literature

HTTYD: Shadowland, Pt. 2 (Nightfall)

Deviation Actions

le-letha's avatar
By
Published:
2.1K Views

Literature Text

Begin reading this story HERE

---

Terror blazes through him, strange and wild, and the dragon-feral writhes against the claws trapping him. He thrashes and kicks at nothing at all, but a nothing that folds its claws around him, scratching at his scales and threatening to tear deeper; a nothing that cannot be seen but that breathes heat and a burning reek at him; a nothing that rumbles with a muted snarl as it holds him tight against its chest.

The ground falls away, and Hiccup wails to see Toothless disappear, left behind in the fog. The black dragon’s answering roar dares the fog to mute it as Toothless screams wrath endless and immeasurable, leaping blindly at the movements in the air and gone.

All his life Hiccup has wanted to be able to fly on his own, to spring from the ground and soar upwards on his own wings – although to fly with Toothless is the best thing. The hobbling glide he can manage far in the sky is a much-cracked and tasteless bone while his flock-mates feast.

If he could, then this would be what it would look like as he leapt, he knows. But even as the muscles in his back pull tight as if to spread strong wings, it is wrong, wrong!

So he fights. His claws gouge at the paws wrapped around him, and they twitch away, but the hiding-hunting cousin instead grips him more tightly, muting Hiccup’s shriek of rage into a breathless yelp.

Defiantly, he tries to bite, knowing that his small fangs cannot tear through dragon-scales. But although he leaves no mark, he finds that he can see the hiding-hunting cousin when he looks close and careful.

The dragon is there. It has only changed its colors very cleverly.

It is as if the hiding-hunting dragon is made of the world, as if a piece of the world has come to life.

When he peers up at where its head must be, it cranes its muzzle down to look him over. Bright yellow-gold eyes open fully, like eyes all alone floating in the fog that are easy to see once they are spotted.

So Hiccup finds those eyes and stares back, baring his teeth and snarling. Down! he insists, gesturing. Down down down me now you back-off go-away go-away me down!

From below he recognizes Toothless’ howl of searching, and Hiccup’s heart keens with his beloved-companion’s cry of you you you where you where mine-mine-mine beloved-mine where need need need you where?

When the sounds become a snarl of enemy-here go-away me fight ready fierce me fierce danger-warning threat me fight! broken by the high keen sounds of looking and a blaze of battle-fire, Hiccup knows that Toothless is still fighting against the other hiding-hunting cousin. He imagines Toothless chasing the one they tricked, and singing at the sky to find the one that snatched his Hiccup.

In the sky, his captor growls and shakes him, scolding no you hush you small bite me bite see teeth see? and folds her jaw down to her chest to bare her fangs with no real interest or malice.

Hiccup spits defiance, and screeches Toothless-beloved here me here here!

At once a dark shape tears through the fog, flying towards the sound, and his captor folds her wings and dives away from the searching sounds.

And Toothless does not see them! Toothless does not see him!

Hiccup is hidden behind wings that look like fog, and Toothless cannot find him. Even in the glimpse he gets, the dragon-feral can see the panic coiling through Toothless’ body, and bright scars of loss and separation and soul-deep horror begin to crack open across his heart.

They are to each other in every way a needful thing.

Elsewhere Hiccup thinks he can hear the voices of his flock, distant and difficult to make out, but he knows the sounds of distress that are clearest of all.

Are there many, many hiding-hunting cousins here, slinking out from hiding and changing all their colors to creep up on the travelers, to spit poison and bite? Is there a very great flock, so that every stone and gully and pool hides a dragon guarding its territory and striking without warning?

Are they angry because Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss led their flock here, to drink their water and rest on their perches and snap up their prey?

They did not know!

Movement close by is not Toothless – Hiccup mewls disappointed – but the other hiding-hunting cousin, creeping close to its flock-mate. A faint wash of color fades through their scales as they hover together, outlining them against the fog.

That? it – he – asks, blinking at Hiccup.

His captor shrugs. Small, she clicks dismissively. She stares out into the fog, listening for Toothless’ frantic cries, and bristles danger careful careful, the tendrils of her jaws waving.

This that look this small that, she muses. Me I catch clever-me that careful threat-there c’mon – Her flock-mate follows her sounds as she darts away. – don’t-like go-away!

I give, she concludes, pretending to hold her captive out; that-there don’t-like stranger-intruder that go.

No-threat! Hiccup interrupts in a yowl, pulling his claws away to demonstrate even though he wants to claw her very much. She is keeping him away from Toothless, and that cannot be borne.

She turns an eye to him in surprise. Hush, she snorts at him, an adult to a hatchling.

Hiccup hisses anger, roars no and the sound that means the king’s flock. He has been mistaken before for Toothless’ hatchling, and it is not entirely wrong or bothersome for strangers to think him and his other self close-kin.

But he minds very much to be talked down to as only a silly dragonet, to have his tail trodden on so that he cannot pester big dragons, and be otherwise ignored!

And it is not at all fine to be used so, to threaten Toothless and force him to obey!

If this is the territory of the hiding-hunting cousins, then they will go!

But they do not listen when he whimpers and pleads with them – their eyes are turned to Toothless, flying alone and frantic in the fog, chasing the faintest wisps of the hiding-hunting cousins away from the marsh and over a thicker forest. The mist-shrouded treetops shudder and rattle their remaining leaves at his roars and howls and protests and wails. Every sound, every shadow half-seen but still hidden from, bites into Hiccup like ice, and he struggles desperately to get free, calling out always Toothless-heart follow here-I-am listen hear-me Toothless-dearest here here here!

Stop-that enough no no no hush, his captor snaps, lowering her muzzle to him again.

He snarls at her, and she looks him over. Hiccup can see in her eyes when she realizes that he is not a hatchling, only small.

He sees in her movements when she decides that he can be threatened for real.

She bares her fangs, and bright-burning poison-spittle drips from them, surging from her throat ready to burn. The stink of it wafts into his eyes, stinging and burning them, and slicks pain down the back of his throat.

The captive little dragon recoils instinctively, blinking and gasping and frightened of the touch of it more than her fangs, coated with it like blood.

But Hiccup is a clever little dragon most of all.

Hiccup has no real desire to hurt her, or her flock-mate flying close and shielding her with his fog-colored wings. He and his flock are intruders here, and in the wrong. It is not an unfamiliar feeling, for he and Toothless are wanderers. They encounter many strange dragons who sometimes snarl at them and drive them away, and sometimes nose at them cautiously and accept them as traveling strangers. But the dragon-pair rarely dig their claws into the earth and insist on staying when they are not wanted.

But the hiding-hunting cousins here crept around in shadows and fog and chased Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss like prey, and elsewhere their friends are hurting and hunted, and these ones are keeping him away from Toothless which is most wrong of all, and now his captor is snarling at him only for trying to escape and go back to his dragon-heart so they can leave this place to its flock.

So instead of whimpering and submitting, Hiccup flicks his claws out, not to tear at her jaws but only to coat them into the bright poison, darting them in and out quick and careful.

In an instant, even as his dead and borrowed claws hiss and burn away beneath it, he sinks them into the point beneath her own claws where scales give way just a little bit to softness.

Shrieking in pain and surprise, his captor jerks her paw away, and Hiccup falls.

There is no time and not enough sky to glide on his makeshift wings, but Hiccup has been falling from cliff edges and dragons’ backs and tree branches and tall stones and misjudged leaps all his life. He twists instinctively, sensing more than seeing the trees that swipe at him in passing. The first branch he catches for tears itself free from his grip, ripping away the last bubbling remnants of a claw, and others whip sharply against him. But he manages to slow his crashing, snapping, rattling fall, until the ground stops him without mercy.

Landing hurts. He takes the last of it on his shoulders as his paws slip out from beneath him where dead leaves rot to wispy bones. Broken twigs and branches, scattered leaves and slow bugs and all the debris of the autumn forest, rain down around him, and he spits out the taste of green-once rotting-now things he does not know and does not at all care for.

He spits disgust also at the stench of bright poison still in his throat, retching and coughing, licking at his own jaws.

It is very tempting to lie still and whimper, but instead Hiccup drags himself to all his paws, aching and panting, trying to find his breath again as he noses at this new place.

Faint tendrils, more mist than thick fog, coil through the trees, but he can see among the shadows of the trees well enough, with the light still fading from the sky. He is used to the dark. Nothing pounces at him, so he sits back on his heels and cries out Toothless-heart!

The hiding-hunting cousins will hear him too, but he believes that Toothless will find him first.

Toothless loves him most of all, wants to find him, needs to find him, and the hiding-hunting cousins will be warier now.

So he slinks low and cautious through the fallen leaves and fading underbrush of the forest floor, keeping out of sight of an easy glance, but he whistles and howls need and mine and wherewherewhere? and beloved-mine calling calling calling here me here me here find-me!

In his battered-dark leather and black scales, shuffling his paws through the dead leaves to scrub away the last traces of bright poison – those claws are burned away to blunt stumps; he will have to replace them all – he thinks himself very well hidden indeed. If the hiding-hunting cousins dive at him, he will know them from the way their movements make the trees shake or the fallen leaves rustle.

Here me here me here! a voice like his cries out.

Hiccup leaps and startles, whipping around and backing away. Toothless? he clicks inquisitively, but his instincts know better, and already he is cowering low.

Someone nearby shrieks hurting! loud and ringing, and the little dragon yowls no!

He knows that voice!

That is Mouth Full of Teeth!

But Mouth Full of Teeth is big and his scales are bright. Hiccup would see him if he were here!

Where? the dragon-feral whimpers.

Where? his own voice replies.

Find-me! his own sounds repeat behind him.

Disgust, his own sounds spit from the leaves.

Hiccup hunches his shoulders and bares his teeth and raises his remaining claws, a rangy, wiry young man with a dragon’s manner and keen eyes, the bones of his face clear beneath his matted shock of auburn hair, and even more so when he snarls. The sound and the posture belong to something much bigger than he, to the black dragon who is part of him and the dragon-flock that raised him; it defies his body and asserts unconditionally that he is what he believes he is and who he fights to stay.

In many ways he remains the sweet-natured soul he would have been, raised human, given the chance he would have snatched from the edge of a blade and offered with an outstretched hand.

But as a dragon he is a survivor in a wild and dangerous world. Any threat to his life or Toothless’ life – the two are the same – is met with bared fangs and a snarl.

His own growl echoes back to him, picked up and repeated until he is surrounded by it, as fallen leaves shift and broken branches are pushed aside.

Stranger-intruder, snaps the voice of the hiding-hunting she, again and again – stranger-intruder stranger-intruder stranger-intruder here here here here disgust don’t-like don’t-want – until it is as if the forest itself is snarling and gathering itself to pounce on the little dragon in its midst.

Something slinks towards him, hidden in the deeper shadows, and Hiccup stares at it in challenge, warning it away with a steady growl.

And the growl becomes a roar as Toothless plummets from the sky to join his voice to the snarls of his Hiccup-self.

As fast as Toothless moves, a watching eye might have been forgiven for believing that the dragon-feral had transformed himself in an instant into a true-born dragon to meet the threatening challenge, bursting from his skin into the broad wings and lethal fangs and bright fire of an almost matchless predator.

The threatening voices scatter as the black dragon lands crouched over Hiccup, paws dug into the earth and head lowered, fire blazing from his throat and shining back from his eyes as he shows his teeth and screams mine! Toothless’ tail lashes, and his head turns to menace everything all around, wings spread and mantling.

Only the rustles of fleeing bodies that become a frightened silence reply.

As the sounds of crunched leaves and hasty pawsteps fade, Toothless rears up slightly, enough to let Hiccup scamper out from beneath his chest, and sits back on his hindquarters, licking derisively at one paw.

Fierce fierce fierce you fierce happy you-dearest good here you love-you! Hiccup chirrups, twining around Toothless’ foreleg and rolling, and Toothless noses at his face and belly and throat, checking safe you here safe hurt? hurt? you you you safe good good good worried frightened me frightened you mine!

But even as they coo and purr over each other, they keep cautious eyes on their surroundings.

Those, Toothless snarls, looking up, watching for hiding-hunting cousins. Don’t-like! he spits emphatically, and yelps thief.

No, whistles Hiccup, not angry and defiant, but wondering. He peers curious at the shadowed forest.

Listen, he shows, gesturing there and there and there for the creatures that had surrounded him.

No? Toothless repeats, scenting at the ground. He rumbles slightly as he picks up the new scent.

Hiccup does not know what they were.

Snorting enough, Toothless flicks his tail impatient, pinning his ear-flaps back with exasperation.

And he challenges you! you you you I here us here us brave very-much-so you? you?

He huffs disbelief that the strangers will come out and face him, rolls his eyes away like there is nothing of interest to see, and then glares fierce and commanding.

No roars of defiance answer him, and no fire blazes towards Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss.

But the silence breaks beneath rustling leaves and small trodden-on twigs, and claws scuttling across tree-bark, and scales brushing against the ground.

One by one the leaf-lurking dragons emerge from hiding, sidling cautiously and ready to bolt away if Toothless moves to attack or Hiccup does more than stare with interest.

And he does stare, curious; the dragon-pair have not seen dragons like these before, but Hiccup knows them to be kin.

The leaf-lurking cousins are no bigger than small-cousins who chatter very much, but they are not bright colors all over. They are the dappled brown of mud and the sullen green-grey of damp moss and the ash-grey of old trees. Some have flashes of brighter greens and richer browns that burn towards red, or darken towards black – but none of them near the pure-true night-black of Toothless’ scales, Hiccup notes, preening a bit with shared vanity.

They are dragons of earth and forests, not bright sunlight and open sky. Patterns like sunlight and shadow splash across their broad chests and strong hind legs.

Their wings are not wide and strong, but when one leaps away startled to be looked at, it leaps a very long way and its wings snap it away from the tree-trunks in its path.

Broad throats swell into heavy jaws beneath stubby horns, and when one bares its teeth to growl back Hiccup’s own snarl, very few fangs show. Its jowls are too thick. But its strength is clear, and Hiccup knows their bite would be deep.

Others pick up the snarl like a flock of echoes, and other familiar sounds blend into it – retching disgust and curious what? and tangled-together pain cries and the hiding-hunting cousin’s stop-that snap and Toothless’ roar of mine and his challenge of you? you? you?

You? you? you? you? the leaf-lurking dragons mimic back to them.

Hiccup chirps with sudden delight at the strangeness of hearing his dragon-love’s voice in another’s throat, and whistles and clicks Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss! in reply.

Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss, the mimics echo perfectly, tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss, again and again.

Toothless bristles still, to be surrounded. He bares the edges of fangs and coils his tail around to protect Hiccup, watching for each of the strangers.

Stranger-intruders, one of them snarls in the voice of the hiding-hunting she. Many of them growl and crouch, and some of them belch out reeking smog that sparks, gathering into a cloud.

Drawing back, Hiccup spreads one of his wings to waft the smog away. He has lived with enough two-heads cousins to know that sparks and smog together will burst and burn.

No-threat, he yowls even as Toothless’ fangs warn that they will be a threat, if they are threatened. No-fight, he signals, don’t-want.

Stranger-intruders, the mimics snarl still, this here this mine you you you don’t-want!

Toothless startles, and nudges at Hiccup, signaling them here yes yes small hunting small here here. He purrs belonging, for a heartbeat folding his wings and resting, pretending to be relaxed and safe. Them!

The mimics belong here, the mimics are hiding –

The hiding-hunting cousins are trespassing, too! All of them, traveling flock and sneaking color-changershave stepped over the flock that makes their home here, hunted fun-to-chase rich-sweet prey-beasts in their territory, fought over it as if it was empty.

Whining, Toothless hides his fangs away and crouches to the ground, and Hiccup flattens his claws to the earth and drops his shoulders submissively, both of them unwilling to fight when they are so very in the wrong.

Sorry sorry, the dragon-feral croons, and sees the mimics turn their deep-set eyes to him in confusion. Us go us flock fly-away go sorry us sorry you here this here you fine-fine-fine no-fight sorry!

As the mimics copy his sounds with puzzlement and doubt tinging their imitations, he paws at the air and cries out where? where? ours flock ours dragon-cousins where?

They will go, and their flock with them, if Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss can only escape their hunters and find their friends again.

But then trees shake as shadows become snarling red dragons lit up by the last of the sun, and both of the hiding-hunting cousins dive at the dragon-pair, jaws open and ready to spit.

At once, Toothless scrambles to his paws and blasts flame at them, but they dodge away very quickly and the fire strikes only sky. Still, it holds them at bay for the instant it takes for Hiccup to leap to his dragon-beloved’s shoulders, both of them roaring defiance.

It stuns all of them, dragon-pair and hiding-hunting cousins, when the mimics roar too.

Hiccup and Toothless are never lonely – they have each other always – but sometimes they wonder if they will find others like them if they fly far enough. It would be strange, perhaps, to see others with night-black scales, to see others move as they do, to be challenged for once in their aerobatic games of flying and diving and spinning and racing.

They could never have imagined those others might sound like this, as if all their shadows in ponds and on stones had come to life to join them – it is an assault as shocking as any fire, as deafening as a scream from a loud-voice cousin swatting them reeling from the sky.

And the hiding-hunting cousins recoil, eyes widening and heads swinging side to side, looking for the other big dragons and seeing not at all the small ones hiding beneath leaves and clinging to branches, throats swollen out and borrowed voices roaring.

Just Hiccup and Toothless alone marked them both, and the hiding-hunting cousins hesitate, fading in and out of sight. Their movements say confusion and a bit of fear, and reluctance washes across their bodies like colors.

Before the mimics can roar again, the color-changers decide that the fight is not worth fighting anymore, the hunt not worth the quarrel, and flee.

When they have gone there is a silence that echoes.

In it, Hiccup makes a very small, thoughtful sound like huh.

Huh huh huh huh huh, the mimics reply at once, and when Toothless whistles and chirrs and houghs laughing-laughing-laughing at him, they imitate that too.

Hiccup grins his dragon’s grin at them all, thinking a very good trick to try.

He and Toothless have encountered hiding-hunting cousins before, and he knows that they will run and hide if they think they cannot win a fight they have started.

They are in the mimics’ territory, and he does not believe for a moment that all of them are here clicking pieces of all the sounds they have heard to each other. He recognizes the voices of their scattered flock-mates, Refuge’s sighs and Slinking’s complaints, Trill’s whistle and Rock All Over’s grunts.

And Hiccup is a fair mimic himself. He is small, but he can roar and move and pretend like he is big, can hold his ground and demand the respect of the dragons that tower over him.

Listen, he whistles for attention, and all eyes turn to him.

Good good fun c’mon you-play-too, he invites Toothless with a tap of paws and a tongue-lolling grin, and throws his head back and roars.

The preening mimics take up the cry, puffing their throats out and vying with each other to roar loudest, so loud that Toothless flinches and pins his ear-flaps back in protest.

Hiccup sprawls across his head to hold them down more tightly, and Toothless rolls his eyes back at his little partner affectionately, laughing beneath his exasperation.

Together they roar all the sounds they can think of, teaching the mimic-cousins new howling, until in a moment when all of them have stopped for breath and to shake the ringing from their skulls, they hear further away across the island other voices, other hidden mimics, learning the new sounds.

Soon all the island is roaring as if dragons stood to defend every stone, in the borrowed voices of many dragon-cousins and Toothless’ looking-sounds and even the squeaks of the running prey-beasts.

Toothless takes off with Hiccup purring amusement on his shoulders and circles. From the air they see wavering shapes racing away from the island too quickly to match their colors, so that one is like a patch of moss against the first stars, and another like rippling water, and another its own red all over, and another like trees streaked fleeing across the sky.

---

The dragon-pair make their way back to their landing field – from the air above the fog it is easy to find – in an easy flight, unthreatened. Settling there, they wait, curling up together and chirruping relief and together and you found-you you here you love-you.

The excitement and energy of battle has faded and their heartbeats have steadied into exhaustion once all their flock-mates have returned. They shuffle back one by one and variously unhappy, disgruntled or frightened or angry or whimpering at the pain of poison-spittle etching scars into their scales even when they rolled to scrape it away very quickly.

Their friends do not return alone, and now Hiccup sees mimic-cousins watching from the edges of the field, behind trees and in the long shadows of low stones.

He catches the eyes of one of them, and ducks his head and shoulders meekly – he and Toothless promised, and they have not forgotten.

Enough! Hiccup snarls as Toothless prowls into the midst of his flock-mates who have gathered to settle down and whine together. Go us go us NOW! he demands.

There are other islands close by, and they can perch and rest there, but this island belongs to the mimic-cousins.

Them, he points out the small dragons watching, them yes here certain-sure, and he cringes and shrieks the warning of trespasser – and us!

Rock All Over growls resentmentSmall, he signals at the mimics, and not-important, and turns away.

Toothless hisses and leaps to stare him down, putting his nose almost against Rock All Over’s.

Hiccup small! the black dragon objects.

Small cannot mean ignored; Toothless will not allow it!

Toothless bares his teeth as Rock All Over backs away, and stands confident, boasting brave us and me clever Hiccup-mine yes yes, snorting at the marks on their flock-mates’ scales while their scales are unmarked.

Which is not quite true, but Hiccup is purring so with pride in his other half that he pretends he is not bruised all over and hides his melted-away claws beneath a strap of the flying-with. It does not matter – all eyes are on his Toothless-half as he scolds and judges and leads.

Enough, repeats Toothless when no one will meet his eyes, and small mimics watch amazed as small dragons command bigger ones.

Us go, he commands, and their flock-mates spread their wings and leap meekly.

They will not fly much further tonight, only to another place nearby, but this island will belong to its dragons again.

And no jaws will wait for them in the fog.

---

-end-

Author’s Note: As I was planning this story, Arkarti posted two speedpaints that near-perfectly matched settings I was already planning on using. Please check out Arkarti’s work in general, and see the fog-swallowed marshalthough somewhat foggier in this story, and a glimpse of the Howlers’ forest (and yes, I invented them for this story).

thanks for reading – Le’letha

In the second half of 2016, after the completion of my HTTYD story "Stormfall", I challenged myself to write six "Nightfall"-series stories in six months. I'm proud to say I succeeded.

They are:

July/August: "Flashfreeze", a threeshot, set after "Stormfall"
September: "Valkyrie Eleison", a oneshot, set about four years into Valka's time with the dragons
September/October: "The Affairs of Dragons", a threeshot, set after "Flashfreeze"

October: "Shadowland", a oneshot, posted here in two parts, set after "Flashfreeze" and probably slightly after "The Affairs of Dragons"

November: "Things We Lost in the Fire", a oneshot, set between "Nightfall" and "Stormfall"
December: "In the Bleak Midwinter", a oneshot, set about ten years before "Nightfall"
© 2017 - 2024 le-letha
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In