Chapter Text
Hiccup never expected to actually hit anything.
He had hoped, sure, but what were the chances? It was pitch black, a thin moon providing almost no light over the frigid sea - Hiccup was too far out of town to enjoy the light of the torches, or the burning buildings. So when he, a scrawny toothpick of a 15-year-old - in the words of Gobber - hauled the Mangler out to the cliffside at the edge of town, and when he, the worst Viking Berk had ever seen - in the words of his father - heard that tell-tale whine splitting through the inky night, he panicked.
A disturbance in the stars was the only warning he had before the lookout post before him was exploding, highlighting a spiky wingspan flying too fast away from him. Hiccup’s finger slipped on the trigger too early as he struggled to track the dragon before it was gone again. The kickback from the Mangler sent him sprawling back into the dirt, and he was sure he had lost his chance.
Then, a haunting cry rang out over the cliffside, piercing straight through the center of town. It raised the hair on the necks of the Vikings that still stood and fought, wrangling the last of the invading dragons.
It was unlike anything Hiccup had ever heard. It was shock and agony and rage and cut off abruptly with a splash, until the night was silent again.
Hiccup could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He shakily got to his feet and crept to the edge of the cliff, peering down at the crashing sea. The weak moonlight made it impossible to discern anything, but something deep in the pit of his stomach told him that he had done it.
“I hit it,” he muttered. Then, louder, “Yes, I actually hit it!” He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he looked around the dark cliff. “Did anybody see that?”
A low growl sounded in response, and Hiccup spun around to come face to face with a Monstrous Nightmare with a huge underbite and toxic yellow slitted eyes.
“Except for you.”
The Monstrous Nightmare reared back, and Hiccup started running. He left the Mangler on the cliff - it wasn’t like it would do him any good now, crushed underfoot by the already advancing dragon. He ran towards the town, the Nightmare in hot - literally - pursuit. But, even with the dragon breathing down his neck as he ran for his life, Hiccup’s mind was buzzing. He had done it! A Night Fury, he was sure of it!
They’d all have to take him seriously now.
-
They did not, in fact, take him seriously. No one believed that Hiccup of all people had taken down a Night Fury - the dragon no one had ever seen, let alone killed.
That is, until the tide changed.
Late the following day, in the midst of the newest round of repairs, a cry from the docks went up, screaming for Stoick. Hiccup kept his head down, focusing on the pile of swords and axes and various other sharp objects that needed sharpening again after the previous night’s attack. There was always somebody that needed something from his father, Hiccup knew, and more often than not it was no cause for concern. Especially the day after a raid.
They came for Hiccup next.
There wasn’t a door to the workshop, but if there had been, it would’ve been busted off of its hinges. Gobber wheezed his name, out of breath and beckoning him with one hand - er, hook.
“Docks,” he wheezed again, leaning against the edge of the wall. “Now.” Despite the obvious fact that Gobber had run to the shop, he was shockingly pale in the face.
Hiccup dropped the sword he was sharpening and, not bothering to remove his work apron, took off for the docks.
As he descended the long, rickety switchbacks down to the water’s edge, Hiccup squinted and peered over the edge, down to where he could see a group of men standing, staring. His father’s hulking form was unmistakable, but the angle was wrong to see what held their attention. Once he reached the bottom, he cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking.
“Dad?” His feet echoed dully against the wooden planks. A handful of the men startled and turned to stare at him, their eyes wide. “Gobber told me to come to the docks, but he didn’t-”
The words died on his tongue. In turning to stare at Hiccup, the men had moved enough to reveal the object that had previously held their attention.
At least, the tail of it.
Black. Scales shining with seawater and bobbing in the light waves. A leathery tailfin, connected to…
Hiccup continued forward, stumbling to a stop beside his father, who had yet to turn away from the body floating in the sea.
The rest of the dragon’s body was the same color and texture as the tail: hard scales and impenetrable darkness. The dragon’s wings were caught fast around its body by a length of rope, tangling around a few metal balls that Hiccup would recognize anywhere. The bolases had torn straight through one of the dragon’s leathery wings before pinning it against its side. There was no blood leaking from the obvious gouging wounds, swept away in the seawater.
The dragon was sleek and smaller than he expected and was very, very dead, if the way its head remained submerged in the water was any indication.
Hiccup turned away from the dragon’s corpse and promptly vomited, heaving the contents of his stomach onto the dock.
“You did it, son,” Stoick said quietly, once Hiccup had stopped retching. “I didn’t believe… in all my life, I never thought… I’d dreamed, of course, but… oh Hiccup, I’m so proud of you, son.” Stoick’s hand clapped down on Hiccup’s shoulder at the last word, buckling his knees and threatening to send him into his own sick. “Today, you’ve become a real Viking!”
The guilt and shock and disgust that churned in Hiccup’s gut at the fate that the Night Fury met was forcibly shoved away by the celebrations that followed. The shock seemed to wear off fairly quickly for everyone besides him as he was paraded back up to the town, the dripping, ruined body of the Night Fury being carted up behind them.
The next moon passed in a blur. Hiccup told the story of shooting down the Night Fury ad nauseam in those first couple days - so many times, in fact, that the creeping feelings of guilt that had emptied his stomach on the docks became a solid thing, a knot at the bottom edge of his chest that made it hard to breathe. When he asked Stoick, and then Gobber - who he should have started with - about how they managed that feeling, having killed as many dragons as they had, they laughed in his face, more or less. Stoick seemed to think it was a joke, defaulting to his standard method of parenting: slapping Hiccup on the shoulder and redirecting the conversation. Gobber took him more seriously, but informed him that he seemed to be, once again, experiencing something wholly foreign to the standard Viking.
So Hiccup pushed the feelings down and tried to act happy. With a kill under his belt, Stoick enthusiastically enrolled Hiccup into Dragon Training with the other teens of Berk. Whatever celebrity status that Hiccup had enjoyed among the villagers was quickly stripped from the eyes of his peers as they quickly learned that the Night Fury was a one-off. He froze when faced with the Gronkle, only walking away in one piece because of Gobber’s quick intervention. The Terrible Terror that came next was better, but Hiccup still walked out of the ring pale, shaking, and sick to his stomach. He couldn’t help but feel that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
The Deadly Nadder was the worst.
The maze of walls and twisting pathways were disorienting at best and suffocating at worst. Hiccup had been running through the paths for less than a minute before he began to feel woozy and panicked and hunted .
Hiccup almost wasn’t even surprised when he rounded the next corner and ran directly into the Nadder, losing his footing and crashing to the ground at its feet, already off-balance from the too heavy shield and too large axe.
The Nadder cocked its head at him, seemingly puzzled at the meal that had simply dropped at its feet. As deep in the maze as they were, Hiccup knew Gobber couldn’t see him, wouldn’t make it to him in time. The Nadder chirped at him in a distinctly bird-like way, hesitating again and tilting its head the other way. It sniffed the air around him deliberately, seeming to deliberate something for a moment, two. The intelligence in its eye as it studied Hiccup was startling.
Hiccup stared back, feeling the sudden urge to growl, a sound building in his chest against his will.
A sharp cry of frustration from somewhere around the corner had both the Nadder and Hiccup jerking back, heads snapping to the sound. After another glance at Hiccup, it jumped agily back up onto the walls of the maze and disappeared, undoubtedly back to the pursuit of a meatier, more filling Viking.
And yet, Hiccup thought as he clambered back to his feet, the Nadder hadn’t seemed to want to attack.
A few shouts and loudly voiced complaints - preceded by the distinctive sound of dragon-fire - told him that it was down to just him and Astrid in the ring. The sooner Astrid subdued the thing, the sooner Hiccup could go home. He tried to shake off the feeling of confusion and the haze that was settling in, but it didn’t do any good. He felt like he was moving at half speed, barely jogging through the maze now.
So sluggish he moved and felt, in fact, that it took a few moments too long for him to recognize the crash throughout the arena for what it was.
Temporary walls, made of cast off wood and iron scraps from his and Gobber’s shop, crashing into each other.
Crashing into the ground.
Growing louder, closer.
Fly away , something whispered in the back of his mind. Off the ground .
That was absurd, Hiccup couldn’t fly. Hiccup couldn’t even run, he realized: he had reached a dead-end in his stupor.
Another cry went up nearby, just barely audible over the sound of crashing walls: of victory this time, instead of frustration. Before Hiccup could be relieved that the fight was over, the wall to his right began to tip. Acting on instinct, Hiccup bolted through the rapidly shrinking triangle of space between the ground, the wall to his left, and the descending wall.
He almost made it, too.
-
Hiccup drifted.
He did not wake, but he felt. Oh, he felt. He felt pain and heat and tearing and pressure and a crushing weight and painpainpain. Yet, no matter how he fought and clawed at the heavy darkness that had settled over him, he could not open his eyes.
The darkness was a physical thing, he thought. It nipped and growled and paced. After an indescernible amount of time, Hiccup realized that it felt trapped, just as much as he was. Trapped within the confines of his own mind.
And over time, the darkness began to take shape. It grew wings and teeth and claws that it used to keep Hiccup at bay. It bared its teeth and roared at him any time he got close until they were both worn out, too exhausted to fight. Sometimes, Hiccup thought he could feel his body, the edges there but out of reach. He could feel limbs and his weight, but the darkness blocked his way out. At other times, the darkness was wholly suffocating, shoving him to the far back recesses of his mind, away from the thing that felt like consciousness.
After what Hiccup thought was a few days of this - months? He wasn’t sure, actually - they seemed to reach an impasse.
Neither he nor the darkness were strong enough to stay in control forever. Like clockwork, Hiccup would weaken and the darkness would surge, wrenching the scraps of consciousness he had gathered out of his hands. The pain that ensued when he fought back was enough to make him raise his figurative hands and relinquish control, if only for a little while. Then, Hiccup would feel the darkness waver and would pounce, forcing the darkness back again to repeat the cycle.
It wasn’t long before they fell into a routine. It wasn’t long after that that Hiccup felt the first trickle of curiosity, a thin tendril snaking out and wrapping around him.
Once that first brick of acceptance and teamwork had been placed, the outer world began to resolidify. Hiccup could feel a hard floor beneath his back and a stabbing ache in his left leg and cold air rushing into his lungs with every breath his body took - he still wasn’t sure if he was really the one in control of that anymore. Hiccup had to remind himself what it felt like to move his hands, to clench his fingers and make a fist. He had to reteach himself how to open his eyes and adjust them to the light and blink every so often. He had to think very hard about sitting up and staying upright despite the pounding in his head. He had to remind himself what it felt like to be human and how to get up onto his feet and-
-and that humans usually had two feet, while he only had one.
Upright and sitting on the ground, Hiccup could just barely make out his surroundings. The floor beneath him was furry, but hard, like he was sitting on a blanket atop a stone floor. There was a loop of what must’ve been leather abandoned in the corner, a series of metal buckles just barely catching the light, which came from one single high window. It was barred and high on the wall, well beyond Hiccup’s reach - even if he’d been able to stand. The light was just barely enough for him to see the stump that his leg now ended with: his pants had been cut off just above his knee, and his leg had been cut off just below. With shaking hands that Hiccup only just barely had control over, he ran his fingers over the stump, hissing in pain at the feeling of taut skin and jagged scabs and a bone-deep ache. He carefully straightened out his leg before him, testing the way his knee bent and going lightheaded at the sensation.
Hiccup couldn’t help the whimper that escaped his throat, nor the tears that pricked in the corners of his eyes.
A sharp bang at the wall with the window startled Hiccup out of his state, his hand jerking back from his leg instinctively. As a smaller door appeared at the bottom corner of the wall, Hiccup realzied exactly where he was.
The small door opened to the training arena, the light in which Hiccup had to squint against, and peeking their head in the door was Gobber.
“Gobber?” he croaked, barely louder than a whisper. His throat was raw, like he had been screaming. “What… what happened?”
The look on Gobber’s face was that of a man who had come face to face with a troll for the first time. It was equal parts horrified, disgusted, and terrified, all wrapped up with wide eyes and a slack jaw and eyes that didn’t meet Hiccup’s.
“Where is my… Gobber, what am I doing…?”
The man Hiccup had known his entire life - the man who had been a pseudo-father to him, when he and his own father wouldn’t, or couldn’t, see eye to eye, the man who had taught Hiccup the one thing he thought he was good at in this village, the man who treated Hiccup like his own kin, his own family - let the horror win out the battle on his face, shutting the small door with an echoing bang .
“Hey. Hey! You can’t just leave me here!”
Hiccup had managed to get to his feet - foot - and hop over to the door. He had to crawl to the wall and dig his fingers into the earthen walls and claw himself up, but he managed it. A closer inspection of the door confirmed his thoughts: he was barred inside one of the cells in the training ring, where the dragons were kept caged if not being used for the classes. In the weak light coming through the high window, Hiccup traced his fingers over the deep gouges in the wood of the heavy doors: this cell had been used recently, the gouges not smoothed over by time yet.
An inspection of the smaller flap that Gobber had looked through yielded nothing: so tightly fitted from the outside was the small door that no light shone through, even when Hiccup pressed his face tight to the gap, pushing.
The exertion had him panting in pain - a deep, throbbing ache was radiating up from the stump of his leg, curling around his hip and settling at the base of his spine. Hiccup let himself slide down the wooden door to drop into a heap on the ground, just beside the flap. If Gobber - or anyone - came back, he was getting answers.
They couldn’t just leave him in this dragon cage.
He hadn’t done anything wrong.
The tears that welled in Hiccup’s eyes were from the pain in his leg, and nothing more.
-
Hiccup lolled at the edge of consciousness as the hours slipped by, but no one came for him. At one point, he thought he heard a voice through the thick door, but they didn’t come close enough for him to make out words.
The light in the high window slowly grew weaker. Hiccup tracked the single square of light as it made its way across the room, turning golden as the sunset grew nearer. With the way the square grew pinker as the sunset progressed, Hiccup knew it was a good one.
Berk had the best sunsets.
Though, he didn’t have anything to compare them to, of course.
A lump formed in his throat at the sudden thought that, if the people of Berk had really turned their backs on him, if his father had finally truly given up on his sorry-excuse-for-a-Viking son, if even Gobber wasn’t enough to save him this time, he’d never see another sunset. He’d never see the way all the ramshackle houses turned softer in the golden light, the rough edges of the haphazard new construction smoothed out. He’d never get to sit on one of the high cliffs overlooking the village and watch as the sky went from blue to pink and orange and purple and red to black to dotted with more stars than he could count. He’d never get another chance to stay up late enough to watch the sun set then rise again in the morning.
The lump in his throat and the tightness building in his chest and the pain in his leg - and his back, and his head, and his everything, really - were too much to handle at one time. Hiccup bit down hard on his bottom lip, trying to hold back the flood threatening to break through his willpower.
A soft caress against the edge of his consciousness had him gasping, losing control of that flood.
Something familiar and warm seemed to drape across his mind as he sobbed into his hands, still crumpled on the ground by the door that no one was coming to open. It was questioning, drawing up the image of his actions with an air of confusion and presenting it to Hiccup.
This was, of course, nonsense. It just made the tears flow faster, the gasping breaths come quicker, because Hiccup hadn’t just lost a leg and, presumably, a life now, but also his mind.
The darkness - for it felt like a black mass, hovering out of sight - pushed a bit more, insisting on itself and making Hiccup struggle. His movements felt sluggish as he struggled to breathe.
The feeling was familiar and suffocating and nagged at a memory that Hiccup couldn’t quite reach.
But.
But, the darkness was so inviting, and it was all-encompassing, pressing in at the edges of Hiccup’s vision. It was nothing to close his eyes and let it wash over him.
Would they take his corpse from the cage, or just leave it in there as a snack for the next dragon?
-
As the sun slipped fully below the horizon, it was allowed to fully take over. Instinct guided it now that the boy was fully awake for the change - in the days in between, it had dwelled beneath the surface, trying to get enough of a foothold to take the reins, but the boy had been asleep for so much of it. This control was what was promised, when it had killed the old one long, long ago. It too had been guided by the old one in the back of its head, fighting for power over a shared mind. It - no, he , he remembered… he had been a man, once - had won the long battle, and the old one had faded into nothingness, having taught him everything he needed to know. The human form had been lost to him even before the old man faded. He had been alone for quite some time now, both in his mind and in the world. Until…
Until the blinding pain of his wings being forced out of position, of his membranes being shredded through, of an impact into water that felt as solid a cliff face, of all the air leaving his lungs and his consciousness leaving his body before being thrust unceremoniously into the boy on the hill’s mind. The shock of it all had him reeling for days, curling in a tight ball in the furthest corner he could reach, trying to get his bearings.
He had laid little traps, small wires for the boy to trip over in his mind, as the boy began to fight his cousins. Not enough to make him fail, but enough to make him unwilling, unsuccessful. When the Nadder had peered into the boy’s eyes, she had not seen the Viking, but him .
Then, of course, the walls had fallen and they had become trapped, the Nadder’s fire spreading across the downed walls and coming for them. It didn’t matter that the large one with the wooden leg had gotten them out, for the damage had already been done.
After they had left the boy to recover, still unseeing and delirious, wandering the halls of his own mind, he had stepped forward for the first time. As the sun dropped out of view, he had fully taken over, the boy’s form shifting and stretching to accommodate him. Wings had sprouted from his shoudler blades and his spine had stretched, enlongating into a tail, fins popping out along its length. Sharp teeth had filled his gums and claws wrenched out of his hands and ears shifted up and back into frills, instantly magnifying the sounds of the village at twilight.
Back in the form he knew best - truly, he did not remember having a two-legged form anymore - he had felt calmer than he had in days. He knew how this part worked: get back out into the night sky, leave this small, loud village behind. He had only come close to the island in hopes of rest for the day - he had only joined the raid in the hopes of an easy meal.
And look where that had gotten him.
He had gotten to his feet, the soft bedding crumpling beneath his weight and claws. After only a few steps to the door, where he could smell fish and smoke and humans lingering, he had known something was wrong.
The first thing being that this body had not been the one he was used to: this body was younger, smaller, closer to the age of the boy it came from. If they were to need to fight, this body would be at a sore disadvantage.
The second thing had been much more concerning, and the reason they were still stuck in the cage instead of outside under the night sky, where they belonged.
Even just walking on four legs across the strange wooden floors, he had felt off balance, like he was listing to one side. He had turned their large head back to check if the floor was slanted, but was met instead with their long dark tail, one side ragged and torn, smearing fresh blood on the ground where it rested.
He did not feel many emotions anymore. Not in this form.
The spike of fear that had shot through him was unmistakable, even to one as far gone from humanity as he.
A shot had built in their throat before he could think anything further. The door to the smell of fish and smoke and humans disintegrated under the blue-white blast. At that moment, he had barely recognized the strength of that shot: stronger than his last form, stronger than he’d expected for such a small body. He had tucked their wings close and squeezed through the too-tight gap and ran through the throng of bodies that encircled a small fire, ignoring the shouts of alarm and terror.
Once past the bodies, he had spread their wings and taken a running jump, beating once, twice, gaining air–
-and crashed back down to the ground. He had shaken the impact off, dirt spraying, and gotten up to go again.
Another try, another failure.
More height, that was the answer, he had thought. Surely, that was the answer.
A leap off the closest cliff, where a barely visible winding path could be seen snaking its way down to the main portion of the village. He had snapped their wings open wide and let the updraft catch every inch of them, keeping them aloft in a glide. He had angled their wings slightly, letting them tilt forward and get a little forward movement.
But, when the cross wind came and he tried to adjust them with their tailfin, their balance was disrupted.
The ground had come up rather fast.
By the time he woke up again, they had already been in the pitch black room. It had been night, evidenced by the fact that he still had control. He had not felt much pain - the boy would bear the brunt of that in the day - the torn tailfin was an acute point of sharp light, unwelcome to the being made of night.
The room was too tight, too small. There had been a leather band securing their mouth, forcing it shut no matter how much he struggled. He had pawed at it with their claws and rubbed their face against the walls, but it had refused to budge, secured behind their ears and frills. Without a blast of plasma available, there was little he had been able to do to free them from the prison of the too small room.
He had spent the rest of the night pacing, scratching at walls and the door and growling as much as he could around the strap on their mouth. At one point, when the moon was high, a human had approached their prison, stopping a few steps from the door.
He had paused, listening.
“You’ll get what’s coming to you, devil,” the human had said, voice wavering. “You’ll burn in Hel for taking my son. I swear on Odin, I will be the one to kill you. As soon as we have a cage strong enough…”
The human had left, not bothering to look upon them.
And now, the boy had seen one of his humans, and he had been turned away. He had felt the heartbreak and the fear and the devastation - raw, human emotions that left him reeling where he stood, figuratively - washing over the boy at the way they left him. He had heard the thoughts of death and sunsets and had offered an alternative, at least for a few hours - it was nearly sunset, anyway. The boy had nearly thrown control away from his own mind, though he didn’t yet realize what he had done. The boy now drifted in an inbetween state, content to be thinking of nothing at all.
He got to his feet and shook out their cramped limbs, stretching their wings as much as the small room allowed - which was not much.
The good thing about having a human form, though, was the fact that the collar the people of the village had used to muzzle them did not fit that human form. He sniffed at the metal and leather straps on the ground, baring his teeth and growling, for good measure. Unrestricted now, he was able to let a particularly large shot build, the violet light eminating from their mouth illuminating the dark cage.
The thick door did put up a fight, but they had a high shot limit.
When there was nothing left of the door but coals and embers, he stuck their head out of the gap, taking stock of what awaited them. A large circular space, void of humans or dragons - or anything else, for that matter.
He walked them out into the large space, looking up at the empty night sky. The dark skies beckoned, a million stars winking into existence to light their way. He felt the urge to run, jump, fly, disappear - it was suffocating, but their missing tailfin felt like a heavy chain, securing them to the ground. The space was covered with a metal netting, which would’ve been a problem for any other dragon - their plasma shot would open the way easily, if they could get up to it.
The frustration was building as they began circling the covered space. The walls were dotted with heavy doors, identical to the one they had already broken through. He could hear his slumbering cousins within them and knew that they wouldn’t be a way out.
The sharp tang of metal permeated the very air they breathed. Metal plated doors, metal netting, metal shields and blades and balls, all coming from…
One side of the circular wall was open, a short ramp leading up and out to clear night sky, unmarred by chains or other obstacles. Along the ramp were racks and racks of those shields and blades, stacked along the walls in great piles.
He beelined for the open walkway, keeping their wings tucked close. Before they could reach the entrance to the tunnel, a great grinding sound echoed throughout the space, making them freeze, flinching back from the deafening racket.
A heavy metal grate crashed down over the entrance to the tunnel, sealing the entrance off with a final clang .
Once the dust settled, a human - two - stepped out from behind the stacks of weapons, evidently having been hiding behind them.
He automatically took a few backpedaling steps away from the grate, keeping them low to the ground and braced. A growl built in their chest as the humans approached the grate, carefully studying them.
The one he recognized from the haze of the boy’s poorer vision was the first to speak, the one with one leg and hate in his eyes. That hate was absent now, pity in its place.
“Hiccup?” he asked, one hand resting on the metal barrier.
He bared their teeth, growling again. He knew these humans were a threat, even if he didn’t understand the words.
But, the boy did.
Waking from the stupor he had been floating in, the boy’s consciousness trickled back. For the first time, he felt the boy fight back against him, though again, the boy didn’t know what he was doing.
The sun was not up, and it was not his turn. He was able to keep a solid control over the reins of their mind, the boy’s protests akin to nothing but feeble slaps against tough hide.
Still, the boy made a racket in their mind.
Gobber… Dad… what’s happening to me…
“He’s gone, Gobber,” the other man said, turning away from them, as if he couldn’t bear to look. “I know what you think you saw, but… we don’t know what a Night Fury is capable of. It’s probably the same one from before, playing a trick-”
“Look at its tail, Stoick. Think about it! On the left side, too. Honestly, what’re the chances that the first recorded Night Fury body washes up in the sound - taken out by your boy, of all things - and then days later, another one is in Hiccup’s room? We burned that body, Stoick. Besides, it had two tail fins.”
The boy was beating on the edges of their mind with closed fists now, screaming. Images from their eyes were floating through their mind, awareness of a set of wings and claws and the growls coming from their throat settling in: he could see as the boy put the pieces together, growing more panicked by the second.
Dad! Gods Dad, I’m still here! I’m in here! Dad! DAD!
The larger of the men had taken a few steps further down the tunnel, away from the grate. The one-legged man stayed, hand still on the bars, head turned to watch the retreating man.
“It’s not possible,” the large man said, voice soft. “It… there’s some ability that we don’t know about, some shape-shifting, or… or something. Hiccup is gone, and this… thing killed him, and… by Odin, Gobber, I’ve got the chance to kill it, this time. I was too late for Valka, but this time…”
The boy’s sorrow was wordless now, but tinted with rage.
The one-legged man sighed, chin dipping to his chest. “Just wait until sunrise,” he eventually said, letting his hand slip from the grate. “With that missing fin, it’s not going anywhere anyway.”
The men walked away, leaving them behind, alone in the large circular space. When they left the tunnel fully and disappeared from sight, the boy retreated as well, curling back into himself in their mind.
Freed from attacks from both fronts, he was able to inspect the rest of the circular space in more detail. He sniffed at each of the wooden doors, identifying their cousins within. As images of the dragons flitted across their mind, the boy perked back up again, curiosity growing despite his sorrow. As the images paired with the scents, the boy’s mind gave them names.
It was a Deadly Nadder who had tipped the walls and sent the fire after them, claiming the leg of their human form and the tail fin of this one. He growled at that door, moving on quickly. A female Gronkle, the one that the boy had already faced once, when he was still recovering from the loss of his previous form and unable to aid the boy. A Terrible Terror, who was awake and skittering around inside its cage. As they drew nearer to its cage, he heard the Terror balk and shrink against the back wall, sensing the larger dragon outside.
He assessed the shots they had left, then the netting above their head: a Terror was more than small enough to get through the gaps, as well as the small door at the bottom of the larger door. A small shot at the small flap knocked the hinges off, allowing the Terror to crawl through, flat on its belly and cautious as it approached them. It sniffed at their leg and, when they didn’t move, took a few scurried steps away. It jumped into the air, beating its small wings a few times to hover in place. It gave a single squawk of gratitude before it took off, manuevering through the metal netting’s gaps with ease.
The boy was surprised at the action and inched a bit closer to him, to see more clearly.
The final cages had a Hideous Zippleback and a Monstrous Nightmare: nothing that would aid them in escaping this larger cage. Without a larger, heavyweight dragon - like a Rumblehorn , the boy supplied - to take out the heavy grate, they were stuck.
What kind of dragon are you?
It was the first time the boy had directly addressed him, acknowledging his presence. Though he did not speak the same language - he didn’t know if he spoke any language at all anymore - their melded mind got the point across.
We , was the sentiment he sent out, along with a single tendril of himself, caressing about the boy.
What… what kind of dragon are… we?
Look. Feel.
The boy hesitated, uncertainty bleeding out in waves.
Slowly, he felt the boy reach out and use the senses available to him, if only from the passenger seat. Tasting the air on their tongue, hearing the measured breathing of the slumbering dragons in their cages, feeling the stone ground beneath their feet and the weight of their wings and that prick of pain and loss at the end of their tail and the way the night sky called to them. The boy’s thoughts filled with wonder as his mind explored their body, cataloging each new discovery.
Night Fury, the boy thought after some time. It was soft, reverant. You’re - we’re - a Night Fury. What’s your name?
?
I’m Hiccup , the boy clarified, drawing up a picture of himself, as seen from a still pool of water, distorted and blurry around the edges. The image was tainted with distaste. Do you have a name? Something people - er, dragons - call you?
No.
Oh.
He did not remember his name, though he knew he once had one. Before the old one had left, before his human form had faded entirely, before he could hold this form during the day as well as the night. The memories had faded, as they were of no use to him anymore. All that he was, all that he needed, was in this form, in this mind.
He tried to convey this to the boy, whose horror grew once again.
You were a person ?!
?
Was this not common knowledge anymore?
Had the prophecy been lost in the years since the old one faded? He had not had contact with humans in many years, nor had he cared to. He was as happy as one such as he could be, he did not want this to happen. To lose the form he had perfected over the years, to be forced back into a human form for half the time, with the knowledge that he was meant to instruct the new one, and then fade from existence, just as the old one before him had - he had not wanted this.
And now the new one did not even know?
Look , he repeated, drawing up a ball of memories, beginning as far back as he could remember. He pictured opening a door and ushering the boy inside, showing the new one the disjointed images and the language that even he didn’t understand anymore.
The boy was silent for some time as he sifted through the memories within that door, untouchable even by him for that period of time. While the boy was absent, he walked them back to the cell he had destroyed the door to, circling and settling their body down atop the furs the one-legged man had put out for the boy, when he had seen that they were in fact a boy again. The cushion made no difference to them now, but at least the furs would be warm when they switched forms again.
When the boy returned, so did the anger.
You mean to tell me that I’m going to be… stuck like this? Forever? I’m going to become a- a dragon, for good?
He drew up the memory of ropes and metal colliding with his flying form, tangling his legs and shredding his wings and sending him down into icy waters.
Oh right, sorry, I’m going to be like this until someone else kills me. That’s so much better.
He bared his teeth to the dark cage and growled, sending a clear message of warning to the boy, beyond the words he could form.
How am I supposed to be feeling about this, then?
He dredged up the way the Terrible Terror had looked when they had freed it from its cage. He thought of the expression on a woodland deer’s face when he hadn’t attacked after running into each other in the woods many years ago. He thought of the first time he could remember being in sole control of his old form, the old one taking the back seat.
You think I should be grateful ?!
Prophecy .
Screw the prophecy! If it was that important, why haven’t I ever heard of it? Why does no one in Berk know of it? No one ever would have tried to kill a Night Fury if they’d know that this is what they were signing up for!
This was truly the worst case scenario.
Not only was the new one nothing more than a child: scrawny, impulsive, volatile, but he also had an obvious lack of respect for tradition, for the rules they both had to adhere to, to keep things balanced.
The boy didn’t understand, that much was clear.
The boy - Hiccup, that was the name he had given - settled down again at the lack of response. Another hour of night passed without input from either side.
By the second hour, Hiccup had begun exploring again. He was probing the various parts of their mind and peering into the closed doors and testing the limits and boundaries. He found that their claws couldn’t retract, but could flex and grip, similar to his own fingers. He found that the appendages on their head consisted of two ears and a series of frills, for sensing things other than sound - temperature, wind, vibrations. He found that the series of spikes down their back and extending down their tail were to help with maneuvering in the air, for executing tight turns and sharp corners. He found that, as his human form was not full-grown, neither was this one. He found that their teeth retracted up into their gums when not in use, to stay out of the way of their plasma shot and to let their mouth close tighter while flying, creating less drag at high speeds.
This last bit seemed to be the most amusing to Hiccup.
You’re a deadly dragon that is toothless half the time , he thought, a teasing lilt to the words. Heh, Toothless. That’d be a good name.
He rolled their eyes and settled their head on their paws, heaving a sigh.
I like it. Toothless.
As Hiccup continued exploring, learning, and slowly getting more comfortable, the newly minted Toothless closed their eyes and slept, their single-finned tail wrapped tightly around their nose.
-
Hiccup could sense the change as the sky began to brighten. Through the dragon’s eyes, the changes in light were so much easier to catch, the bird-song that came with first light easier to hear. But, somehow more noticeable was the way Toothless seemed to waiver.
As the sky grew lighter, Hiccup could feel the way the darkness retreated, tendrils of night unhooking themselves from the far reaches of Hiccup’s mind and condensing into a singular form. Now that Hiccup knew what he was looking at, that form was inky black with spiky wings and a long twisting tail. Two pinpricks of blue stared back at him.
Is that what you looked like? he asked.
A positive feeling swept through his mind in response. It was incredibly strange and very difficult to get used to: the thing occupying his mind did not speak, per say, but could still communicate with pictures, feelings, and singular short words.
The idea that Hiccup had - by all accounts, accidentally - invoked an ancient prophecy by killing his first dragon was completely insane, and also just his luck. It would happen to him. Of all the Vikings in Berk who wished they could be a dragon, it was Hiccup who got stuck with it.
As the sunrise grew nearer, Hiccup got stronger, feeling more clear-headed than he had all night. Memories and conversations that he’d been able to ignore all night - or had they been kept at bay? - came crashing back, of his father scarcely being able to look at him - at Toothless. Of Gobber saying something in his defense, the words not wholly clear to Hiccup now, but the sentiment coming through. Looking and hearing through Toothless’ eyes and ears was like peering through darkness with cotton in his ears: the sounds and sensations were muffled, but they were there.
Something would be waiting for him in the morning, he knew at least that much. And, from the memories Toothless had shared, Hiccup knew that he’d get the day to spend in his normal body, back to normal for at least a bit. He’d be able to explain what was happening. He could tell them about the prophecy, and then they could go find Gothi and she could help him break it, and everything could go back to normal.
They’d have to listen, now that he had real answers.
They’d have to.