A/N: One thing people kept remarking about was the fact that Hiccup was more worried for the dragons' wellbeing than his own and many of you found that touching. And you know what? That's the sort of person Hiccup is. I mean, he practically begs Stoic to beat the crap out of him while leaving Toothless out of it. He's a very selfless guy.
And please check out "The Strangers" by: Travis Church. It's a good story and it needs some love.
Disclaimer: Quite unfortunately, I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. That honor belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Cowell. I would like to apologize to the word "chain". I feel it got a little overused in the last half of the chapter.
Valkyrie
Chapter Five: Chains
In the end, when he had turned the matter over in his head five times in as many seconds, Hiccup really didn't see any other option jumping up and down, waving its hand and shouting: "pick me! pick me!" The Saxons had practically smushed him into a corner and then put up all sorts of weird nasty traps to prevent him from getting out of that corner. They wanted trained dragons and he was the only person who knew what he was doing.
He really, really didn't want to be tortured either.
"Okay... I'll do it." he said, quietly admitting defeat. "I'll train your dragons for you."
Time to put being a stubborn Viking on hold. This was the best thing he could do right now. It was the only thing.
Lord Cynerīc nodded agreeably. "That's a smart decision-"
"Just - one thing." the Viking interrupted, holding up his hand.
"You're not in any position to be adding conditions to our agreement." Lord Cynerīc pointed out, frowning.
"It's just one thing." Hiccup assured him. "And it's not a condition. It's just something I need to say."
Lord Cynerīc nodded and Hiccup, having been given the go ahead, inhaled a deep breath and shouted:
"Just what the hell have you been doing to these dragons? That Nightmare hated me on sight! I think the rest of them would be happier avoiding me! They don't like me! How do you expect me to train them? They probably haven't flown in ages! I don't think they could even get off the ground! You've got them locked in cages, for Thor's sake! And you want to take them out into a battle? Where there's all kind of fire and death and stabbity things that could tear their wings apart and send both the dragon and the rider plunging to a splattery death? Are you insane?- Wait, don't answer that!"
Hiccup managed to say all of this in two breaths and his face was a bit red when he was finished.
"And please tell me you've been feeding them!" he pleaded. He didn't see any sign of food anywhere. It made him nervous. "You're doing this all wrong. You really are. You can't train dragons like this."
"Failure has made me aware of that. That's why I want you to do it instead." Lord Cynerīc told him with a careless shrug.
"Are you even listening to me?" Hiccup started, frustrated. "Unless you start-"
"You obviously have a way with the beasts." Lord Cynerīc said, talking over him. "Ketelbern has told me that you have a grown Night Fury as a mount, meaning you've gotten the rotten beast to listen to you, which is more than we've managed and we've had that damn thing- what, fifty-odd years?" He cast a look at his blacksmith, searching for confirmation.
"My grandfather assisted in the capture, if I recall." Ketelbern nodded.
"And here we thought training from a fledgling would be easier. If anything, that's harder." Lord Cynerīc let out a cynical laugh. "But now I believe that all we needed was someone who speaks their language. It's up to you to whip them into shape.
"Speaking of whips, you're going to need one." he added.
He casually tossed a long, vicious-looking cat o'nine tails to the floor at Hiccup's feet. At the leathery slap the implement made when it hit, hisses like water dropped on a hot kettle erupted from every side. Hiccup didn't even have to turn his head to see the dragons practically climbing over each other in order to get as far from the whip as they could. One of the Terrors very nearly clawed its way up the Viking's leg; most fortunately digging its claws into the prosthetic rather than the flesh and blood.
It was the dragons' reaction that set him off.
"How many times will I have to say it! You can't treat your dragons like this!" Hiccup all but screamed, storming across the empty space that separated him from the two Saxons. "They're not just fire-breathing lizards! They're not war-machines! They won't do tricks just because you want them to! They're your friends if you let them be, but you're not! You just think they're dumb, mindless beasts who need to be broken! You lock them up, you use a-" He choked on the word and had to force it out. "A whip on them!-"
He wanted to shriek in inarticulate rage, but coherent words spilled out instead. His brain still had more to say.
"No wonder you're not having any luck! No wonder you can't even get near them! They hate you! They don't trust you! They don't trust anyone! And you know why? Because you're a bunch of assholes!
"And you stink!" he added, stabbing a finger at them. It was a sort of childish jab, but it felt good to say. "By the gods, do you know how much you stink? You smell worse than Snotlout on a good day! Worse than Tuffnut on a bad day! The out-houses are flowers compared to you! I've smelled dragon crap that smells better you! That's offensive! Your body odor is offending me!"
Hiccup might have gone on a little further in this vein. He had quite a lot to say about the smell of this place and some colorful ways to say it too, but Ketelbern was not a man who liked listening to people shout and rant and carry on like a tornado siren that just wouldn't shut up. He was the person who preferred to do the shouting and ranting and carrying on like a tornado siren that just wouldn't shut up. And since Hiccup had marched up to a fairly close distance, it was very easy for Ketelbern to put out a fist and knock the Viking down like he was one of those blow-up punching bag dolls.
That was sort of a mistake. The instant Hiccup hit the ground, there was a challenging shriek and the three Terrible Terrors were in the air. They dive-bombed the blacksmith, their green-streaked fellow leading the charge.
"Holy mother of-!" That was all Ketelbern had time to shriek when the green-streaked Terror clamped its jaws over the man's nose and started to gnaw and pull like the nose was a particularly tough piece of meat. The other two simply ran all over the blacksmith, gleefully digging their claws in and drawing blood with every step.
Lord Cynerīc did this odd sort of dance back and forth, his fingers flicking wildly in agitation. His hands made a dive towards the Terrors whenever one of them ran past, but he would yank them back just as quickly. He was trying to figure out how to remove the small dragons from the blacksmith without getting hurt himself. It didn't help that Ketelbern was flailing. The hand that wasn't occupied with removing the Terror from his nose was slapping at the other two and missing every single time. When it didn't look possible for Lord Cynerīc to remove the Terrors without getting hurt, he turned to Hiccup.
"Do something!" he commanded.
Hiccup just whistled a peculiar three-note call that he had often heard between from small mobs of Terrible Terrors. Usually, when this call was made, a stray Terror would come rushing out to rejoin the main group. He had always figured it was a sort of 'come here' or 'over here' signal to keep the mob together. It had been beneficial to learn how to mimic it. It was the easiest way to call the little dragons off Tuffnut.
It worked like it always did. The three Terrible Terrors leapt off of Ketelbern and rushed back over to Hiccup. Two of them darted behind his back. The green-streaked one wriggled underneath his arm and around Hiccup's elbow, shot the scratched and bleeding blacksmith a very smug look. Ketelbern glowered, holding his nose tightly between two fingers.
"And that is the sort of behavior I want stopped." Lord Cynerīc declared with a frown. "So you had better put that-" He pointed to the whip. "-to good use."
He turned briskly on his heel and marched out of the compound.
"Don't encourage it." Ketelbern added warningly. He lingered long enough to point two fingers at his eyes, then one back at Hiccup and the three dragons. "Got my eye on you."
Then he too walked out smartly and shut the heavy door so hard it echoed through the hollowed-out hill.
Some time after the Saxon leader and his shadowing blacksmith had left, Hiccup was still sitting on the dirt floor where he had initially fallen. The Terrible Terrors had gathered around his ankles. They watched him stare at his bitten hand and bite his lower lip while his expression flitted between thoughtful frustration and a sort of angry defiance. Every so often, the three Terrors would exchange unreadable glances of their own.
Then he finally bit into his lip.
"Aargh!" Hiccup scruffed his fingers through his hair wildly, causing it to stand on end. "What am I gonna do? I'm all the way up shit creek without a paddle! I can't train you guys until you trust me and you three look like you're gonna bolt if I move too quickly and that really doesn't help me with the trust part."
He gave the three Terrors an accusatory glare while running a finger over the bloody part of his lip. If nothing else, their behavior had shown him just how difficult it was going to be to even get near the bigger dragons. Terrible Terrors had small fireballs. Other dragons like Monstrous Nightmares had very large fireballs.
It was the fire-breathing part that Hiccup was worried about.
"And the Saxons aren't going to let me leave. Not unless I do something first or escape on my own, which doesn't look likely." This time, he glared at the door. He had heard the chains sliding back into place. "They can't kill me because that won't get them anywhere. Hell, I don't think they want to torture me. I mean, what's-his-face threatened me with a choice. I think they'd rather leave torture as the very last option, in case I turn out to be the stupid, stubborn Viking they're expecting me to be."
It rankled at him that they had been expecting him to be some kind of savage, albeit smarter than your average savage. But they had still expected him to be uncouth and uncivilized. He could probably fulfill their expectations with a few adjustments, but being a stubborn Viking wasn't going to get him anywhere either. Though it would make him happy and the Saxons angry, they would run out of patience with him much faster.
Hiccup sighed, shaking his head. "And let's face it, even if I can train you guys enough that the Saxons are happy, they still aren't gonna let me go. I am the mighty slayer of the Queen Dragon! That thing was enormous!" He stretched his arms out as far as he could, but there was no properly conveying the size of that monster unless you had seen it with your own eyes. "I mean, Toothless did most of the work, but I came up with the plan... And got this out of it."
He made a slightly disgusted gesture to his false foot. Sometimes, he still felt angry about it; wondered why he couldn't have come out of that fight in one piece; wondered what the gods were thinking when they decided that it would be okay for him to lose his foot. Yes, it was better than losing his life - he would take his life over his foot any day - but whenever the prosthetic bothered him horribly and he just wanted to cry from the pain, he would curse the gods for letting it happen.
"But like I said, they've got nothing to lose by keeping me here." he went on grouchily. "They'll keep me here so I can keep training every dragon they bring through those doors. I'm useful to them."
It sounded like such a curse. At last he was useful to his tribe. And now he was useful to everyone else who had the slightest thing to do with dragons.
"Anyways, when has any Viking ever made it home after being captured by Saxons? I'm the only living Viking in this entire stinking place."
Hiccup let out a quiet, derisive snort and his chin thunked down lightly on his knees. He rolled his head to the side far enough to regard the green-streaked Terrible Terror with empathy.
"Just as trapped as you guys." he said sadly. He sighed, pushing out all his frustration and misery out with the air. Damn that blacksmith, he had been right. No one was coming for him.
"Well... Better figure out what I'm supposed to do."
The Viking got back to his feet and the Terrible Terrors scattered away so they wouldn't be stepped on. Around him, the dragons shuffled back and continued watching his every movement with care. Hiccup strode back over to the cat o'nine tails, scowled at it, and then kicked it clear into the darkest corner.
"I'm not a Saxon. I'm not one of them. I am a Viking." he told the dragons. "Maybe that doesn't sound any better to you. Maybe you know the stories about Vikings and dragons and the war we used to fight. But that war is over. In my village, no dragon dies at a human's hand. Not anymore. And if I have my way, all of you are getting out of here alive."
There was a strange undercurrent of noise through the hollowed-out hill. It was barely audible to Hiccup, but it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He didn't know if the dragons had understood him, but the atmosphere had shifted. He could tell that he had less of their ire and more of their interest.
It had been a rough start, but things felt like they were smoothing out now.
Breathing a long sigh, Hiccup ventured slowly down the path between the cages. The Terrible Terrors trailed after him as he walked, just a few steps shy of getting underfoot. The Viking paused in front of the Zipplebacks' cage and watched three dragons shifted uneasily in the vanishing shadows. Zippleback number one had a mottled pattern across its chest that extended up the neck of the left-side head. Zippleback number two was more brown than green and its right-side head was crackling with sparks, its eyes narrowed. Both dragons were backed up against the far wall.
Zippleback number three was the same one who had been conversing with the Monstrous Nightmare earlier. The right-side head was missing the tip of its nose horn and the left-side head had an odd sort of dent in its lower jaw, like a chunk of bone had been removed and the flesh had merely healed over it. It was the only one of the three who looked interested in Hiccup. The heads were still bumping each other out of the way to get a better look and it hurried right up the bars as he stepped forward. Hiccup smiled a little and moved on to the next cage.
And rather wished that he hadn't.
This one held two Boneknappers.
The Boneknapper was quite possibly the most terrifying-looking dragon in existence. Presumably they were the distant cousins of the Monstrous Nightmares, being literally of the same skeletal structure. That was all this dragon was; a skeleton. It was said that once a Nightmare had angered the gods and in punishment, the gods had once stripped the flesh from the Nightmare and gave it unnatural life. Like the Monstrous Nightmare, the Boneknapper could set its skeleton aflame. Unlike the Monstrous Nightmare, no one knew if they were really alive at all.
Both skeletal dragons watched Hiccup with hollow black eyes until a cold shiver ran up and down his spine and he quickly turned away. Across from the Boneknappers was a cage full of Puff Nadders. They were the slightly smaller and considerably less vain cousins of the Deadly Nadders. Puff Nadders were often a bright, poisonous yellow and were said to be one of the most venomous dragon species. According to the Dragon Manual, they weren't particularly fond of their vain cousins. Wherever there was a large concentration of Deadly Nadders, you could be sure that there wasn't a Puff Nadder within twenty miles.
The Puff Nadders fidgeted and squawked when he got what they deemed to be too close to their cage. Hiccup held up his hands to show he was harmless and backed off a step, but that apparently wasn't enough for one of them. The agitated one flared its wings and whipped its spiked-filled tail around. A handful of spikes shot from the appendage towards Hiccup. Most of them bounced off the bars, but several of them made it through, forcing the Viking (and the Terrors) to dodge to the side. He had heard those spikes were full of a poison that could paralyze a man in two minutes flat. Probably less time than that if you were a skinny streak of nothing like Hiccup.
"Great, dragons who want to kill me and dragons who will probably give me nightmares." he groaned, slumping against the bars of the cage adjacent to the Puff Nadders. "Let's put them right across from each other and leave me no place to walk safely."
Hot air huffed across the back of his neck. The cage behind him was not empty.
"Please be friendly, please be friendly, please be friendly." Hiccup pleaded, praying that the gods were with him on this one. He slowly turned around.
The gods were with him on this one. The dragon that stood directly behind him made a soft coo, as if asking him not to run. The rest of the dragons that were staring him down were not angry, glaring and growling like the Nightmare. As a matter of fact, it looked like they were making an effort to not be too interested in him. Indeed, most of them were turning their heads away like they didn't care, but their eyes kept flickering back to him.
The dragons (all five of them) were no bigger than Toothless - perhaps a little smaller - but they had the biggest, hairiest noses he had ever seen. The nostrils all but dominated their blunt snouts. They had gentle, aquamarine scales, barrel-like bodies, and stubby legs. They reminded him of the wolfhounds that the Vikings had used for hunting once - before the dragons had started targeting the canines too and it became detrimental to keep the dogs.
The one that stood closest to the bars (so close that he could have easily touched it) had nostrils were so large that Hiccup probably could have stuck his head inside with some inches to spare. This one seemed older; it had more gray on its scales than the others and - dare he say it? - more wrinkles around its eyes. The four others had given this grayer one a sizeable berth.
Nostrils aquiver, it stuck its head forward and breathed in, inhaling the Viking's scent. Hiccup felt the air rush past him and get sucked up the dragon's nose. It snorted and then made a rumbling noise deep in its throat that sounded nothing short of triumphant. All of a sudden, there was a loud burst of chatter from all sides. The dragons were talking to each other again. Hiccup had a good feeling that he was the center of the conversation.
The remaining, large-nosed dragons finally gave up the pretense of being uninterested in him and charged to the front of the cage. Hiccup jumped and reflexively fell back several steps, despite knowing very well that unless he stuck his hands between the bars, there was no way the dragons could reach him. Not that they cared; they just repeated the actions of their elder and practically gaped at him.
He drew back and averted his eyes slightly. It was unnerving to be under such close scrutiny. He was used to going unnoticed and he was rapidly turning dodging the villagers' collective attention into an art form. He tried to step away again, but the Terrible Terrors were suddenly at his feet, circling between his ankles like hawks, sniffing his legs and chirring every so often.
A trilling noise had him looking over his shoulder. Every dragon had pushed themselves up to the bars of their cages, heads and necks straining to get him in sight. The Zipplebacks were practically fighting each other and spitting sounds at one another that seemed vaguely insulting. The Puff Nadders were squawking like parrots, making more noise than the Timberjacks behind him and the Deadly Nadders to their right. He could hear the snorting of Gronckles while their wings buzzed and the rumbling growls from the Monstrous Nightmares sounded somehow apologetic. Even the Boneknappers seemed to have adopted a less hostile demeanor.
Surreptitiously, Hiccup smelled his clothes. They smelled like bilge water, dirt, salt and only vaguely of the sulfur-like scent that seemed to always accompany the dragons back home. Whatever else the dragons smelled on him, he didn't smell it, but it had them all excited.
What do I smell like to them? He wondered, slightly perturbed. It had never bothered him before - he took his baths regularly and was easier on the olfactory sense than half the tribe, but... Maybe- Maybe they can smell Toothless!
It was a shot in the dark, but Toothless had accompanied him most everywhere on the ground. They were all but inseparable. How long could scents linger?
Before he could really start to think about it, his train of thought was interrupted. One dragon's voice rose above all the others, a strident, almost desperate cry that sent a shiver down his spine. It was very, very familiar.
Toothless?
Panic gripped Hiccup hard and he bolted past the remaining cages, completely forgetting his promise not to go running about on his leg. But adrenaline and fear had him throwing caution to the winds. Horrible imagery flashed through his mind. Of Toothless, trapped in one of these cages.
Had the Saxons captured him too? Had they seen the Night Fury and then opportunity strolling up the path to their front door?
Toothless!
Hiccup skidded to a halt in front of the last cage, looking wildly over the dragon inside. Familiar features jumped out at him, but it was a moment before he could put it all together.
And he almost fell over in relief. It was indeed a Night Fury, but it wasn't Toothless.
Toothless's eyes weren't blue.
Other than that, the captured Night Fury was all but identical to Hiccup's best friend. He wasn't sure if it was bigger or smaller - he didn't really have a size comparison. It had the same powerful wings and floppy ears, and the fringe of fleshy spikes around its head. The only real differences were, of course, the eye color which was a vibrant sapphire blue, the dusting of gray across the top of the wings and the tail was fully intact.
Oh, and the manacle clamped snugly around its right hind leg with a chain secured to a metal ring sunken into the floor, which was stone rather than dirt.
"You're not Toothless." Hiccup whispered, weak-kneed with relief. He wrapped his fingers around the bars and closed his eyes. "You're not Toothless... No, you're not. You've been here longer." he realized, looking at the blue-eyed Night Fury. Lord Cynerīc's previous words had come back to him. About attempting to train a Night Fury from the fledgling stage and having no luck there either.
Hiccup closed his eyes again and let go a heavy sigh of relief, his forehead against the bars. He couldn't help the relief he felt at knowing that this Night Fury wasn't Toothless. He also couldn't help the anger at knowing that the Saxons had captured a Night Fury, no matter how long ago it had happened.
None of this should have happened.
The Night Fury shuffled in spot, sending the chain links jingling. Keeping its eyes on Hiccup, it lowered its head and slowly stepped forward, a low, rumbling sort of moan coming from its throat. Averting his own eyes, Hiccup twisted his upper body and fit his shoulder between the bars. It was a bit of a tight fit, but he managed it and hesitantly stretched out his hand to the Night Fury.
He heard the chain links jingling some more as the dragon moved towards him and then they abruptly stopped. All he felt was hot air blasting off his palm and he raised his head to look. The chain had pulled taut. The Night Fury had its neck stretched as far out as it could, leaning forward on its front legs so that its manacled leg was no longer touching the ground, but there was still about six inches left between his hand and the dragon. There wasn't enough slack to close the gap.
Hiccup sighed and pulled his hand back, wiggling his shoulder loose of the bars. The Night Fury shook itself a bit and likewise pulled back until its foot was back on the ground and the chain was loose again. It sat like a cat and its tail swished around to hide the manacle around its hind leg. The dragon stared at Hiccup with large blue eyes in a manner that reminded him too much of Toothless.
He had just turned away when a particular contraption on the wall caught his eye.
A heavy chain ran up the wall and through several pulleys suspended high above from the wooden gridwork, before dropping down to connect to the topmost horizontal bar on the front of cage, which he now realized was probably the door as well. The other end of the chain was wrapped around a crank (at shoulder-level with Hiccup) that would pull the door up when turned. Two long poles ran up on either side of the chain and horizontal bars jutting out from the poles further locked the chain in place. The chain refused to budge an inch, even when he leaned all his weight on it. He even went as far as to lift his feet off the ground to see if that made a difference. It didn't. Whoever had designed this system had certainly been a clever bastard.
Hiccup hated that person already.
A quick check confirmed that similar mechanisms existed to the left side of every cage.
Further enclosing the dragons in were the horizontal bars over the tops of the cages, which sat about twenty feet above the floor. The Monstrous Nightmare was probably able to hang from there without bothering its companion.
The Saxons had clearly put a lot of thought into keeping their dragons completely contained.
The Terrible Terrors chirruped near Hiccup's feet.
Well, mostly contained.
Shaking his head, Hiccup turned and walked towards the second pair of double doors that lay past the Night Fury's cage. He pushed them open, not surprised to find the hinges well-oiled. Beyond the doors was a wide arena that made up the other half of the hill. A chain-link net hung over the arena, effectively cutting the dragons off from the sky. It was very similar to what hung over the training arena back home. As a matter of fact, Hiccup realized that the design was nearly identical.
"Thieves." he muttered darkly, striding forward.
The Terrible Terrors trotted after him like ducklings and almost immediately broke away from him to enthusiastically investigate their new surroundings. This was definitely where the Saxons had tried to train the dragons. Keyword there being 'tried'. The evidence of failure was all over the place. Where the stone hadn't been blackened by fire-breath, claws had gouged deep, leaving long furrows and large chunks of rock behind. This didn't bother the Terrors. They flopped happily on the warm stone and spread their wings to soak up as much heat as they could.
The little dragons looked very content to stay there, so Hiccup trekked across to the other side of the arena. To the grate the covered the exit. It wasn't just like the one back home. It was exactly like the one back home. The design was so similar that someone had clearly stolen the idea from someone else. And it was weighted perfectly so that Hiccup could push it open with one hand and not much effort on his part.
It was the air that hit him first. A sweet breeze lightly scented by the first wildflowers of spring. He couldn't smell waste products or unwashed humanity. There was no crowded town or clamoring noises to ruin the tranquility. Just grassy hills and the wind and the quiet.
He could run away right now, he realized. It might not be until tomorrow morning that someone came to check up on him. He could have almost twenty-four hours before anyone realized that he was gone. He could take off right now and be on his way home in no time (assuming he didn't get mauled and/or eaten by the local wildlife first).
But he didn't move a step. Something urged him to run, but there was a stronger pull to what lay behind him. He couldn't abandon the dragons. He couldn't abandon that Night Fury. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to look at Toothless and still live with himself or the knowledge that he had left over three dozen dragons at the mercies of people who used whips.
There was something he had to do here. He had to show these dragons that not all humans were the same. He still had to prove to them that he wasn't going to hurt them. He had to gain their trust (and maybe the key to those darn locks). He had made a bit of progress on that front; between freeing the Terrors and kicking the whip into the corner. He was really starting to believe that he still smelled like a Night Fury too. He certainly had the dragons' curiosity and interest now. That was far better than their hostility.
And he was going to have to start by getting the dragons' strength back up. They weren't going to get anywhere in their current conditions. He was absolutely certain that the dragons weren't being fed enough. Berk was full of healthy, well-fed dragons and the ones here looked a bit wane and sickly. Fresh food, fresh water; that was what they needed. He would work on fresh air later and if he could wrangle it, open skies.
And maybe, if the gods were willing, he could return to Berk on dragon-back.
- -