Night Furies: the Next Generation Chapter 3

A/N From now to the end of this story, underlined text means someone is speaking in Forge, the new language that the smith twins and the Night Fury twins invented together. Normal text will show human speech, and will also show the dragons speaking dragon-language. I tried using italics to show the humans speaking Norse, and it made things more confusing, not less. The best way to tell the two languages apart is to keep track of who's speaking.

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It didn't take the assorted twins long to get their new language working. It was far from complete, of course; they knew that, if they succeeded, they'd keep adding new words all their lives. But they had a basic vocabulary in place, and even if they couldn't say much more than "Good morning, how are you?" and "I'm fine," it was still fun to say it in a way that all four of them could understand.

Night-fury-smallest-girl didn't exactly work at learning the new words (that would be boring), but she picked them up by listening to the others, and she had no trouble making herself understood. New-night-fury worked diligently at it, which surprised no one. Night-fury-mother-of-twins had to work a little harder at it than her mate did.

"It sounds like we're talking with a mouth full of fish," she complained. "I've really gotten used to the richness of our dragon voices, and now we're setting that aside?"

"Only to talk to the humans," Hiccup answered. "The poor, frail creatures can't hear all that richness anyway." Astrid saw him use the phrase "poor, frail creatures" as his father walked by, and laughed out loud. But she knew what he meant.

As the smith-apprentice twins had suspected, there wasn't much interest among the Vikings of Berk in learning to talk to dragons. Their actual reactions were varied, but they all boiled down to the same thing.

"Listening to my wife talk all day and all night isn't enough – you want me to listen to my dragon, too?"
"I've got a growing family and a growing Gronckle to feed; I don't have time for language lessons."
"I already know what my dragon would say. 'Feed me, feed me, feed me!' "

Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut were equally disinterested. When Agmundr asked them why, Snotlout summed it up nicely. "We know Fishlegs is going to leap at a chance like this, and if he likes something, that means we should avoid it. No, thanks!" He was right about Fishlegs, though. He and Meatlug enthusiastically joined the project and formed the third dragon/rider pair who could talk to each other.

Most of the other dragons were intrigued at the idea, but saw no point in trying it if their riders didn't want to learn it too.

For the sake of getting more practice, Agnarr and Agmundr started talking to each other in Forge, even when their dragon friends weren't around. When they needed a word that wasn't in their vocabulary, they'd drop back to speaking Norse for a few seconds, then return to their new tongue. Gobber had to get used to hearing a new kind of conversation around the forge, with sentences that sounded like, "Snarl sna-ARL gurgle grunt-grunt growl alloyed with some tin to make it malleable, moan growl MOAN snar-r-r-rl." It was especially jarring when one of the Night Furies stuck its head in the forge window and made dragon noises, and one of the twins answered in kind.

Of course, a conversation like that was certain to catch young Varinn's attention. Gobber's "other, other apprentice" didn't have a lot to do, now that the master smith had three young apprentices, two of whom were already quite skillful. He'd been conscripted into the forge during the Berserker War because the tribe foresaw a huge need for weapons repairs, but that need never materialized because the dragons of Berk did all the fighting in that war. He'd started learning some serious smithcraft instead, and while he was far from equaling the ex-Berserker twins in skill or technique, he was somewhat more reliable than they were, and Gobber was reluctant to let him go. Varinn insisted that the twins explain what they were talking about, and he quickly began his own language lessons. Once his curiosity was appeased, he kept at it so he could teach Forge to Scrubby, and as soon as the other Terrible Terrors heard him conversing with their small reptilian friend, they had to learn it too. Then Scrubby's mother, Nadder-blue-flies-in-the-storm, wanted to know what was going on, and she began learning some Forge words. The twins' little project was slowly gaining momentum.

One morning, Gobber informed Agnarr and Agmundr that he didn't have much work, Varinn had that work covered, and the twins could take the day off. They glanced at each other as they left the forge.

"What we do today?" Agmundr asked, speaking Forge.

"We fly today," Agnarr answered. "Dragons like fly." Of course they did! It took no persuading to get all four of them into the air and headed out to sea for the day. It was an ideal chance to practice their new language on each other, now that they would have no access to dirt or sand tables for several hours. They didn't have that many words to share yet, but the ones that they had were usually enough, seeing how most of their in-flight dialog consisted of "Look left" (or right or up or down) and "What is that?"

They stopped for lunch at a small, uninhabited islet in the middle of nowhere. The Night Furies left their humans there, did some fishing, brought their catch back to where the twins had gathered some driftwood, and lit the campfire. They all enjoyed their lunch together, put out the fire, and resumed their relaxed flight.

After a few hours, Night-fury-six-shooter said to Agmundr, "We go home soon?"

"Yes," her rider answered. "Soon be night. If we miss supper, we hungry. Do not want!" He called to his brother and the other dragon, "We go home."

"Look left," Agnarr called back. "Island."

"What island?" Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang asked. "Vikings there? Safe for dragons?"

"I don't know," Agnarr replied. "Fly fast, look fast, go home." The dragons banked gracefully together and overflew the unknown island. It was covered in pine trees and looked quite pleasant. There was no evidence that people might be there, except a handful of dilapidated small boats that looked so old, they might have been abandoned.

Suddenly a crossbow bolt screamed through the air toward them. It didn't miss Night-fury-six-shooter by much. "Arrow!" Agmundr screamed – they hadn't made a word for "crossbow bolt" yet. "Go up fast!" The dragons were already taking evasive action as they climbed; they didn't need a warning in Forge to tell them what was happening.

Then a volley of bolts flew out of the trees at them, and there were too many to dodge. Night-fury-six-shooter caught one in her tail, and another struck one of her ribs. She screamed; Agmundr leaned over to pull out the one in her rib, only to feel another bolt pierce his forearm and pin him to his dragon for a few seconds. At the same time, a bolt hit Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang in the hind leg. A second one would have hit him in the shoulder, but Agnarr's leg was in the way. By the time their unknown assailants had reloaded their crossbows, the dragons had gained enough height to be out of range.

"Take us home," Agmundr gasped, abandoning Forge for Norse.

"Too far away," his brother groaned. "Back to where we ate lunch! We need to bandage these wounds quickly." The Night Furies turned back and flew as quickly as they could. Their landings were not graceful; those wounds hurt. All four of them were bloodstained and shocked.

The boys pulled out the bolts, and they all soaked their wounds in salt water for a few minutes, until Agnarr spotted a shark fin approaching the shore. He and Agmundr tore up their tunics to make bandages, and they did the best they could to patch the wounds, first for their dragons, then for each other. They sat down and took stock of their situation.

"Who did that?" Six asked.

"Outcasts," Agmundr decided. In Norse, he added, "No one else uses crossbows in this part of the world. They must have been a scouting party, looking for food or resources on other islands." He flexed his fingers and winced. "Torden og lyn, that hurts!"

"How well can you fly?" Agnarr asked the dragons.

"Hurts, but can fly home," Bang answered. Six just nodded, then asked, "You okay?"

"I think we'll make it," Agmundr replied. "Let's rest for a minute, then get home." The dragons lay down, and the boys leaned back against them. They actually rested for almost half an hour before they felt like they could try flying again. The flight home was very quiet.

When they got back to Berk, most of the town was eating in the Mead Hall. No one noticed their arrival except the watchdragon, who was guarding against any attempts on the lives of the Night Furies. Tonight, it was Barf and Belch's turn to be on duty; they took one look at the injured twins and let out a roar that woke the other dragons, and those roars alarmed the entire village. Hiccup and Astrid were the first to reach the scene.

"What happened?" Astrid burst out. Hiccup asked the same thing in Forge. The four answered in their own native languages, all at once, but the dragons figured out the story anyway. By that time, some of the Vikings, including Gobber, had reached them.

Gobber turned to Varinn. "Go tell Gothi she's got customers, two large an' two small," he ordered. "We'll bring th' casualties to her, but she's gonna have a long night tonight." The young man nodded and dashed away. "What happened to ye?" he demanded of Agnarr.

"Outcast ambush," he answered as he slowly slid off his dragon, favoring his injured leg and trying not to put any stress on Bang's hurt leg. "We thought the island was uninhabited; it was probably a scouting party that got us."

"We each caught a crossbow bolt," Agmundr added, "except for Six; she got two of them and a piece of mine. None of the wounds are serious, but they hurt like crazy."

"All four o' ye, follow me to Gothi's," the old smith ordered. "After the beatin' the Outcasts got from yer dragons, they probably have nothin' but old iron to use fer their bolt tips. They're probably rusty, and that can kill ye. We'll take no chances with any of ye." He led the two injured boys and the two injured Night Furies, accompanied by most of Berk's dragons and a few curious Vikings, to the shack where the town's mystic and healer lived.

It was, indeed, a long night for Gothi.

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A/N
If you want to understand the references to Varinn, Scrubby, and the Terrible Terrors, you'll need to read another story of mine, A Nadder's Mystery.