Stoick stern glare. "We will not use her."
Stoick frowned. "That is the point of renting her in the first place." The dragon's pupils rapidly shrunk. "To let her have a break." The pupils returned to their normal size.
"Okay, sorry for taking such assumptions." Toothless took sheepish step back, ducking his head in shame.
Chief shook his head. "No problem, gods only know how irrational people can be when angry."
Mhff Just about only sound she could make with this wretched piece of metal pressing her tongue down: unrecognizable muttering.
Sensation of touch; a kick. Her paws trembled. She couldn't allow herself to be treated like that, but neither did she want to be bitten with this wretched thing while completely frozen in place but still conscious by those darts.
No one will judge, she justified. It was just survival, it was better to bent than break. She knew Blitz would arrive; the location wasn't changed, the humans were still oblivious to their fate and the approaching danger.
Mater-Fulgur lay herself on the stocks, resisting the urge to flatten the human to the wall. She could kill it, even completely blunted claws wouldn't make him survive brute force she could muster, and he was too slow to draw his paralysing weapon, but she didn't know how bad the punishment for it would be, and it wouldn't help with escape anyway. She had little to do but think before she fell asleep. Or rather, worry.
Then there was biting. Ten bites, slashing away her thin scales and inducing agony in flesh below it. She grunted, with eyes screwed shut until it stopped. She'd just snarled at Pitch once! She forced herself to sleep. This was awful, but it was more awful when she had less sleep. That, and sleeping more meant burning less of the meagre amount of nutrients she was allowed to eat.
In the morning, she was woken by scratching behind her ear. It only angered her; did he really think that would soothe her despite all the pain he inflicted on her!?
This time, the stocks were unlocked before she stopped snarling, not after. That didn't give her pause. This creature just thought she would be soothed by it; oh, how wrong it was!
She knew perfectly well why this was done to them. They all knew. Their cover action was far too coordinated to be just happenstance; they were too suspicious while doing it, and it was her fault that she didn't predict it, didn't think of something better, just assumed that humans see them only as mindless animals and are unable to change this view. How wrong she was...
The nocta furae was saddled and led outside. Her reins weren't yanked on, and no metal was driven painfully into the soft flesh of her mouth, but she didn't pay attention to this fact. It took her a few moments to register that the mind-numbing smell wasn't present on the frontal part of the bridle.
Just an oversight. Likely because I was behaving so well for a few days.
There were small animals strapped to her; they landed in the forest, and the small animals were released while she clamped down on the urge to sniff, else they would spot that patch over her nostrils wasn't wet and numb her mind again with this liquid. Smells... they took those animals out here... of course. They used animals to track scents. Thankfully, unless Moonlight crawled this entire way, she couldn't have reached him in so short of a time even with flight, and with Gaze and his intellect, he was sure to evade pursuit.
The human mounted her again and urged her to go, but in the way he did when he wanted her to walk, then immediately to move faster. She obliged, scars from the initial week of this terror providing a good reminder why resisting was not only futile but actively detrimental to put it lightly. She could endure a dozen bites just fine, but dozens were far too much.
The Nocta Furae flew faster, and faster, and faster still, while making rapid turns, dives, and climbs, pushed to her very limits. Why now suddenly? She wasn't forced to go that fast in... ever under those humans' snare, really.
Only when her wings trembled from effort did the human relent and let her land. She fell on the ground, too exhausted to care about the consequences.
And yet she wasn't kicked, nor struck in any way, nor even prodded. There was, however, something warm placed over her. Another attempt to soothe me. Funny.
The dragoness gawped as the restrictive contraption was taken from her head, that outer layer of unforgiving metal no longer pressing her jaws together with strength that made her gums sting, that wretched thick bit no longer rubbing her gums to the point of bleeding. Thank the stars.
The only taint in this perfect moment was the human looking at her. Her maw was no longer intersected by metal, her jaws were no longer hopelessly pinned together, and after spitting out all of the gathered saliva, she considered another option.
She could kill it. They were in the wilderness. There were no other humans around. Then she could go... where exactly? Moonlight didn't mention even the general direction, only the distance to the Blitz nest.
It, of course, couldn't be in the direction of the ocean, but that was it. She had no more clues. She still had reasoning though.
The most logical place for the Blitz outpost would be... mountains! Hard and dangerous to get into for humans, but relatively easy for any flying creature…
...but, she had no clue where mountains could be. They weren't visible on the horizon, so they could be anywhere, and if her assumption was wrong, then... she would have to travel in a circle after reaching the designated distance from this place until she found it. It was doable, if rough to hunt without flight, with significant possibility of regular starvation, and it would be a long time.
Even facing hunger, exhaustion, and likely being longer out there without finding Blitz, she would take it any time over staying in those snares!
The human threw the bridle into the bushes. Her made-up mind froze in bewilderment.
But this was bound to be a distraction, so he could ready the weapon he used to paralyze her like before and bite her back raw with that wretched dead snake! She pounced, pinning him to the ground with her paw and ignoring his panicked blabbering and...
...did nothing. He'd released her from those terrible bonds and tossed them away. He couldn't hope to restrain her again on his own, and the humans' extreme precautions made it an undoubtful fact that they knew about their sapience, so he couldn't hope to outsmart her with ease either.
She tried to wrap up her fury by the thought of him thinking her broken so that she would meekly allow the restraints back on.
It didn't work. She couldn't believe it was the case.
There was only one possibility, one that wasn't as impossible to her as before; simple kindness. He felt pity for her, so he took her away from others and took off her bonds, for nothing else than just relief for her.
"I, Mater-Fulgur, the one who lost her entire family to the humans, who in fiery speeches persuaded dozens of my kind to dedicate their lives to seemingly hopeless cause, who maintained the cohesion and zeal of the single most powerful army ever created, an army that dethroned an entire species from its insurmountable seat, carrying on despite all that had died in the process…can't bring myself to kill a human just because he acted on some atrophied remnants of kindness his pathetic kind have!"
It failed. Even when she spoke aloud, in that language taken from humans and made into their own for the first time in many many years, she couldn't possibly do it.
Mater-Fulgur paid little mind to human gaping at her in utter shock, though a small part of her mind noted that it was likely because she'd just ranted in front of him in latin.
But she had more than just two options, more than kill or release. There was also the third.
She got rid of the human's weapon and ammunition to it, hidden neatly on its forepaw armour. Then she threw away another weapon she knew he had, a metal tooth he fiddled with by the bonfire. She dragged him upward with her teeth, then she pointedly pointed in the direction of the coast. It obliged, still babbling; she hissed dangerously until it stopped.
Right now, she could not risk flight. One look at the sky confirmed that clouds didn't make all-encompassing mist, not even close, just a pathetic few wisps here and there. And that was before considering the possibility of the human defying her. They would go away on foot now, until they reached a more comfortable distance.
The chance of their trail being found was minimal; they flew to this clearing after all, and had nothing particularly smelly with them... wait, the human had one particularly smelly thing that made her mind numb, albeit pleasantly so if he gave enough of it.
Of course, he couldn't understand what she was saying. Irritating. As if those creatures couldn't just have one language as dragons did. She instead nosed her way around until she found it on him and then placed it in the saddlebag still strapped to her.
Rrrrr, she wanted this entire harness off her, but there was no time now, and besides, she needed it to fly, and it could be useful, like to store things. She just needed to go through it all when they stopped to make sure that there is nothing that can be used against her inside.
She didn't as much as flinch when the thing restraining her jaws painfully was taken off (not that it mattered in her bonds), immediately making the most submissive expression she could possibly manage. The two humans — her mistress, armed, and the pack alpha — were amused; she could tell just from the sight.
Whatever they wanted from her, she savoured each moment with her jaws no longer constrained, but still took care to show her obedience and look for the slightest signs of commands.
The human said something. A word she didn't know yet. She just blinked. He wasn't pointing at anything or making expressions; how was she supposed to know—
That terrible, wretched dead snake struck her back and she flinched in pain, whimpering, but didn't dare to snarl or bare her teeth, only touching her nose to the dead wood serving as ground and averting her gaze submissively.
It only angered him. She needed to understand. What could he want from her?
He said it again, then pointed at his mouth and repeated, but in pieces. It reminded her of the way Moonlight taught Scab talking... oh.
Pitch did her best to repeat the sound. The human was displeased and growled at her. She proceeded to repeat it over and over again, trying to improve. Finally, he raised his hand, a signal to stop. She, of course, obliged.
The cycle repeated a multitude of times; she thankfully wasn't struck again. When they left her with only soft not-stuffed head-bind and dead-wood binds, she shifted her focus from following orders to thinking to the best of her ability.
They knew about their sapience thanks to this oh-so-awesome supposed-to-be-from-Blitz female's moronic plan, and now they wanted to talk.
It could be... many things. Good and bad. She didn't have a choice in either case, so she would just submit to their commands completely and get rewarded for it, maybe even allowed more freedom if she proved her loyalty that was set with those few words her fellow slave but nevertheless master said.
And when we get there, I will make sure you will perform the only thing you are good at; pleasing your betters and bringing new life to this world.