Ghost's Reign Chapter 54: A Season of Dragons, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 54, everybody! January was supposed to be calmer why do I feel busier?

Okay honestly the baby Zippleback is in response to the fic A Gift of Wings because while yes survival of the fittest can make logical sense for dragons, it doesn't for Hiccup and stopping him from saving it was smothering a bit of what makes him Hiccup. As for the baby's leg, I raise chickens and sometimes there'll be a chick with a soft limb like that; usually they don't survive but that doesn't stop me from making sure they're safe and fed and warm in the interim. Also the dichotomy of people dunking on Christianity while simultaneously arguing for protecting our disabled populations, which is a Christian tenet, as opposed to natural selection, which their evolutionist viewpoint would favor. Almost like a Theistic viewpoint is the default one...

Moving on—wrote the bit with Felix a while back and I still think it's funny. X'D

Tadashi grumbled a little at having ropes wrapped around him, but this was to be expected.

"Personally I'd rather have Diego," Obake shot at him. "At least I'd have better handholds and some fur to keep me warm. What do you have going for you, hmm? Please, tell me, I'll wait."

Tadashi's response was to sweep his tail under Obake's legs, knocking him to the ground.

"Stupid dragon," he grumbled, rolling upright and glowering at Tadashi's hooting laughter. Shot a smirk at him when Diego swaggered by, preening, having apparently understood what Obake's preference was. Tadashi barked and growled, snorted and looked away—

Made a curious hoot when he saw Obake staring northeast, in his best guess of the location of Yokai.

"I'm not sure I want to go back," Obake sighed. "What little respect I had scraped together was because of you…and I doubt you have a reason to go back, do you."

Tadashi stared at him soberly for a long moment…eventually nudged him with his nose before pawing at him, being careful of his long claws.

"Yes, well, understand that my main reason for at least getting off this island is nobody here knows how to cook. Also if I want to get the side-eye I might as well go back to Yokai and get a decent meal that way." Although he had noticed that the dragon mothers had thawed considerably after his idiot lunge to save the Gronkle. Looked at a nudge to his elbow, expecting Hiro—

Blinked in surprise at a baby Zippleback chirping eagerly at him, one of its mother's heads keeping an eye on it as the other tracked the rest of the hatching. Watch it warily as he tried to shoo the hatchling away…tipped his head as he noticed that one of its paws was kept up near its body.

"Wrr," Tadashi noised, probably to remind him that they were supposed to be leaving.

"In a minute," he said, gingerly feeling the one paw before feeling along the other leg, comparing the two; the crippled one was much softer, and in trying to tease it away from the body (and ignoring the nips to his arm that couldn't get through his coat sleeve) it felt like it was lacking the bone structure it ought to. Watch as another Zippleback landed, horking up some fish before lowering its open jaws, head tipped as he watched the crippled hatchling hustle for the older one but unable to keep up with or muscle past its siblings. Natural selection, it would likely not last past its first year.

And yet….

"Here," he said when the curious cripple came back to sniff at him, dragging around one of Fred's ill-advised attempts at cooking. "Seeing as I'm not eating it."

The hatchling cheered at that, tried its best to dig and pull the flesh apart—nipped at him again when he waved it off, tugging the fish back—

Was painfully aware of the draconic eyes on him as he pulled a little knife out of his boot, of how stiff the adult dragons were as they watched his every move, intense and not relaxing until he had cut the first piece of fish off and given it to the hatchling, quickly learning that he had to feed both heads at the same time if he wanted to avoid anything resembling a squabble.

"Sorry, no," he said, standing when the sated hatchling tried to crawl into his lap for a nap. "I'd like to get back to someplace where I can get a decent meal. Failing that, back to Yokai." Look at Tadashi, who was watching him with a peculiar expression on his scaley face. "Well? Are we going?"

Tadashi huffed, stood and turned so Obake had an easier time of getting on…this would be an uncomfortable ride back, but at least it would be better than the ride here; note to self, a ride on a Gronkle, especially bareback, was as uncomfortable as he felt it would be.

"You stay and behave yourself," he chided Hiro when the little Fury chirped at him, a sentiment that was evidently echoed by Tadashi. Hung on as the Night Fury launched himself over the edge, using that stiff breeze to bolster himself up—

Looked back at the sound of multiple wings stirring, several dragons launching into the air despite Tadashi's protests.

"Apparently I'm going to have to ride Diego back anyway," Obake sighed. Looked to see the hatchlings try to follow—"Tadashi."

Tadashi saw it too, quickly swooped to catch some of the hatchlings who weren't being blown back onto the island, several other dragons doing the same—

Ended up landing, the both of them stony-faced as they debated on this issue.

"I suppose it makes sense they'd try to follow their alpha," Obake decided, taking the ropes off of Tadashi. "Diego, I'm going to need to borrow you."

Diego trying to leave ran into the same problem.

"What, we kicked off a whole migration!?" Obake demanded, some part of him reminding himself that getting irate in front of a bunch of easily-irritated dragons was a bad idea but annoyed that such a simple action was being complicated like this. "One dragon! You can let one dragon fly off, it's not like they don't when they're fishing!" Idiot, he was arguing with a bunch of creatures that maybe understood him. Sag to the ground, sitting crosslegged as he buried his face in his hands—was aware of Hiro nudging him right as the Zippleback he had fed earlier crawled into his lap.

"Stupid. Useless. Reptiles," he ground out finally.

This just got a lot harder.

In other news, taking care of dragon hatchlings was a bit harder than one would think.

Firstly, plopping a fish in front of them didn't do much, they'd nudge and lick it and then look at you expectantly. Turns out the bare minimum required was slicing the fish off the bones and into small chunks they could manage, although some of Dave's crew had gone full-tilt and was grinding up the fish into a paste for the baby Gronkles to eat. Actually, they had pretty much taken point on hatchling care, which was good because the rest of them were tasked with cleaning up the latest dragon-related mess.

"I'm—I can't even—I'm just so cross with you!" Felix managed finally—apparently this had been simmering for a while. "I had to reset the days without incident board because of this! We had finally gotten into the double-digits!"

"Wait, we have one of those?" Dibs asked, baffled.

"I told him making one was just tempting fate," Ralph said.

"I'm sorry—I just figured that with us not getting attacked by dragons it might be worth making!" Felix railed, waving his arms around. "But nooo, you have to go and find a way to cause mayhem anyway! Be honest, you were bored and just wanted to blow something up!"

"You're confusing me with Vinnie," Momakase said.

"You're still partially to blame," Helga shot at her. "Felix, have you done a status report yet?"

"No, and I don't have to do boo—forgive my potty mouth," he said, holding a hand up. Considering he also had his eyes closed and his head turned away, he missed the two women raising their eyebrows at him.

"So one of us is going to have to teach him about swear words," Momakase told Helga.

"Don't you think you've done enough damage?" Helga asked her drily.

"Hey I had help this time."

"At best this is like, half my fault," Dibs said.

"Yes, I already turned Juniper onto the mercies of her mother," Helga said, waving them off. "Felix—"

"I had those buildings fixed!" Felix exploded, jumping up in indignation high enough that the shorter man was even with their heads. "I scraped and pinched and straightened every single nail I could—even the rusty ones!—and what do you do the moment I'm looking somewhere else!?"

"Fixit!" Calhoun barked, stalking over from her own assessment circuit. "Now is not the time for that, now give me some estimation of the damages!"

Felix looked like he dearly wanted to keep railing, swallowed the impulse. "Burnt holes, scorch marks…of course the great big gaping holes in the roofs and walls—"

"Can you fix it?" she asked sternly.

Felix closed his eyes and balled his fists, inhaled deeply. "Yes I can," he gusted through gritted teeth finally. "If I have the right supplies, which I don't—even if we had the raw materials, I'm not sure if you've noticed but our blacksmith has gone missing—"

"Please tell me you cooked up a suitable punishment for Dave," Helga said to Calhoun.

"I did, although I'm sure Obake isn't complaining, wherever he is," Calhoun said, tossing her head as she walked off to ensure the work was getting done. "Likely warmer weather and nobody to deal with? He's probably thrilled to death with no intent of coming back."

This was likely true, Obake had never kept his disdain for cold weather to himself. Return her attention to Felix. "That doesn't get you off the hook."

"What hook? This wasn't my fault!" Felix argued. "Us having no supplies isn't my fault! It took everything I had, every little trick and shortcut I could manage to get what we did have to stretch and it all went to pot because somebody decided to blow all the livable houses up!"

"To be fair, none of us expected the eggs to explode," Dibs offered.

"And to be fair, arguing about it isn't getting anything done," Carl added. "I guess we can all hole up in the great hall, we've done that before."

They had; at least most of the murderous people had gone off with Callaghan. "There, we've given you some time to scrape something together," she told Felix. "Happy?"

"Do I look happy right now?" Felix demanded.

"No, and I gotta admit I'm not used to it," Dibs said. "Ralph, how often does this happen? Ralph?"

Ralph wasn't answering—currently he had a hand shading his eyes and he was peering at something to the south.

"What are you even looking at?" Momakase asked, looking in that direction.

"I don't know," Ralph said. "It looks like a cloud of something."

"Just what we don't need," Helga sighed, looking in that direction as well. Fished in her pockets, dug out a little spyglass to see—

Lowered it, shock emptying her chest. "It's the dragons!"

Tadashi ended up having to give Hiro ten fish.

After it became clear that no one would accept Obake going off with a lone dragon and Obake couldn't stay, the Yokai had paced back to where the dead water-traveler was, pondered it for a long moment before enlisting some of the dragons' help in getting it up onto the island proper. Several hatchlings took it upon themselves to explore as he sorted through everything, Tadashi circling and examining everything and occasionally having to keep an overly ambitious hatchling from doing something stupid or chewing on the not-vines that Obake was busy attaching to the dead water-traveler.

Eventually, fortunately, the hatchlings all went back to their parents when feeding-time rolled around, leaving Tadashi to recline and watch, ear flaps up, as Obake started patching the holes in the dead water-traveler.

"What is he even doing?" he asked Hiro when the smaller Night Fury popped up.

"I don't know exactly," Hiro said. "He's patching the holes but it's not going to keep the water out." pace along the edge to peer at the not-vines. "And it can't be a harness, it's too big to haul."

"For one dragon, definitely," Tadashi said, eyeing the setup with confusion. Looked when Fred came winging in.

"Okay, so I'm pretty sure this is going to work this time, we just need to remember to do both sides," Fred said, depositing a fish on his burning tail. "What's happening?"

"Obake's gone stir-crazy."

"My dude, you gotta just start volunteering for babysitting, that'd fix that right up," Fred offered, looking the dead water-traveler over. Focused on the not-vines...suddenly went to bolt-ready. "DUDE! Wait I think I know what this is!"

Tadashi watched the half-flaming fish go flying into the main lake, looked back at Fred. "Glad someone does—what's he doing?"

"Well understand that I'm not ENTIRELY positive but these bits here look like he's gonna use this for a net," Fred said, nudging some of the not-vines. "That'd save us some time on the fishing, but I'm not sure how the bit in the middle is supposed to work—it isn't quite net material, you get me?"

Hiro's ears perked up at that. "No wait I think I do! If the hatchlings are too young to fly off the island then—"

"Then he's proposing we carry them like in a net?" Tadashi asked, baffled.

"Dude!" Fred exclaimed, head popping up. "That's AWESOME—I volunteer as one of the harness guys, just saying."

If that's what it was—

Tadashi was quickly sorting through the rest of the flight in short order, had several who could handle heavy and long hauls present when Obake finished patching the dead water-traveler.

"Ah, good, you figured it out," he said, climbing out. "Now to find out if herding dragon hatchlings is any less fraught with peril than herding adult Yokai."

It was not less fraught with peril, it took a lot of Furies running around and trying to convince the dragon mothers that yes putting the hatchlings in the water-traveler was a good thing since everyone was insisting on going back early—had to pause and ask Older-Light-Fury if that would affect the younglings' development in any way.

"I honestly have no idea," she confessed. "Mountain-King insisted that we head back as early as possible, so we've never really had the time to establish this."

"Well we don't now either," Tadashi grumbled. "Hey," he barked at Enoka as she hustled her hatchlings by. "Next time leave Obake on Yokai, okay?"

"This time was an accident," she pointed out.

Tadashi huffed, went back to herding and sorting dragons, circling the island several times to ensure no one was being left behind, employed several other dragons to check every nook and cranny...dangit he needed somebody to be actually counting that might make it easier.

As it sat, Obake had everyone harnessed by the time they were satisfied that all the hatchlings were on board—filling the water-traveler stomach with fish helped to keep them there, at least temporarily.

"Okay," Obake gusted, climbing on and hanging onto the water-traveler's arching neck. "Let's get moving before the troops get antsy—you stop that," he said, plucking the Zippleback with the bad leg away from the edge of the water-traveler. "You stay on the inside of the boat."

"What is this?" one head asked.

"Are we gonna fly?" the other head asked, wide-eyed.

"Theoretically," Tadashi told them—glanced to make sure the other dragons would be in position, flying near the water-traveler in case one of the hatchlings decided to be ambitious—nodded at Older-Light-Fury, who bellowed and launched into the air.

Tadashi stayed put, watched as the dragons harnessed to the water-traveler lifted into the air...realized he was holding his breath, let it out in a big gust when the water-traveler lifted off as well. Step one done.

"Make sure nobody falls out, okay?" he asked Hiro as he winged by, trusting Older-Light-Fury to lead them back while he kept an eye on this whole...contraption.

"On it!" Hiro said, a paw to his head in an imitation of a Yokai salute—had to stop a hatchling who was trying to lean over the edge. "No, no, we stay on this side—"

"THIS IS SO AWESOME!" a baby Nadder squealed, flapping her wings and necessitating being rescued by Obake—which, honestly, was his and Hiro's roles for most of the flight, keeping the hatchlings from going over the edge, Hiro distracting them with stories occasionally while Obake checked the not-vines. Tadashi circled around, occasionally questioning the harnessed dragons to see how they were holding up—not that he had any clue how they'd swap in a fresh dragon—and joining the anxious hovering circle that was just waiting for a poor youngling to slip past Hiro and his Yokai.

"This is great!" the little crippled Zippleback screeched.

"Mom! Dad!" the other head called. "Do you see us? You see how we're flying?"

"You're doing great, sweetie," a Zippleback said, coasting closer so one of the heads could nudge the youngling away from the edge.

"Go in the water-traveler belly with your siblings, okay?" the other head asked. "You still need to be eating, otherwise you won't be able to fly yourselves."

"You want big strong wings," the first head agreed.

"Won't the water-traveler eat us?" one head on the hatchling asked, wide-eyed, the other head nodding frantically.

"From experience, no," Tadashi said, coasting over. "Hiro can tell you more—see him sitting over there?"

The little Zippleback hatchling scrambled over to Hiro, peppering him with questions about the water-traveler; Tadashi nodded when one of the Zippleback mother's heads mouthed thank you, angled over to see Obake intercept another hatchling. "I don't dare ask how it's going."

"You'd think with it getting dark they'd settle down," Obake grumbled—Tadashi doubted it was aimed at anyone in particular, but it was a point he agreed on.

It was well after dark when Older-Light-Fury called that they were approaching Yokai, prompting a few finallys from the general flight, Tadashi included—had to take a beat at actually being glad to see that island on the horizon, angled up to scan everything before dipping down to Honeysuckle.

"Well they didn't totally eat each other while we were all gone, by the looks of it," he said, eyeing the island with concern. "Here's hoping they behaved themselves."

"I'm sure they did," Honeysuckle assured him, similarly scanning the island. "They seem excited to see us."

This was true, there was a lot of scrambling and lighting extra torches so the Yokai could see what was coming—looked as the harnessed dragons carefully came in to gently deposit the water-traveler to see Obake perched on the front, one paw clinging to the water-traveler's neck, the other front paw set on his hip, a back paw kicked out into the air, all of him looking very smug at his concept working.

"Finally decide to join us, did we?" Helga asked sardonically when Obake stepped off. "Decide the sunburn wasn't worth it?"

"Oh aren't we funny," Obake shot back—was temporarily cut off by Kogeki landing next to Helga and telling her he missed her. "No, I decided to come back bearing gifts for the holiday, ho ho and all that."

"You're a terrible Santa, just for the record," Helga informed him, mostly preoccupied with petting Kogeki as he nuzzled her—blinked as the first of the hatchlings came tumbling out. "Oh."

"I was feeling magnanimous."

"Those two there are mine!" Kogeki told her proudly, pointing a wing. "Kids, this is your Auntie Helga—where are your siblings?"

"They fell asleep in the water-traveler," one reported as the other sniffed at Helga, crouching down to better see it.

"Third might be sitting on Eighth, but I didn't tell you," the other Nadder hatchling supplied.

By this point the majority of the dragons had landed, those with riders seeking them out as their mates herded their younglings out, Tadashi slowly feeling like he was settling in a warm, soft nest as the two flights reintegrated—nothing was going wrong, everyone was behaving—

"ENOKA!"

"Dave?" Enoka squawked, surprised—

Tadashi wasn't sure what that roar was—surprise and a bundle of other emotions—involuntary, maybe. But Enoka was bounding forward as Dave ran forward, loaded down with—

"MY BABIES!" Enoka cried, shuddering to a halt right before she barreled right into him, shaking and wide-eyed as Dave crouched down and let them crawl off, as her other babies cantered after her—"They're—they're all here…they're all okay…." Couldn't take it anymore, apparently—the moment Dave was free of Gronkle babies she launched herself at him, bowling him over and licking as he laughed and tried to strangle her—well maybe it was a hug.

And looking at the rest of the Yokai, as they picked out the dragons they had partnered with and welcomed them back warmly, excited over the hatchlings…he was aware of Hiro sidling over to him, a smug look on his face.

"Fine, you were right," Tadashi huffed. "Happy now?"

"I am THRILLED," Hiro said, leaping up on him and nuzzling against his neck.

As expected, Obake was peppered with questions the moment the dazzle wore off.

"Understand that if I had proper cooking tools I wouldn't have come back this early," he said finally, glaring at everyone. "I was enjoying the quiet."

"We missed you too," Momakase said, elbowing him as people finally started dispersing enough for him to move around properly.

"No you didn't, you missed someone to be needling to," he accused. "And what happened here?" Obake demanded, finally taking stock of the village.

Momakase was grinning as she leered at Dibs. "You want to tell him, or should I?"

Dibs grimaced. "The uh…the eggs explode."

Obake did his darndest to keep his expression flat as he pieced together the untold story. "Anything else I should know about?"

"Uh…there was one in your house Momakase did that one—"

"I did not!" Momakase said.

Obake sighed, stalked through the village to his house, ignoring the others trailing after him, Felix hastening after them and assuring him I'll put fixing your roof on the top of my to-do list—stood there a minute ascertaining the damage.

"Well?" Momakase prompted.

Well there wasn't really any point in flying into a rage or anything of the sort—simply put, no one knew this would happen, and he supposed he should be grateful they didn't decide on smashing the eggs.

That would have ended very badly.

"Well it's not the first time a Gronkle's gone through my roof," he sighed.

Now here was hoping it'd be the last time.