Ghost's Reign Chapter 4: Hunting Down Concerns, a How to Train Your Dragon + Big Hero 6 Crossover fanfic

Chapter 4, everybody! Posts will probably be really early or really late in the day until the weather breaks, we've been having to get up early to get weeding done in the garden and then have to vege in the AC until we get back to normal temperatures. Fortunately, everything is written up for the next couple of months so we're good. :D

In other news, Tadashi is trying to have brotherly bonding time and Yokai habits are getting in the way of this. Also some vibes from Kovu teaching Kiara how to hunt in The Lion King II. And Hiro's testing to see if all Yokai are resistant to cute. Tadashi, meanwhile, does not trust Yokai and is resistant to cute. And quotes Pearl from The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells.

Little-Brother had wanted to follow Obake around the next day—of course he did. He was fascinated by the Yokai, and now that they weren't all actively trying to kill each other Little-Brother was wanting to study every single facet of their lives—ostensibly so he could duplicate the success elsewhere. At least he had listened to Fred, was no longer trying to get everyone to call him Yokai-Tamer.

But Older-Brother insisted, they were going hunting, he was going to teach Little-Brother how to hunt land prey today. They had plenty of opportunity to practice with fish, but land prey was something they needed to go out and practice on—and Mountain-King had always stopped them. That it got Little-Brother away from the Yokai temporarily was a bonus.

The fact that this was new and therefore interesting blunted Little-Brother's complaining, at least.

"Now," Older-Brother said, as they padded into the forest. "First rule is to stay quiet—we don't want our prey to hear us coming from a mile off. Understand?"

"Got it," Little-Brother said, nodding.

"Okay. Next is to be aware of the wind at all times—if you're upwind of prey they'll scent you. Downwind, you scent them. You feel it?"

"I feel it."

"Good," Older-Brother said, lowering himself. "Now. Hunting land prey from the ground is different than stooping on them from the air—we'll cover that. Here, you need to keep your center of gravity low—feel the earth in your claws, place every paw just so, nice and soft. Even the slightest movement, one startled jay, will alert your prey to your presence. You need to be as silent and stalking as a shadow, as natural to their surroundings as nightfall."

"Then shouldn't we be doing this at night?"

Yes, but he really just wanted Little-Brother away from the village. "Well, you get hungry during the day too, don't you? Now. Another important thing is patience—you're going to need to sneak up really close to strike. If you lunge from too far away, your prey gets the chance to build up speed and flee. No, plasma blasts don't help, if you hit one you'll blow it to bits and if you miss you just alerted the whole forest to your presence."

Little-Brother huffed at having his unspoken idea shot down—oh no, there went that ear. "What if…we made a trap? Like the Yokai do."

Ugh. "No. You're not a Yokai, you're a dragon. They don't have claws and teeth and wings and everything else that makes dragons so special, so they have to bother with traps. Also, you don't have opposable thumbs and bendy talons like they do."

Little-Brother scowled at his paw—

Twitched, put it down, smiling at him. "Maybe not—but I can think of at least one trap that we can do—come on."

"Little-Brother, NO—" Too late, gone. Groan, bound after him, follow until they found a trail that wound away from the nest and down through the woods. Scent suggested no Yokai had used this trail in a while.

The fact that they had to wend around several existing Yokai-traps gave him some clue as to why.

"Okay," Little-Brother said, jumping up and grabbing a branch in his mouth. Older-Brother watched for a long time, wondering what he was planning (and what kind of Yokai trickery this could possibly be) when Little-Brother finally dropped back down.

"Okay, new plan," Little-Brother said. "You get the branches off the trees, I'll dig the hole."

"What hole?" Older-Brother asked, confused at Little-Brother's digging.

"It's called a pit trap—you dig in down deep, and then the branches go on top to hide it, and then the prey falls in!" Tip his head. "Sometimes there's spikes at the bottom, but we're not doing that in case someone we know falls in instead of…hey, I bet you a nice fat boar could fall in this!"

"Little-Brother, no," Older-Brother insisted. "We're not doing that."

"At least let me try?"

Sigh, consider. "If we do this, are you going to enjoy the rest of the hunting lesson? No complaining?"

"Fury's honor."

"All right," he sighed, padding to the nearest tree. "Green branches?"

"Yes—it's gotta have leaves to cover it."

Oi this wasn't going the way he wanted it to at all.

A few sun marks later, and they were looking at a…really obvious trap.

"Pretty sure any prey would be smarter than this," Older-Brother pointed out.

"Not if we scrape some dirt on it," Little-Brother said, turning around and kicking some dirt across the leaves. "Not a lot though, otherwise it'll all fall in. But just you wait, this is going to work."

"If you say so. Now come on—you promised."

"All right, all right…you're going to be impressed though."

"Sure, sure…."

They covered other important points of hunting on land—scenting, tracking, knowing if what you were hunting was too much for you or if you could take it with a wing of dragons—before actually trying to track something down and catch it.

This was where they ran into a little snag.

"So…it's been hours, now," Little-Brother said, pausing to lick his paws. "And we still haven't found anything yet."

Older-Brother sniffed under another bush, around another log—this made no sense, there should have at least been little frogs and lizards that Little-Brother could practice his pouncing on! Listen carefully, filtering out Little-Brother's grumblings….Not even birds.

"This makes no sense," he said flatly, sitting down. "An island this size should have a whole ecosystem going—bird nests we could raid."

"That doesn't exactly sound like a good thing," Little-Brother pointed out. "Isn't that mean to birds?"

Older-Brother huffed, decided not to answer that one. "But…I don't get it. It's like the island's…dead. There should be something besides dragons and Yokai here."

Little-Brother huffed, thinking. "Well…maybe it's like with our old nest, where we hunted it bare because of Mountain-King and no other animals wanted to live there because of all the dragons—you know the Yokai had a bad alpha too."

Maybe that was true. "All right then—let's find another island to try."

The next island was just as barren when they ran through it, and by then it was getting late and Older-Light-Fury would worry. Older-Brother insisted that they'd try again the next day.

The next day had them exploring all the smaller islands that were satellite to the Yokai-nest—with the exception of one island, which had the nest of Terrors (who seemed pleased that he had Little-Brother with him and aggravatingly called him Yokai-Tamer), all the islands were barren of animal life. Consulting the Terrors suggested this had been this way since before he had defeated Mountain-King.

"Okay," Older-Brother muttered, curled up with Little-Brother snuggled against his chest that night. "Tomorrow we'll just have to fly a little farther to a different island."

"If you say so," Little-Brother said. "But I want to check our trap before we do."

The trap hadn't had any luck either, and the next morning saw Little-Brother on Older-Brother's back as he flew off in search of an island to properly hunt on.

"I'm thinking this is starting to become a point of contention," Little-Brother observed.

"I've got a point to make," Older-Brother muttered.

The next island they came across did have something—a bunch of feral hairy things about Little-Brother's size that hissed and spit and looked to be mostly bone and fur. Their scent was everywhere and overwhelming, and they seemed to have eaten everything of note on the island.

There was something else on the island too: the burned-out husk of a not-dragon nest.

They sniffed at it cautiously, noting that the burnt smell was old, that nature had made good progress in reclaiming its territory from the not-dragons—if he hadn't spent so much time looking down on the Yokai-nest, he might not have recognized the bones, would have been confused by the faint smells.

"So are we going to try those things?" Little-Brother asked, watching one of the hairy hissing things watching them. "Don't think they'd be worth the trouble."

"They're not," Older-Brother confirmed. "Come on—let's try somewhere else."

The next several islands over the next several days were all variations on the first, except without the hairy hissing things (flying over that one a few days later saw one of the hairy hissing things dead and the others gnawing on it). As far as he could fly and still be expected to get back that day, in every direction, the islands were devoid of life, picked clean by predators.

Specifically, the ones that Little-Brother insisted on returning to.

Little-Brother was beginning to get frustrated too, not only from the lack of hunting, but also because his trap wasn't working either.

It finally got to the point that Older-Brother told Older-Light-Fury that they were going hunting, they'd be back in a couple of days, hold down the nest while they were gone. Launch into the air, fly as far as he could in a day, searching each and every island they passed.

It took three days of flying to finally find an island with animals on it.

He was finally able to teach Little-Brother something of hunting, and the island was overrun with rabbits—because there were no larger animals, Older-Brother noticed. These islands had been decimated, overhunted…rival nests, in some cases. Destroyed, laid to ruin.

And one nest at the center.

Little-Brother looked up, smiling as he licked his chops clean.

"Okay, you were right, this was worth it," he admitted.

Older-Brother nodded—yes, it was.

At the very least, it gave him some idea of what they were dealing with.

Hiro enjoyed hunting, sure, but now that they were back at the nest he could get some REAL work done.

Specifically, furthering the relationship between dragon and Yokai.

And to do that, he needed to test.

"Hello," he greeted, sitting down in front of a Yokai that was eating what smelled like cooked fish. Sniff—not the heavy-sauce stuff or the sushi with all the trimmings, just pure unbridled fish. Maybe shrimp.

"Uh," the Yokai noised, confused.

Okay, moment of truth—tip his head, widen his pupils, ear flaps down…he'd probably have to try a few combinations, but this was important practice: time to see if all Yokai had a natural resistance to cute.

"Uh," the Yokai noised, confused.

"I'm cute," Hiro said, keeping his tone at a warbling purr. Lower himself down, roll a little. "I am cute and small and adorable and innocent and you will give me that fish because of all these things."

The Yokai hesitated, looked around…gave him a piece of fish.

"Yes!" he cheered, bouncing up and taking the fish. "Good Yokai. Hrm." This fish was crunchy and had something else on the outside—crunch-crunch-crunch swallow…ow. Note to self, did not like it when they did that to fish either. "Thank you," he added, purring and reinforcing the cuteness before wandering off in search of some dragons to teach this to.

In short order, he had several Nadders, a couple of Zipplebacks, a few Gronkles, and a Nightmare in tow, teaching them yet another Basic of Living With Yokai.

"Eyes big, be nonthreatening," he was telling them.

"What are we doing?" a Terror asked, sailing in.

"I'm teaching a way to get fish from Yokai."

"Ooh, I like this," the Terror said, licking an eye. "So what do we do?"

"Okay—eyes big, be nonthreatening—strive for 'cute.'"

"I'm not sure if I can do cute," the Nightmare said, considering. "Do they give fish for being awesome instead?"

"I'm sure some do. Purring and warbling helps, maybe going on your belly and rolling over a little."

"How is this a good thing?" a Nadder asked, not convinced.

"Because so long as they see us as a big scary other, they're going to always have one paw on their metal-claws. This gets them to loosen up."

"I'm gonna try it," the Terror said, padding over to a Yokai. "Hey, you! Yeah you—look at me. See me. I am cute, I am cuddly, I am in need of fish and…and what's it doing?"

"That's called 'scenting,'" Hiro supplied. "It's offering you its hand to scent so you can smell that it's okay. Usually that precedes petting and scritches."

"Hmm," the Terror noised, sniffing the offered hand. "Well it doesn't smell bad—doesn't smell like fish either—what's happening?" she asked, when it moved on to back scritches. "What—oh wait that feels good—lower, lower," she ordered, back foot thumping.

"I'm not sure I'm impressed," one Nadder said, tipping her head to watch the show better. "I think I'll take my chances with fishing."

"Me too," another Nadder said, flying off with her. Hiro huffed as they left, looked at the rest of them.

"Are we going to have to get two Yokai?" one Zippleback head asked.

"No, silly, they've got two paws," the other head said. "Let's go find one."

"I will be CUTE and I will get FISH from a Yokai if it KILLS ME," the Nightmare decided, storming off in a different direction.

"Approach GENTLY!" Hiro yelled after him. "Okay, good talk guys, good luck with the practicing!" Huff and flop down, didn't move until he felt a cool huff on him.

"You are distressed," Healing-Talons observed.

"I want everyone to just—get past the whole standoffish thing already," Hiro muttered. "This could be SO AWESOME if everyone just—stopped giving everyone dirty looks for like ten seconds and interacted."

Healing-Talons sat down. "Sometimes change is painful. It is natural to want to avoid pain."

"Yeah," Hiro sighed.

Healing-Talons poked him. "You are already making a big difference. Change just takes time."

"Yeah. Wish it was faster though." Sit up, shake his head so his ears flapped against his neck. "I'm going to go see what Obake's doing—he's usually good for ideas."

"I do not think the Yokai understand us," Healing-Talons said as he followed Hiro.

"No, but I like rambling at him and he likes rambling at me. Hey wait a minute, why am I walking?" Jump up onto Healing-Talons, pointed a paw. "That way!"

They wound through the village-nest, reached the forge, found Obake scraping and rooting around for metals.

"Is he foraging?" Healing-Talons asked.

"For metal," Hiro said, jumping up onto the counter. "He can make things out of it. And leather," he added, noticing the pile of animal hide. Chuff to get his attention before bouncing in.

"Ah, there you are," Obake greeted. "I'm straining to find a reason to avoid Momakase—give me a reason."

"She needs someone else to sharpen her talons on," Hiro said. Look at the Wooly Howl. "Come on in—just be careful you don't knock anything over."

Healing-Talons padded in cautiously—stopped when he knocked over a broom. Blink at them. "I have knocked something over."

"Yeah," Hiro huffed, sides twitching. "I noticed."

"Maybe you stop right there," Obake said sternly, hand up. "Still need a name for you—preferably not what Carl suggested."

"What'd Carl suggest?" Hiro asked, making sure to look exaggeratedly curious.

"For the record, I would expect Yokai to come up with more intimidating names than Honey Lemon or Dibs' idiot suggestion or—or Baymax, which I can't make sense of the reasoning there—"

Hiro looked at Healing-Talons, head tipped as he considered the name. "I don't know, what do you think?"

"I think I will have to come in further in order to turn around," Healing-Talons said.

"Right. Chat names later."

"In the meantime, I've hopefully found something else to occupy my time," Obake said, pulling out a familiar leather shape. "Remember this?"

Hiro's ears flipped up. "Oh yeah, I do."

"Now, the idea for this was that I'd test out designs on you while you were still small and not a strain on supplies, with the eventual idea of getting out of here. But you're not going to be big enough to carry a grown man for years, are you."

Hiro considered this. "Probably not. Continue."

Obake obliged. "But your big brother…now he's a Night Fury that could carry a person. I have a plan, but I know he won't let me near him. That's where you come in."

Hiro listened, discarding words he was still unfamiliar with but getting the general gist—he was wiggling in excitement when Obake finished and the implications set in.

"I take it you're in agreement," Obake said, slipping the saddle on him.

"Yes," Hiro said—this would be the next critical step in dragon-Yokai relationships.

"Good," Obake said, lifting Hiro's head so he was looking him in the eye. "I trust you can sell this."

"Totally—I could sell seawater to a Scauldron if I needed to."

"I have concerns," Healing-Talons said.

"Just come straight in, turn around, and head back out. You're fine."

"Good boy," Obake said, scooping Hiro up. "Now, don't let any of the Yokai see you—I want to make sure this plan works first, and I don't want to go giving anyone ideas. Understand?"

"Got it," Hiro said, bounding out. "Come on, 'Baymax.'"

"I am still stuck," Healing-Talons announced.

Which took some finagling on everyone's part to fix, but they managed.

Hiro bounded along, adroitly avoiding Yokai eyes. This was true.

Obake hadn't said anything about avoiding other dragons, and they were crucial for Hiro's plan to work.

"What is that?" a Nadder asked as he went by.

"Smaller-Night-Fury, you have something on you," another Nadder offered.

"I know," Hiro said, ignoring that he was still being called that instead of Yokai-Tamer. "Come on, I'll explain in a bit."

He had a crowd of curious dragons when he finally found his brother.

"Older-Brother!" he cheered, bouncing off his side before dashing around his paws. "Miss me?"

"Yes," Older-Brother said, standing on his tail so he'd stay still. "WHAT do you have on you."

"That was my question," a Nadder said.

"Ah, right," Hiro said, waving his wings for attention. "What I have is the latest in Yokai-tending technology! Now, you can bring your Yokai with you when you fly! They call it…a saddle!"

Most of the dragons looked confused; one of the Nadders stepped closer to sniff at the saddle. "How does this work?"

"Well, I must preface this with 'you must be big enough to carry a Yokai to wear one.' Basically, this here is animal hide that clever Yokai paws fashioned in such a way that it can be put on or taken off, and while you wear it, your Yokai can hang on and go with you when you travel! No more having to fret because you left your Yokai behind to go fishing, now they can come catch fish with you!"

Several of the Gronkles looked impressed, and even a couple of the Nadders seemed swayed. "So when do we get these? How do we get these?"

Aha.

"Well," Hiro hedged. "As you know, our beloved alpha is encouraging us to exercise caution when dealing with Yokai, for reasons."

Little-Brother," Older-Brother said warningly, sensing where this was going.

"SO! Our beloved alpha, who loves us all dearly, has agreed to test this new contraption! It's the alpha-Yokai who makes these, so it's a joint project between the two alphas! A nice bridging of flights."

The dragons were now looking at Older-Brother in naked adoration—Hiro risked a glance to see that Older-Brother was backed into a corner now and sensed this. "Uh…."

"Will you really?" a Gronkle asked.

"Of course he will!" Hiro said. "Because he's a wonderful dragon and a great alpha! Aren't you, big bro?"

"I'm going to get you for this," Older-Brother promised. Ah well—Hiro could live with that.

Older-Brother did indeed read him the riot act for this.

"Tell me, and be honest," Hiro said, when he finally paused to suck in a breath. "If I had come up to you and asked you this, what would you have said?"

Older-Brother considered this. "No," he admitted finally. "But for good reason."

"Sure," Hiro huffed. "Your reason is just that you don't trust Obake as far as you can fling him."

Older-Brother looked like he was trying very hard not to glare. "Refresh my memory: how did you two meet?"

Hiro's ear flaps lowered at that. "All right, that's a fair point. But then he fixed it."

"Because he wants that," Older-Brother said, pointing his nose at the saddle on Hiro's back. "He wants us—he wants our wings. Why?"

Hiro shuffled his feet; usually he liked Older-Brother's input because he poked holes where his planning was weak, but here he had problems with that because if his logic was too thin, Older-Brother would take that as a cue to pack up the flight and leave. Hiro had some dragons convinced, and Fred was entirely for it, but Tadashi was the alpha now—the flight would listen to him.

"He wanted this because he wanted to get away from here—from his bad alpha," Hiro said finally. "But then he overthrew him—you can get that."

"I can," Older-Brother said. "But that was then. Why would he want it now? Control?"

"No! He's…he's got a good reason."

"Which is?"

Ugh, should have thought about this—sit down, scowling at a pebble, not looking at Older-Brother.

"I don't know," he admitted finally. "I don't know what his reasoning is—they're still Yokai, they've still got reasoning that we don't get. But…I don't think he wants this for a bad reason."

"Are you sure?" Older-Brother pressed. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"NO," Hiro barked, baring his teeth at him. "But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'M the one who actually went to the trouble of getting to know him before JUDGING him."

"Judging—he shot you out of the sky! That's the only reason you even know him!"

"Yeah," Hiro said drily, standing and wafting that one wing, where the thinnest of scars could be seen on the leading wingbone. "And then he fixed it. Funny how that works."

"Little-Brother—"

"No," he said, lifting his chin defiantly. "Listen. I trust Obake. I know it's weird and crazy, but you've trusted me on weird and crazy before. Trust me on this. Please. Just—give him a chance, okay?"

He could tell, could see it in his eyes—he didn't want to, didn't trust Obake as far as he could throw him….

But he trusted Hiro still, which was what made him nod finally.

"All right, I'll give this a try," he muttered, before rolling Hiro and pinning him. "But if this kills me—and I feel like it will—I'm coming back and haunting you and telling you 'I TOLD YOU SO' every day for the REST OF YOUR LIFE."

Hiro wiggled, finally relented. "Fair enough."

"Good," Older-Brother huffed, letting him up.

"So we're doing this then?" Hiro asked, bounding back up.

"Yes—tomorrow," Older-Brother added, putting a paw on Hiro's tail when he tried to dash off. "We can get this travesty started tomorrow."

"Fair enough. In the meantime…OLDER BROTHER AMBUSH! HEY NO FAIR WITH THE LICKING!"