Chapter Text
Toothless’ jaw is aching by this point, but he doesn’t give up. He has tried twice to explain the whole… situation to Hiccup, but his rider simply isn’t getting it. To be fair, the language barrier isn’t helping. Unfortunately, Toothless is unable to understand human writings which means he can’t write words.
So, he tries pictures. Pictures are hard to draw, and even harder to explain, especially when a certain hatchling keeps messing them up.
The first time it happened, Toothless had thought it was an accident. He and Hiccup had been “discussing” the drawing for the better part of an hour when Grim Death came stumbling in. He’d scampered through the lines Toothless was painstakingly making, messing them up entirely. Hiccup had just started to understand what Toothless was saying. But the Death Song started crooning, and Hiccup had picked him up and gotten entirely distracted.
It wasn’t until later, until the hatchling peered back at Toothless with smugness in his golden eyes that it dawned on Toothless that Grim Death knows. He knows that Toothless knows, and he’s planning to do everything in his power to prevent Hiccup from figuring it out. And that’s fine, that’s understandable, but Toothless isn’t going to give up.
He plans a second time, makes sure that the hatchling is otherwise occupied listening to Fishlegs ramble about the science of plants with a vaguely curious look on his face. And for some reason, Toothless has yet to know why, Grim Death started wailing. Fifteen minutes into the explanation, and Hiccup was scrambling off to deal with the baby.
This is the third time, and Toothless’ jaw hurts from how tightly he’s holding the branch in his mouth as he painstakingly traces the symbol of the dragon hunters. He’s starting to suspect that Hiccup thinks he’s just trying to draw something recognizable. Which he both is and isn’t, and it is growing incredibly discouraging.
He asked Stormfly, once, what she thought they should do. The Nadder’s response was to flick her tail, spines standing on end. Murder is what her rider would suggest. Toothless slunk off in despair and told her that they would let the humans decide. After all, the Death Song is just a hatchling, his hatchling, and Toothless will fight tooth and claw to keep him safe. He might be annoying, he might be dangerous, but he’s also so… small. He’s tiny enough to curl up next to Toothless every night without even taking up much room.
No matter who or what he used to be, Grim Death is now no more than a hatchling.
Toothless drops the branch, flexing his jaw as he tilts his head to inspect the drawing. It looks reasonable enough, so he picks up the branch and sets to work on trying to trace their island. It’s hard to make it look recognizable. Maybe he should just draw Hiccup’s hut! Or the forge. Something obvious.
“Hey, bud, what are you doing? Drawing again?” Hiccup asks.
Toothless coos hopefully, peering up at him. He stamps his paw on the ground, watching as Hiccup surveys it. “The dragon hunter’s symbol again?” Well. At least he recognizes it! That’s progress. It hadn’t looked so smooth before, but after all, this is the third time.
“And that…” Hiccup squints. “Is that a hut?”
Toothless butts his head up against Hiccup’s leg. It’s yours. His rider’s hand comes down to scratch behind his ear flaps, and ohhh that feels nice. Hiccup gives the best scratches, and for a blissful few seconds, Toothless just purrs. But then he pulls back, because he needs to make Hiccup understand.
He moves toward the drawings, patting the dragon hunter symbol one before pointing his front paw at the hut one. It’s the kind of thing that Hiccup does sometimes when he’s trying to explain something. Maybe it’ll work the same way?
Hiccup frowns. “It’s… a… dragon hunter home?”
Toothless whines miserably and then paws at the dirt, claws raking it hard enough to dig gouges; it’s the most realistic way he knows to make it look like under attack.
“Uh…”
His ear flaps droop as he thinks about it. Brightening, he grabs the stick and starts drawing a bunch of little lines to symbolize arrows. Maybe that’ll be more obvious?
“… Is that rain?”
Fine. Fine. He has to try something else. He shifts, looking around. What can he do to make Hiccup understand? It’s not like he knows how to write Viggo’s name, and he tried drawing him once, and it looked terrible –
Oh. Oh!
Toothless growls happily and takes off running, leaving a very confused Hiccup behind him. He goes to the back of the clubhouse where they have a variety of items kept in storage and drags out the Viggo dummy, hauling it back toward where he was attempting to explain the situation and dropping it at Hiccup’s feet.
“… Viggo?” Hiccup says carefully, frowning. “Is that was this is about?” Toothless warbles in agreement, and Hiccup reaches out to pet him. “You don’t need to worry about him, bud,” Hiccup replies, shaking his head. “He’s– he’s dead.”
Except he’s not. Toothless grabs the branch and begins to try drawing a Death Song. Finally, he’s getting somewhere, and if he can make it look real –
A high-pitched trill interrupts up, and his ear flaps go back instinctively. No. Not again. He was making good progress! The hatchling trills again, a musical song that makes no sense to Toothless – or the humans. Grim Death comes barreling up, running straight across Toothless’ attempt at scribbling a Death Song. With a snarl, Toothless snaps at him, and the hatchling whimpers, tiny wings fluttering as he flops pathetically at Hiccup’s feet.
“Toothless!” Hiccup scolds, crouching down to scoop the baby into his arms. “Don’t scare him.”
Toothless growls low. Disbelieving. The hatchling chirps brightly, blinking wide eyes up at Hiccup before squirming as he makes himself comfortable. So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? He can hear the rest of the riders drifting in, coming to see what the disturbance is all about, and Toothless grabs the dummy by the arm, tossing it at Hiccup’s feet and stomping his paw down on its chest. Then, he pointedly tilts his head to glare at Grim Death.
Somehow, the Death Song has found a way to weaponize the inherent cuteness of all hatchlings to entirely distract Hiccup from any and all of Toothless’ attempts at explaining. He uses it to get out of trouble and to convince Hiccup to keep him around instead of handing him off to one of the other riders.
Just the other day, Heather dropped by for a visit. She tried singing to him, and he nearly clawed her face off trying to get away. Somehow that resulted in a piece from Maces and Talons ending up nearby. Windshear promptly tried to murder the hatchling – she figured out his identity – and Heather had to leave before any blood got spilled. The humans still think that the disfiguring scar and hypnotic music are what triggered the dragon.
Toothless knows better.
Hiccup isn’t even looking. He’s too busy rocking the hatchling and petting him until he stops singing his off-key tune and starts purring instead.
“I think Toothless is trying to tell us something,” Astrid notes finally. She, too, is not immune to Grim Death, but she doesn’t get as attached to dragons as Hiccup. … Maybe Toothless should have tried explaining it to her.
And yes, yes, he is. He hopefully drags the dummy over to her and drops it at her feet. Then he goes to get the stick to start drawing –
Grim Death perks up, jumping out of Hiccup’s arms to land on the dummy. He tilts his head back and forth, and Toothless wonders what he thinks of it. Toothless draws a volcano – or what he hopes the humans will think is a volcano. Then –
The hatchling shrieks, jumping to the ground and –
He spits amber. He spits amber for the first time, and from the startled look on his face, he’s as surprised by that as everyone else. More importantly, he spits amber onto the dummy’s head. Toothless gives him a look, but Grim Death is too busy blinking in surprise at his handiwork to notice.
Snotlout breaks the shocked silence with a cackle. “Oh look at that! Even Grim Death thinks that Viggo’s face is ugly!” Toothless giggles, and Grim Death looks indignant and outraged at once. Snotlout doesn’t even notice. “I mean, I don’t blame him. His face is hideous–”
The hatchling promptly spits amber onto Snotlout’s feet and sits back on his haunches, radiating extreme smugness. Hiccup laughs. “Found a new trick, have you?” He scratches the baby’s head which is not, for the record, doing anything to discourage his behavior.
He chirps excitedly, whatever he’s saying getting lost as he proceeds to sing a very enthusiastic and cheerful song at them all. Toothless makes a miserable whine in the back of his throat. Grim Death is adorable and that is entirely unfair.
Toothless gets revenge for the destroyed drawing by padding over to the baby and licking him all over, very much enjoying his high-pitched shrieks. He deserves every last bit of the misery. He doesn’t have to like it. Except he then tries to spit amber onto Toothless’ tongue which is not fun. Hiccup is just snickering at them, but he still pulls out and ignites his fire sword as he begins to cut them all free, chattering away as he explains how it works to Grim Death… entirely oblivious to how the hatchling understands every last word.
Ugh.
There has to be some way to explain?
It’s not that Toothless actually thinks Grim Death is capable of harming them, not when he’s so tiny, but the humans still deserve to know the truth.
Even if a certain hatchling disagrees.
The twins keep harassing Grim Death during mealtime. They keep trying to feed him random things that are not even editable and since he has more of a human mind than any other dragon, he just spits everything back in their faces. But Toothless can sense the irritation buried under the chirped off-key notes, and he intervenes to save the twins from being mauled or ambered by a feral ex-dragon hunter-turned-dragon-hatching.
He grabs Grim Death by the scruff of his neck and carries him back to the floor near Hiccup. He likes Hiccup for whatever reason. Toothless still does not fully trust that affection, but he’s willing to tolerate it for now. He’s fine with the twins if they’re not tormenting him. Astrid has been bribing him with secret chicken hunting expeditions that everyone is carefully hiding from Tuffnut. Fishlegs is just… talkative, and Grim Death doesn’t mind that. He’s fine with Snotlout if he’s not getting too rambunctious.
Toothless pointedly shoves a piece of fish that he stole from Ruffnut’s plate closer to the hatchling. This is something that he eats readily. Even if he still throws a tantrum when Toothless regurgitates fish. Rude.
The meal goes the way most of them go… which is to say that it’s fine until it isn’t.
Someone mentions Viggo, and Grim Death immediately perks up, tiny body stilling and head tilting in a way that expresses utter innocence and curiosity.
“Hey, hey,” Snotlout hisses. “Don’t say that name so loud! You’ll traumatize the baby.”
Grim Death makes his annoyance known through a particularly vocal song.
“See?” Snotlout says triumphantly.
Tuffnut gasps loudly. “Do you think that he– you know who– is the one who scarred him??”
“You are absolutely right, Brother-Nut!” Ruffnut exclaims, half crawling across the table to hang off the opposite side and pat the hatchling with her fingertips. “Don’t worry! We’ll keep you safe from the big, bad monsters!” She gets amber spit onto her hand for her efforts.
Ruffnut ignores it. She grabs him with her free hand and proceeds to sing the worst lullaby that Toothless has ever heard. He resorts to covering his ear flaps with his paws, because Grim Death is his hatchling, but he deserves maybe a teeny, tiny bit of comeback for all the many times he has deliberately used his eyes to get Hiccup’s attention off Toothless’ communication attempts.
… Oh, hey, maybe there is one more thing he can try. Later.
Grim Death shrieks until Hiccup tiredly tells them to put him down, and the baby immediately scurries to Hiccup’s lap where he curls up and sulks while Hiccup uses Inferno to cut the amber off Ruffnut’s hand.
Toothless pads over, sticking his muzzle closer to the hatchling and nuzzling him gently. Grim Death keeps sulking but doesn’t squirm away. This time. But Toothless doesn’t like the look in his golden eyes, one that promises retribution for the twins’ antics.
Later, when the humans are looking at the Dragon Eye together, Toothless sees Grim Death creeping around in the shadows. He stands, ready to pull the hatchling back to his side, but he doesn’t intervene in time to stop him from knocking one of Hiccup’s more delicate contraptions to the floor and quickly flying away to land a short distance away. And then starts wailing in that confusedhurtscared song that he’s perfected.
Hiccup yells at the twins and scoops the baby into his arms, cradling him close. Of course, the twins deny doing it, and Toothless grumbles a lecture at Grim Death that he might not understand the words of but definitely understands the context of.
And the twins aren’t the only ones who catch the gleefully smug look on the Death Song’s face as Hiccup carries him out.
Toothless sighs heavily and follows. He needs to take his babysitting duties more seriously. It’s hard to raise a hatchling. Especially one like this.
Hiccup leaves Toothless and Grim Death in his hut and goes back to finish his research. That gives Toothless the perfect opportunity to enact his plan. First, he starts piling things on top of one of the chairs, until the surface is mostly level with the table, and determinedly ignores the hatchling’s increasingly curious chirps. Then, he goes to Hiccup’s room and carries the Maces and Talons board down.
The baby goes very still when he sees it, a predatory focus in his eyes that Toothless hasn’t seen since the last time he went hunting for chickens with Astrid and Stormfly.
Toothless drops it on the table, nudging the cover off with his muzzle before grabbing Grim Death by the back of his neck and setting him on top of the chair. He warbles what he hopes is encouraging, looking at the board and then back at the dragon. Golden eyes blink back at him, traveling from him to the game and then back again.
Toothless pushes the board closer, and that seems to be all the encouragement that Grim Death needs. He leans forward, wobbling unsteadily as he tries to grab the pieces with his tiny claws. It’s… adorable. It really is, and Toothless wants to cuddle him close and lick him all over just to make sure every other dragon knows he’s been claimed.
And though Toothless is unable to play Maces and Talons since his paws don’t really allow him to move pieces – and he also doesn’t understand the rules – the same is not true about the Death Song. He’s a bit clumsy with his movements, but he still succeeds. Surprisingly well for that matter, and Toothless peers down at the board, watching curiosity as the hatchling sets up the game in much the same way that the humans do before he just starts… moving the pieces. Is he playing with himself?
Toothless has no idea, but it seems to be entertaining him immensely, if the way that his tail is vibrating is any indication. And if Toothless hid the Viggo dummy in the house so he can try explaining things later, no one needs to know except himself.
Hiccup returns.
And Grim Death very clearly did not expect it; he was too engrossed with his game. His frustration over struggling to move the pieces properly has risen and fallen over time, but he’s definitely very invested.
The hatchling scrambles back with sudden panic and then lurches forward, trying to shove the board off the table, but he’s not big enough or strong enough – and Hiccup is getting closer. Toothless watches with way too much glee as Grim Death finally just… spits amber. Onto the board. And freezes everything exactly the way he left it. The betrayed look in his eyes when he glares at Toothless simply makes him giggle.
“What are you…?” Hiccup’s question dies as he takes in the scene. The dragons. The board. The set-up of the game. Even if it’s now frozen in amber. Maybe especially because it’s frozen in amber. The hatchling is very, very still, almost terrified, and for the first time, Toothless feels bad. He – he hadn’t thought –
It’s not like Hiccup would ever hurt a baby dragon. And if, for whatever reason, someone tries, Toothless won’t let them. This might be Viggo, but this is his hatchling. No one hurts his hatchling.
Toothless is still committed, though, and he prowls across the room where he drags the Viggo dummy from behind a crate and then drops it on Hiccup’s feet.
Hiccup’s lips part, and realization dawns on his face. “Oh,” he says dumbly, looking from Toothless to the dummy to the hatching to the board and then back again. “Oh.” Emotions flit across his face, and Toothless settles back, smug with his success after so long of trying and failing. “Huh.”
He reaches out toward Grim Death, and the Death Song skitters back a few inches. Toothless circles around to the other side, nuzzling the hatchling’s tiny body with a reassuring sound. The baby hesitates before stepping forward and pressing his snout against Hiccup’s fingers.
“… Viggo?” Hiccup asks quietly.
Golden, too-intelligent eyes stare back at him, but Grim Death makes no indication that he understands.
“You know,” Hiccup says thoughtfully, gently stroking the hatchling’s scales. “I could probably clean this up. What do you say to a game?”
It’s a low blow, and they all know it. Toothless giggles to himself and settles down on the floor, head on his paws as he delightedly watches the hatchling’s conflict between keeping his identity hidden and doing something that he apparently really enjoys.
Finally, he deflates, tail flicking once and wings shifting as he turns his head back toward the amber-covered board, scratching at the amber with his tiny claws.
“You know…” Hiccup’s voice is casual, but he sounds like he’s trying really hard not to laugh. “Of all the people this could have happened to, it had to be you.”
The hatchling glares, and Hiccup snickers. “Sorry, sorry, but it’s funny. A little.” Something flickers across his face, and Toothless is quite certain that Hiccup is mentally replaying all the interactions he had with the Death Song since they picked it up. Toothless can also see the moment when Hiccup decides to not think about it right now. It must be weird for him; the war against Viggo still haunts him.
“Right. Let’s get this cleaned up. We have a game to play.”