Lightning And Death Itself Chapter 19

A/N This chapter may be a little hard to follow. Just remember that Hiccup and Astrid can understand human speech, as can Toothless for the most part, but no human can understand dragon speech. Dragons can talk to humans only with simple gestures (like nodding the head) and by scratching runes on the ground, which I've shown as all-uppercase. If I could make human speech and dragon speech look different by using different fonts, I would, but this site doesn't give me that option. It would have made things a lot easier if Hiccup had invented "Dragon Naturally Speaking" software. (Sorry.)

o

There were days when it was harder to be the chief of Berk than others, Stoick decided. Today was certainly one of those days. Nothing serious had happened, except he had finally found and broken the dragons' nest, seen his tribe on the verge of annihilation by the mother of all dragons, seen them rescued by three other (shudder!) dragons, and found himself and all his warriors stranded on a rocky, lifeless island with no way home except a burnt, shattered fleet. Oh, and one more thing – it turned out that one of those dragons that saved his tribe was actually his only son, who had run away weeks ago and had now come back, transformed into every Viking's blood-oath enemy. No, today was not the greatest day of his life. Did Hiccup really have to make things worse by being so difficult?

"Why can't you come home yet?" he demanded. The dragon that was his son scratched some more runes on the rocks with his claw.

NO ONE AT HOME WANTS ME.
I HAVE TO HELP THE OTHER DRAGONS.
THEY SEE ME AS A LEADER

"The dragons... see you... as their leader?" If there was a word that Stoick never associated with his son, even more than "warrior," it was "leader." He loved his son and tried to see his best side, but he really doubted if Hiccup could lead a pack of hungry wolves to meat.

NIGHT FURIES LEAD AND PROTECT
THE NEST. THEY LOVE ME

Stoick just stared at that message in silence. That seemed as impossible as... as all the other impossible things he'd seen and heard and learned today.

"Sir, if I may?" Fishlegs had stayed close to the dragons as everyone else searched for scattered tools and timbers to repair their ships. He and Ruffnut were the only ones who had really believed that two of Berk's missing teens had actually been turned into dragons. Now he had appointed himself as a sort of go-between, trying to help his chief understand these creatures that were his worst enemy until they saved his tribe. "Night Furies are Strike Class dragons, which means they're very intelligent. It makes sense that the other dragons would look up to them."

"Fishlegs, I can understand the dragons looking up to a Night Fury. It's them looking up to Hiccup that I'm having trouble with."

Hiccup turned to Astrid. "If I try to explain to him how everything is different now that I'm a dragon, I'll wear my claws off. I hardly have words for it myself; trying to put it into runes is killing me."

"Then why are you trying so hard to say it all at once?"

Hiccup sighed. "Because for the first time in my life, he's really listening to me."

Astrid glanced upward. Two Nadders and a Nightmare were gliding toward the nest at high altitude. "Here come some more of our dragons. They'll be coming back in twos and threes for a week."

"Astrid, if you were in my shoes, how would you explain to Dad that I can't go home yet, because I feel like I owe it to the other dragons to help them sort their lives out, now that they don't have to feed the Mother any more?"

Stoick turned back to Fishlegs. "Do you have any idea what they're saying to each other?"

"No, sir, I don't speak their language."

"How long would it take to learn?" Before Fishlegs could stammer out an answer to that question, Stoick saw a situation in the ship-rebuilding effort that needed his attention. He stalked off toward the shoreline.

Hiccup found a spot on the rocks that hadn't been written on yet.

YOU CAN'T LEARN OUR LANGUAGE
WITHOUT DRAGON EARS & THROAT

"Thanks, Hiccup. Uhhh, what are you going to do about that injured leg? It looks real bad."

Hiccup was putting off a decision about that. The pain was tolerable as long as he didn't put any weight on it. He knew that wouldn't last. He also knew that the sight of it was upsetting his friends. But the mental picture of being held down while Gobber took a saw... He couldn't stall much longer.

I'LL DECIDE LATER.
I HAVE TO TALK TO THE DRAGONS NOW

He and Astrid flapped up and into the nest, leaving the Vikings to their emergency ship repairs.

Several dozen dragons had already returned to the nest. They were confused. They'd been sent out without a plan in broad daylight, which was unusual. They'd returned with food, and their offerings were ignored. They were hovering in front of a ledge, where Night-fury was trying to explain the new situation to them, when they saw New-night-fury and Small-night-fury.

"Is it true?" they asked. "Is the Mother really gone?"

"Of course it is; didn't Night-fury tell you? We enticed her into the air, shot her wings full of holes, and gravity did the rest. You can see what's left of her on the beach outside the nest."

"New-night-fury, you're hurt!" a female Zippleback called out.

"In wars, sometimes people get hurt," he said. "It's worth it to be free. Free! Do you understand what that means? No more raids! No more send-outs and call-backs! No more giving up all our prey to feed someone who gives nothing in return. No more fear of getting eaten if we don't bring enough! We make our own decisions now! Our lives are our own! We are free!"

"We're free?" one of them asked. "We are free!" said another. It built into a chant, getting steadily louder until the Vikings could hear it outside the mountain. "We are free! We are free! WE ARE FREE!" The Vikings couldn't understand the words, but the dragons' roaring made them nervous. They worked as fast as they could to get away from this place.

Night-fury leaned over to him. "Nice speech. I was having trouble getting the idea across. What do you think we should do now?"

New-night-fury waited until the chant subsided. "Night-fury just asked me a very good question. 'What should we do now?' The answer is, anything we want to do! We can stay here, or if this place holds too many bad memories, we can make a new nest somewhere else. We can hunt and fish, and keep it all for ourselves. We can lay eggs and raise our young, and not worry about whether they'll be killed before they reach full adulthood. We can explore the world and make contact with other nests. We can fly around in circles all day if that's what we want.

"Now here's a crazy idea. Now that we don't have to raid the humans anymore, maybe we could try to make friends with them? They're intelligent, social creatures, like us but not as strong."

"And they can't fly!" It sounded like a Nightmare's voice. Many dragons laughed at that.

"I know it sounds impossible," New-night-fury went on, "but we've seen some impossible things happen already. Keep an open mind."

"New-night-fury, is it true that one of those humans down there is your father?" That sounded like a Nadder.

"Yes, that's true. I've tried to talk to him; it's hard when he can't understand me. The real problem is, he can't accept a dragon as his son. He's working on that."

"Does he want you to go home with him?" the Nadder asked.

"Yes, he does. It would be hard for him, and hard for me, but that's what he wants."

"Are you going to leave us?"

New-night-fury wanted to be encouraging, but he couldn't lie. "I don't know."

That set off the crowd. "No!" "Don't go!" "Please don't leave us!" Again, the Vikings heard the dragons' commotion inside the mountain and got nervous.

New-night-fury turned away. Small-night-fury was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

"Hiccup? What's wrong?"

He turned his head to face her. "They want me to stay! Even though they don't need me as a protector anymore, they still want me here. They... they really like me." He turned away again, very moved. "I never had that happen before."

"Yes, you did," said Toothless softly.

"Yeah, like he said," said Astrid. They both slid alongside him.

He wrapped one wing around each of them, grateful for the support. "You're right, both of you. I meant I never had a whole village of people tell me they like me. It's an awesome feeling, but right now, it makes things complicated.

"They need me. My father needs me. What should I do?"

They didn't know what to tell him.