[HTTYD] Carried Off, Finn forge subplot (part 4)

Carried Off, a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl

"Finn and the forge" subplot, part 4 (rough draft)

 

Finn knew that he should melt down the more incomprehensible or useless of his father's inventions and reuse the valuable metal, but even when he tried, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He finally packed them all away again, more neatly this time, and went through the rest of his father's papers at a slower pace. Finn was the only smith in the village now, and he couldn't afford to pull unnecessary all-nighters or neglect his work.

 

It was about two weeks later when he found the letters. He was snowed in, unable to leave the house as a blizzard howled outside. He had enough food and fuel to last for two days; longer if he rationed it. To take his mind off the cold and hunger, he brought a stack of papers and notebooks into bed with him.

 

Upon the event of my death

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

 

Finn's pulse quickened with excitement at the find. This was his father's will, which would not have been honored due to the man's disgraceful exile. Finn anticipated seeing what the last wishes had been of the enigmatic madman who'd sired him.

 

There were several papers inside, but the will barely took up half a sheet. A few specific items, most of which Finn recognized, had been left to Gobber; a couple of things had been left to Astrid. The rest had all been left to Finn and Valka. 'He really did care about us.'

 

Finn was not expecting the next sheet of paper to be addressed directly to him.

 

To my son, Finn Blackmold Hiccupson:

 

If you're reading this, it means I'm dead.

 

Finn's eyes widened. He had the sudden impulse to scan eagerly through the rest of the letter, yet at the same time, he was almost afraid to be spoken to by his father as if from beyond the grave.

 

I'm very sorry for leaving you. I know how it feels to lose a parent too early. If it had been for anything less important, I wouldn't have risked it, but I had to know if there's a way to end the dragon war.

 

Finn stared, unable to read on for several moments. 'He was trying to put an end to the war?!'

 

You and Val deserve to grow up in a better world than the one I did. You deserve to grow up in a world where there's always enough food, where you're not totally used to waking up in the middle of the night to find the house on fire, where seeing corpses is rare enough to be disturbing, where you can look into the eyes of a dragon and see a friend gazing back at you.

 

"He was crazy," Finn whispered aloud.

 

There is something very important that you need to know, Finn. Dragons are not the enemy. They are not monsters, they're not evil, they're not trying to exterminate us.

 

What followed was a few paragraphs of a madman's ramblings. Tears came to Finn's eyes from the surge of incredulity, frustration, and anger he felt, and sadness at what had become of his father.

 

I'll stop now, because these are my last words to you and I don't want them all to be ranting about dragons that no one else will believe. Dragons or not, I wanted to tell you how incredibly blessed I've always felt to be your father. I agree that I wasn't a particularly good father, I certainly don't think I deserved you, but you and Val really have been the light of my life from the moment you were born.

 

If nothing else, I want you to know that I'm proud of you, Finn. I know I left you when you were too young to remember me, when you probably think you weren't old enough to do anything worth a father's pride, but nevertheless, it's true. I don't care what you've done or haven't done since then, or how many mistakes you've made. Whether you're the golden child of Berk or a hiccup following in your father's footsteps, I KNOW you have what it takes to survive in this world. I know you're stronger than I am. Even as a baby, you were incredibly intelligent and sensitive, you saw and understood so much, and that's what's going to help you when you're faced with difficulties.

 

Maybe you've grown up to be as big and strong as your grandfather, and if you have, that's wonderful. But if you haven't, if you took after me more than I hope you did, then I want to tell you - if you haven't figured it out already - that there are other ways to fight. There are other ways to defend yourself. You don't always have to swing an axe or shoot an arrow to prove your strength.

 

All enemies have something that's valuable to them. Identify it and use it against them if you have to; hold it hostage; cut off their access to it. You have skills and abilities and strengths that can be useful to your enemy. Make yourself indispensable. Hold yourself hostage if you need to. When the odds are stacked against you, fight dirty. You can win.

 

Hopefully you won't need any of this advice, but I know what it's like to be overshadowed and outnumbered. I would have done anything for a helping hand or even a word of encouragement, for someone to believe in me even a little bit, for just one person to tell me that it wasn't my fault. I didn't know there was anything good about me, or that anyone would ever truly be on my side, until I got carried off by a dragon, but hopefully it won't take such drastic measures for you to realize the same thing.

 

I believe in you, Finn. I love you with all my heart, and nothing you could ever do would be terrible enough to break that love. I wish so, so much that I could have watched you grow up into the man I know you are today. I hope you've found your way in life, and that you and your sister are looking out for each other.

 

I know how much you see. I know how smart you are. Look into their eyes, Finn. These slaves, these people with scales and wings, they're hurting just as much as we are. I won't burden you with the task that got me killed - you don't have to save them, or us. But please don't hate them, either.

 

No matter what, Finn, I am so thankful for the chance to get to know you. You and your sister are more precious to me than anything. I'm sorry for my failures. I know you'll thrive in spite of them.

 

Finn read the whole letter again, and then again. And again. Then he remembered there were more pages, and he read the letter to Valka. Much of it was the same, but Finn smiled a little to see how his father's tone was a bit altered, as if he had already known how different Val's personality would be from her brother's.

 

I just finished writing a long letter to your brother, and I'm running low on ink and you probably get more impatient with all these gobs of words anyway, so I'll keep it short, and trust you to steal your brother's letter to read if he doesn't feel like sharing.

 

I love you, my princess. You have the best of your mother's spirit and none of the worst, and I'm sure that you have grown into quite the magnificent Valkyrie by now. I shouldn't keep complimenting you and inflating your head, but I will anyway because I'm besotted with you and I think you are one of the most wonderful things in the world.

 

Just so you know, Val, I'm not crazy. They're probably calling me all sorts of names now that I'm gone (I know that because they called me those same names when I was still alive), but I know you're too sublime to be ashamed of anything, no matter who or what your father was. You're the best and you know it. I wasn't the best, but I wasn't the worst, either, no matter what they say. (I sired you didn't I? So I did get one thing right, at least!)

 

Actually, I got two things right. Dragons are not the enemy. I know you've probably seen them do many atrocious things by now, but they are not acting of their own free will. Dragons much prefer fish, for one thing; they're only going after our red meat because they're desperate. They play together and argue with each other and make friends and protect their own, just like any other people do. Travel out beyond the Archipelago if you can, and find a dragon and DON'T immediately raise a weapon at it.

 

Look at its eyes. Toss it a fish. You'll see. There are much bigger forces at work here than anyone else ever realized.

 

Down to the dregs of ink now. I love you SO MUCH. Take care of Finn. Be strong. Be kind. Your smile lights up the world.

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

Finn wanted to keep thinking that his father had been insane, but he still couldn't help watching the dragons more closely during the next raid. He was running around frantically, trying to keep up with the work, but every once in a while there would be a lull, when there weren't any warriors clamoring at the front counter and the forge fire was ready and every spare weapon was sharpened.

 

Finn watched the dragons. He clenched his teeth and fists when he saw the usual rampaging and pillaging; there was a dead body lying about twenty paces away.

 

A Nadder paused next to the corpse, ruffling its wings and sniffing at the dead Viking and making croaking noises. Finn's hand crept to his knife, even though he wasn't actually planning on taking on a Deadly Nadder just to save someone who was already dead - someone, in fact, who had always insulted him mercilessly for being the son of the town hiccup, and who had always tried to cheat Finn out of proper payment whenever he came to the forge.

 

Finn was loyal to his tribe, and would defend even the worst of them from Berk's enemies, but he had no love for this particular man and little motivation to risk so much to preserve the honor of his corpse. Perhaps that was why his head was clear enough to notice what he might otherwise have not.

 

The Nadder seemed agitated and uneasy. It squawked again, nipped at the corpse in a hesitant way, started to lift it, then dropped it as if in disgust. Which was...a little odd, considering how bloodthirsty dragons were.

 

The dragon started to turn away, but then shied back as a roaring Viking and Gronckle came tumbling into view, swiping and clawing at each other. The Nadder stretched its neck and wings with a screech, and Finn was just about to reach for a bow and arrow to aid the living man if he could, but then three Vikings came rushing from the other direction, shouting loudly with their weapons raised.

 

The Nadder screamed and darted away from them, straight at the grappling pair. "Look out!" Finn shouted. The man managed to dodge away in time, to his relief. The Nadder, instead of going after him, nudged frantically at the stumbling Gronckle, pushing it into the air until the Gronckle managed to get its wings sorted out. A thrown javelin missed them, and then they disappeared into the night.

 

As the trio of warriors joined with the man who had been fighting the Gronckle, Finn relaxed slightly, frowning at the corpse. Why had the Nadder seemed so hesitant to take an unresisting, unprotected piece of meat? It had acted as if it was contemplating such a thing against its first impulse, which...matched his father's claim that dragons did not eat humans, and that the ones who attacked Berk were desperate. Surely there was another explanation, though.

 

Yet the way the Nadder had helped the Gronckle was harder to make excuses for. Finn, though having survived plenty of raids in his twelve years of life, had not actually experienced much of it firsthand. Of course he saw the devastation afterward, but as a young child, he had always been kept in the caves with the other children and noncombatants; and when he'd gotten older, it was his job to be in the forge, not on the front lines. He hadn't actually ever taken the time to observe a raid before. He had never seen a dragon help another like that, for no other reason than to try to save its life. They weren't joining forces to increase the strength of their attack, they'd simply been trying to escape. 'You wouldn't have to escape if you just DIDN'T ATTACK US IN THE FIRST PLACE!' he thought resentfully.

 

Loath as he was to accept his father's insane claims, he couldn't get the idea out of his head, no matter how hard he tried. Particularly when he found a journal that his father had started keeping the night he'd written those farewell letters to his children.

 

I'd forgotten it was possible to be this happy, one of the earliest entries read. I'm not dead. FINN IS NOT DEAD. VAL IS NOT DEAD.

 

I risked everything. I brought them into the ring with me. My head was telling me that I can trust Hound and the others; my heart was telling me that I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

 

My head was right. The dragons loved them. I felt like I was back at the Sanctuary again, at least a little bit. Watching Hound dote on Finn like he was her own hatchling, watching Volcano play with Val like he was a friendly grizzly bear playing with an imperious little fawn....

 

'What?! What?! Whaaaat?!' Finn thought. 'He BROUGHT US into the arena with him, he REALLY WAS INSANE!!'

 

Theories. Experiments. Anecdotes. It was all in here, all of Hiccup's work with the captured dragons, many of his thoughts about the dragons that had captured him, deeper musings about the war and the true darkness that he thought lay behind it.

 

Finn pulled an all-nighter again, reading the dragon journal in its entirety. Then he read it again over the course of the next two weeks, more carefully this time, and eventually started a journal of his own.

 

I'm going to try it in the next raid. Thor help me, maybe insanity is in the blood, maybe someday I'll be as crazy as my father.

 

He waited again until there was another raid, another lull. Waited for a Gronckle, and the right moment. It was actually two raids later, but finally, the moment came.

 

Finn was not enough of a traitor to waste even a scrap of food on this crazy experiment, but rocks were expendable. The Gronckle raised its head, their eyes met, and Finn tossed it a rock. Granite. The type Hiccup had claimed was particularly tasty to the lava-spewing beasts.

 

The dragon automatically snapped up the granite, but then it paused. It glanced warily at Finn, and...its eyes changed.

 

Just like Hiccup said they would.

 

Finn slowly picked up another rock and gave it a gentle toss in the Gronckle's direction. It narrowed his eyes at him, though not in anger; it seemed suspicious. It sniffed at the rock, then ate it, looked at Finn again with its disturbingly intelligent eyes, backed away, then abruptly turned and flew off.

 

After the raid, Finn journaled about the incident, not sure what to think. The next night, not wanting anyone to see him and connect his unorthodox visit to the arena with his father's traitorous behavior, he crept to the place in secret and opened the Gronckle's pen.

 

Nothing happened for a minute, then there was a growl. Finn, safely up at the top of the cage, dropped a few rocks down into the arena.

 

After a couple of minutes, the Gronckle came out cautiously, sniffing its way toward the rocks. After it had eaten them, it looked up and met Finn's eyes for a long moment. It growled again.

 

"Are you a person?" Finn asked it rhetorically. "Are you just a big bundle of love under that ugly hide of yours?" He watched the dragon for about half an hour as it flew back and forth across the arena, gnawed and pawed at the chains preventing its escape, and finally descended back to the pens, where its pawing and vocalizations sounded plaintive. The Nadder inside the pen let out a cry, and they called to each other back and forth until Finn couldn't bear it anymore. "Stop it! Get back in your pen, you're an animal, you're not talking, you're a monster, I hate you!"

 

He managed to stay away for two whole weeks. Then came a night where he couldn't sleep, no matter what he tried, so he got up and put on his cloak and headed out toward the arena.

 

He ran into his mother halfway across the square.

 

They stared at each other for a minute. "What are you doing up and about at this hour?" she asked, sounding confused.

 

"Umm...is it not my turn for patrol duty?"

 

"No. Go to bed, Finn."

 

"Oh, you still get to order me around?" he said ruefully.

 

She pecked a kiss to his cheek. "I'm your mother, I always get to order you around. Go on to bed, sweetheart."

 

"Okay."

 

The next afternoon, he 'wandered' out to the arena and struck up a conversation with the dragon keeper as he fed the animals. Finn pretended he was simply there to chat, but he kept one eye on the dragons, noting the way their ribs showed as they gulped down their meager meals, that a couple of them had minor but still untreated injuries. He almost forgot to keep talking when he witnessed one of the Zippleback's heads reach back behind the dragon keeper and place half a fish in front of the nose of the chained, nearly dead-looking Monstrous Nightmare. The Nightmare exhaled a soft, smoky breath and closed its eyes. The Terror darted in and grabbed the fish instead, but dropped it with a yelp with both Zippleback heads hissed at it.

 

"Hey!" the dragon keeper shouted, whirling at the noise. "YOU! Back in your pen!" He charged at the Zippleback, which cowered back, hissing, into its pen; the Terror took off flying with a screech. "Blackmold, get the little devil!"

 

"Are you kidding?! It'll poison me!"

 

"The gloves are over there, in the long crate!"

 

Finn had not succeeded in catching the little dragon when he suddenly heard the chief's voice cracking out over the arena. "FINN."

 

Both young men stopped to look at her. She approached them, her face pale and tight. "Hi, Mom."

 

"Get out of here," she said harshly. "I don't want to catch you anywhere near this arena without my permission ever again, do you understand me?"

 

He was pretty sure he knew why she was forbidding him, but it rubbed him the wrong way. "Why?"

 

"I am your chief," she thundered, "and I expect you to obey orders."

 

He took a deep breath, trying to hold his own temper in check. A part of his mind was also studying her, looking for clues that she might lash out and hurt him the way she had hurt his father, but though she was definitely angry, she seemed to be as tightly in control of herself as he always remembered her. "Okay, but why am I not allowed to come here when everyone else is?"

 

She came to a halt in front of him, and he tried hard to hold his ground, even though the fierceness in her eyes was extremely intimidating. Her voice was low and tense, meant for his ears only. "I am not going to lose my son the way I lost my husband."

 

Finn swallowed. He could think of no protest that wouldn't arouse his mother's suspicions, so he finally nodded and walked away.

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

In the next raid, Finn was astonished to look up during a lull and find a Gronckle staring right at him. He thought for a wild minute that it was about to attack, but it was just standing there, staring at him intently. It made a hopeful little whimpering sound, and Finn suddenly realized that it was the same Gronckle he had fed granite to last time.

 

"You're...expecting me to feed you again?"

 

Encouraged by his lack of hostility, it trundled closer and panted a little.

 

"...." Finn looked around, spotted a couple of rocks he had been using as paperweights, and tossed them to the Gronckle. It gobbled them up and then looked at him with an expression that he could only describe as 'delighted.' "Now get out of here," Finn said roughly. "Go. I am not your friend."

 

It did leave (taking a sheep with it, to Finn's outrage...), but in the next raid, it came back. Finn tried to chase it off, but it looked so hurt that he cursed his soft heart and fed it rocks again. That night, he thought for a while until he decided on a name, knowing that he was being unbelievably foolish by trying to make a pet, not just of one of the livestock, but one of the enemy.

 

The issue ended up being moot, however, because Finn never saw that Gronckle again. It was very likely that the creature had been killed, and Finn vowed to never, ever again make a pet out of anything.

 

To be continued....