[HTTYD] HSRMO: Born Unchained, chapter 3

His Soul Reflects My Own: Born Unchained, a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 3 (rough draft)

 

By the end of the week, the mating haze had fully dissipated, and life cautiously started returning to normal - at least, as normal as it could get with a city full of sleepy, hungry pregnant dragons and their protective mates.  Hiccup was relieved to hear that the gestation period was only five months rather than nine, though it seemed unfortunate that the due dates happened to be right around Snoggletog.

 

As if holiday preparations and shopping weren't stressful enough on their own (Hiccup had an actual social life now and would be expected to put more effort into it, which he supposed was a reasonable price for actually having a decent, not-lonely holiday for once), there were other things to worry about.  In between school, his part-time job, working on his gift for Toothless, stressing out about his gift for Astrid, and trying to find the time to shop for his other...friends (at least, he hoped they were friends by now), Hiccup was also doing ridiculous amounts of research on pregnancy and babies, hoping that most of the stuff that worked for humans would also work for dragons.  He was also intervening in human/dragon clashes.

 

A lot of this involved working with Hookfang.  Now that the Monstrous Nightmare had given in and allowed himself to be claimed, he turned into a super-protective father, frequently kidnapping his mate and hiding her away and snarling at anyone, including Snotlout, who found him and approached.  The only one he would allow near was his queen, though he would then turn fearful and clingy.  He would crouch over Butterfly and hug her as Hiccup coaxed, until Hookfang was finally willing to let her go and come back home.  He'd be all right for a little while, a few days or even a week or two, but then he'd leave Snotlout and snatch away his mate and start the whole thing all over again.  Butterfly's strategy seemed to be to passively submit to the abductions and feedings, but then casually escape the instant Hookfang had to leave her for any reason, which drove him crazy.

 

"Hookfang, as far as we can tell, Butterfly is very healthy and the baby is very healthy, so you don't have to worry about them, okay?  They're fine.  There's still three months left, big guy, you think you can make it 'til then without freaking out?"

 

The whole flock was also still concerned about the Zipplebacks, many of them hovering over both the pregnant mothers and the unhatched eggs, anxiously inquiring about their health.  So far, both types of babies seemed to be doing fine, but many Zipplebacks and other dragons still worried about the actual births and hatchings.  Barf and Belch sometimes woke from nightmares, and had to reassure themselves by finding their mate and sensing their baby still alive and thriving.

 

Meatlug absolutely gloried in her pregnancy, pampered and fussed over by both Fishlegs and Axebreath.  Fishlegs was very excited about his dragon's condition and the opportunity to document dragon reproduction, and since he doted on her anyway even when she wasn't pregnant, he was extra attentive now that she was.  Axebreath was by turns ecstatic to be a father and terrified that he would fail in some way, so perhaps he went a little overboard in caring for his mate.  Meatlug didn't mind, and was always generous with her reassurances.

 

When Stormfly was about halfway along, she lay in bed one night with her fingers twined in Astrid's hair, feeling rather maternal toward her human as well as her unborn offspring.  Astrid lay curled up with her, head resting on the Nadder's belly, cheek touching skin as she 'listened' for the two tiny lives growing within.  "Astrid," Stormfly said softly.

 

"Mm?"

 

"Your Hiccup that you love...."

 

Astrid shifted uncomfortably.  "I told you, Stormfly, it's different for humans," she murmured.

 

There was a long pause.  "You want His babies," Stormfly finally said.

 

"...Someday.  Not yet.  We're too young."

 

"Not too young."

 

"Not our bodies; I mean, just....  Hiccup's got a lot on his plate right now, we're still working out the whole girlfriend/boyfriend thing and I doubt he's even thinking about marriage, and I don't think it's a great idea yet, either...."

 

Stormfly sighed, unable to follow the stream of words.

 

"Someday," Astrid promised.  "He's the only boy I've ever liked, so...my kids will probably be his.  But not yet."

 

"Humans don't like dragon babies."

 

Astrid shifted so she could hug her.  "No Stormfly, it's just...it's so different.  We're not used to it yet."  She kissed her temple.  "It's okay, you didn't do anything wrong."

 

"Queen protects us," Stormfly said softly, "Astrid protects us...."

 

"It'll be okay.  And in five years, when all this happens again, we'll know what to expect, and we'll be so used to you all by then that no one will bat an eye when you go looking for mates."

 

"Truespear is my good mate.  No 'rape,' that bad thing."

 

"I know, Stormfly.  I'm sorry.  I was scared and confused, but it's okay now, I understand."  She smiled.  "He's been taking good care of you."

 

"My very good mate Truespear," Stormfly purred, "my good companion Astrid that I love, we will be good for these babies."

 

"Mm hm."

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

For some reason, the dragons scoffed at the idea of giving birth in Berk, but Hiccup still thought that preparations should be made to deliver hundreds of babies at the same time, anyway - it would be better to be over prepared than under.

 

Then, about a week before Snoggletog, all the dragons started rapidly disappearing.

 

Almost half the city was overjoyed or at least relieved, thinking that the dragons were gone forever.  The rest of the Berkians were in a panic, swarming Hiccup and demanding to know where their dragons had gone.

 

"I don't know, they didn't tell me!  I assume they went back to their homeworld.  Toothless, where are all the dragons going?"  Toothless was one of the very few dragons who hadn't vanished.

 

"Babies."

 

"...Did they go somewhere to have their babies?"

 

"Go babies."

 

Hiccup shook his head and turned back to the people pestering him for answers.  "There, see?  You know as much as I do."

 

As Stoick made a press release trying to simultaneously caution the dragon-haters and encourage the people who felt deserted by their dragons, Hiccup was supposed to be searching for the flock, but he was finishing up his gift for Toothless instead.  When he ran the final test and was satisfied, he turned to the Night Fury with a smile.  "Hey, Toothless."

 

"Go fly now?!" Toothless demanded instantly.  "That bad BORING 'computer,' we go fly instead!"

 

"Yeah!  Yeah, we'll go flying.  That's my surprise for you, Toothless."

 

The dragon cocked his head.

 

"Look."  Hiccup beckoned, opening the dragon's chip when Toothless sprawled against him.

 

"Hiccup," Toothless murmured, trying yet again to explain the magnitude of what Hiccup was so casually doing to him, "this chip, You come into me, is very important thing You do, I let You because I love You."

 

"Love you, too, bud," Hiccup said absently as he worked to install the new sequence.

 

Toothless sighed a little and gave up.  Hiccup had the right to his chain, and it wasn't a violation if he had permission, right?

 

Once the auto-fly sequence was installed, Hiccup stepped back and smiled in anticipation.  "Okay, let's go outside, and then I'll show you what this thing does."

 

Toothless seemed excited about the new sequence until he realized that it was designed to allow him to fly on his own, without Hiccup.  He froze, shocked.

 

"What do you think, Toothless?" Hiccup said proudly.  "I couldn't fix the real damage, but I did find a way to re-route some pathways for you, so now you should be able to--"

 

"Don't want me," Toothless whispered.

 

"What?"

 

"TWO HALVES, Hiccup!" Toothless exploded.  "Fly me You together, our wings, this chip I HATE it, WRONG, You say no no no Toothless alone Toothless cut hurting half Toothless, no, nooooo!"

 

"Toothless!  Toothless, calm down, bud, just let me--"

 

Toothless vanished.

 

Hiccup stared at the empty spot where the dragon had been, breathing hard.  "Okay...okay, he just...went wherever all the other dragons went...he'll be back when they're done doing...whatever they're doing."  He swallowed hard.  'I messed up.'

 

The next few days were some of the loneliest Hiccup had ever known.  He thought he had been miserable before Toothless, but back then, even though he'd always longed to be part of a group, he hadn't really understood what he was missing.  Now, having finally experienced camaraderie and friendship and companionship and unconditional love, it hurt that much more to lose it.

 

The ordeal of the nights, however, were quickly starting to eclipse the dull misery of the days.  Hiccup started fearing to go to sleep, because he was plagued by terrible, gut-wrenching nightmares that got worse every time.  At first he dreamed that Meatlug was in danger, screaming desperately for help; locked in a cage, buried alive, agonizing over her dead children.  Hiccup was always glad when he jerked awake and remembered that Meatlug was gone with all the others, most likely safe and sound.

 

But then he began dreaming about the Red Death, which terrified him so much that he would stay up all night trying to avoid sleep, but then the monster would pounce on him as soon as he nodded off, exhausted, during the day.

 

Then it was an army of Red Deaths and, for some reason, Fishlegs, rotting blood-drenched giants, crushing Berk and crushing people and crushing Meatlug and crushing Hiccup, babies, babies, my dead babies, crushed drowning buried, save me, save our flock, save us, save us, SAVE US...!

 

Hiccup jerked awake, soaked with sweat and gasping for breath.  He got up from the couch and went straight to Fishlegs's house.  "Where's Meatlug."

 

"Hiccup!  I, uh, what a pleasant surprise--"

 

"WHERE IS MEATLUG."

 

"Ummmm...well, all the dragons left, so...."

 

Hiccup found her unconscious in bed, whimpering in her sleep, tears staining her face, and he soon discovered that she was being forced asleep by a sequence on her chip.  "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

 

"I-I didn't do anything!  I just didn't want her to leave me like all the others--"

 

Hiccup deleted the sequence.  Meatlug instantly burst awake, screaming, then seized Hiccup and transitioned.

 

When he opened his eyes, he felt like he was being suffocated.  He soon realized that that was because Meatlug was in her true form, a giant slug-shaped rock lying right on top of him.  She would have crushed him to death if she hadn't molded herself around him, but it was still a very claustrophobic feeling to be trapped almost entirely inside a rock.  "Meatlug!  Meatlug, let me go!"

 

It was about fifteen minutes before she finally, slowly transformed.  In her mythic form, she pressed against Hiccup and shivered, so he pet her and murmured reassurances to her until she finally recovered, licking him and then trundling off on dragon business.

 

He had realized by this time that he was in the dragons' homeworld, near a small, still lake with gray-leaved trees that resembled willows.  The sky was still dark and smoky, but the dimness seemed more peaceful than ominous now.  The missing flock had apparently gathered here, most of them in either their mythic or their Berk forms, surrounded by babies in wildly varying bodies.

 

"Oh my gosh, you guys are so cute...you are soooo cute," Hiccup crooned, kneeling to pet some curious little creatures who came romping over to him.  Most of them started to examine him, turned into human babies, wiggled uncomfortably, burst into tears or screams, then transformed back to different bodies.  "Heh, yeah, human newborns are pretty helpless, huh...."

 

"Hiccup," a familiar voice called.

 

Hiccup burst into a smile and ran to where Hookfang, in his Berk body, was proudly cradling a tiny creature in his arms, with Butterfly in mythic form curled up comfortably beside him.  "Hookfang!"

 

"Look, Queen, look at my VERY SO MUCH GOOD baby!  Look!  DON'T TOUCH!"

 

"She's beautiful, Hookfang," Hiccup said, obligingly putting his hands behind his back.  "You're a father!"

 

"My good baby that I made!"

 

Hiccup sensed someone approaching, and turned to find Stormfly carrying her own little ones.  "Stormfly!"  She smiled at him in a way that was both shy and apprehensive.  Truespear had his arms wrapped tightly around her and was staring at Hiccup, looking frightened for some reason.  "Can I look at them?" Hiccup asked.

 

"Yes, Queen," Stormfly said softly, offering her babies to him, looking as tender and sad as if she was giving them away forever.  "Yours."

 

"I'm just looking, Stormfly, I won't hurt them," he assured her.  He smiled at the two infants, one of them turning into a lizard who tried to climb awkwardly up his shirt, the other morphing into what looked like a cloud and felt like a dense bundle of feathers.  "Wowww....  What are their names?"  Hiccup looked up and was surprised to see all the dragons staring at him intently, clutching their babies in a protective way.  Truespear looked like he was dying, and Hiccup wondered if he was doing something wrong.

 

Stormfly caressed her son and said, still in that soft voice, "One Who Is Sweet."  She cupped a hand around her daughter.  "One Who Is Cold."  Her eyes met Hiccup's again.  "Sweet and Cold, my babies, Yours."

 

"Sweet and--?  You named them after ice cream?" Hiccup exclaimed.  He laughed, but quickly sobered when he realized how deadly serious everyone remained.  "I'm sorry.  They're very good names, Stormfly."  He was surprised when tears came into her eyes.  Truespear was now hiding his face against her as if he couldn't bear to watch anymore.

 

"Queen," Stormfly whispered, "You will...You will chip our babies?"

 

"What?"

 

"Chain....  They are small, You are big; they must submit, You are master; hurt them, force them...chip?"

 

"Chip?  Hurt them, no, I--"  He felt a stab of horror when he suddenly realized what she was asking.  "Stormfly!  I'm not going to implant chips in your babies.  Of course not!"  He hastily handed Sweet and Cold back to their mother.  She held them tightly and sank to the ground, her mate along with her, both of them weeping in relief.

 

Hookfang seized Hiccup.  "No chip?" he demanded, "NONE??"  With a fierce look, he raised his head and reached for the chip behind his ear, the device that had been implanted in his brain when he'd been very young and could control almost everything about him.  "These bad things, Queen, You like them, You will put them in our babies??"

 

"No, Hookfang!  I wouldn't do that!"  Before he could explain that, fascinating as he thought the dragons' computer chips were, he recognized their inherent cruelty and would never force them on anyone, Hookfang was snatching up his child again and shoving her into Hiccup's arms.  "Claim, Queen," he said triumphantly.  "Claim with love, not these bad chips; Yours; MINE!"

 

The mythic Monstrous Nightmare hatchling in Hiccup's arms curiously took human form, screamed her displeasure, then sulkily shifted into a mass of fangs.  Hookfang put his own arms around Hiccup and squeezed tightly.  "Good good good good good," he purred.  The baby started rattling in a demanding sort of way.  Butterfly stepped close and grunted; Hookfang scooped the baby back out of Hiccup's arms and lovingly handed her over to be fed.

 

"I would never, ever hurt your babies," Hiccup assured the crowd in general, who were now looking relieved and joyful, many of them offering their new children to Hiccup for him to hold and admire.

 

Once Hookfang's daughter had finished feeding, she stumbled back to Hiccup and tried to climb up him until he crouched and picked her up.  She made her way up his arm and settled across his shoulders, purring, before she lost her balance and fell.  Hiccup managed to catch her, but her dignity was ruffled and she rushed to hide sulkily with her father.  He cuddled her, beaming.

 

"She's amazing," Hiccup said.  "What's her name?"

 

"Snotlout!  Name is...."  Hookfang thought a moment, trying to think how to translate 'One Who Won't Shut Up.'  "Loud, talk talk talk, not quiet!"

 

"Loudmouth?" Hiccup laughed.  "Her name is Loudmouth?"

 

"Loudmouth!  Snotlout!"

 

"You named her after Snotlout?" Hiccup laughed even harder, but added affectionately, "He'll love that."  Hookfang smirked.

 

Hiccup soon found Barf and Belch with their mate and their offspring, who was apparently one person despite being twin boys:  Ones Who Slay Tyrants And Rule Strangers, named after Hiccup.  The Zipplebacks had cautiously started out letting Queenslayer and Crownseizer feed only from the respective female that had given birth to each of them, but it was soon discovered that not only would the babies nurse interchangeably, but Barf could feed them as well, since any mammalian body she shifted into would lactate despite the fact that she had not carried her son(s) in her womb.

 

Meatlug, in her Berk body, eventually found Hiccup again, now accompanied by Axebreath.  The two of them were proudly carrying four soccer-ball-sized rocks, which turned into human babies and then into mythic hatchlings who curiously crawled and buzzed all over Hiccup.  "They're adorable, Meatlug," Hiccup cooed as one of the plump, big-eyed Gronckle babies licked him.

 

"Very much thank You, Queen," Meatlug said, hugging him.  "I was trapped trapped trapped!  I called help help help, asked my queen for help, Hiccup came and made me FREE, I came to hatch my good babies in this world, thank You!"

 

"I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner.  Do you guys have to have your babies here or something?"

 

"Babies here?"  Meatlug thought, trying to figure out what he was asking.  "Babies must born in not Berk, not those real worlds.  Not!  Must be here, these dream worlds, dream babies in dream worlds."  She eventually managed to convey every dragon mother's worst fear, that she might be trapped in a physical world to give birth.  Such offspring had a chance of being born as Dream Masters, powerful beings who could be benevolent, but could also grow corrupt like the Red Death and abuse the flocklings they were given.

 

"The Red--  Wait, so you're saying if you'd given birth at home, your kids might have been Red Deaths?!"

 

"You saved me, Hiccup," she said gratefully.  "Our good not-monster not-Master queen."  She picked up her firstborn son and held him up with a smile.  "One Who Breaks Chains."  Then in Norse, "Break Chains, You.  His name is You."

 

"You...you named him after me?  His name is Chainbreaker?"

 

Meatlug nuzzled him.

 

"Wow....  Two kids named after me, that's...kind of blowing my mind...."

 

"Names of important people."  Axebreath was so happy to be a father that he had named one of their daughters after his mate, and Meatlug liked her small, kind mate so much that she had named their other son after him.

 

Hiccup eventually did find Toothless, but it didn't take long for him to figure out that he was in trouble.  He could tell that Toothless was the giant, truck-sized black cat staring at him from the fringes of the group, but when Hiccup approached, Toothless turned away and hunched down in a clear sulking pose.  Hiccup hesitated, then circled around toward his head.  "Hey, bud."

 

Toothless seized him with sharp cat teeth.  Being held helpless by a giant fanged predator was frightening, but Toothless hadn't drawn blood.  It was a warning.

 

"I...I know you're mad at me...I don't really know why, but--"  The pressure increased, and Hiccup gulped.  Still no blood, but it really hurt now.  He didn't dare struggle, so he just stayed still and thought instead.  "...You like being dependent on me?" he guessed.  There was no response.  "Toothless....  I was trying to give you a gift, you know.  I....  It's my fault you got damaged, I hurt you so badly that no one can ever really fix it, and I just wanted...I just wanted to pretend that everything was okay again, that I hadn't...that I hadn't maimed my best friend for life."

 

Toothless let go, turned into a winged but otherwise normal-looking tiger, and rested his head on Hiccup, sighing in a bored way.  "I...I wanted to pretend...."  Hiccup buried his face in his arms.  "I wanted to erase my mistakes," he whispered.  "I wanted to pretend they never happened, but...but the best things in my life happened because I screwed up so much, and...and they wouldn't have happened otherwise, and...and you thought I was trying to erase you."  He felt Toothless transform again, and looked up to see Toothless in a fully human body.

 

"Hiccup is sorry?" Toothless demanded.

 

Hiccup reached to set a hand on his shoulder, as if pleading with him to stay and not run off.  "I'm sorry."

 

"We fly together.  You are my wings, I am Your wings."

 

"Yeah....  Yes.  Yes, we've always been best like that, huh."

 

Toothless shifted back to Berk form, reached for his chip, deleted the new auto-fly sequence, brought up the copy of the previous flying sequence he had saved when Hiccup had deleted the original, and waited for Hiccup to authorize it.

 

"You sure?" Hiccup asked.

 

"SURE.  We fly now, Hiccup!"

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

When they returned from their flight, dragons began coming up to show Hiccup their babies.  He smiled and praised and cuddled the infants at first, but as more and more and more kept coming, he started trying to put a stop to it.  "Okay...okay, look, guys, all of you have wonderful, beautiful children, but that's enough now.  Show me when we get home, okay?"

 

Babies continued to be thrust into his arms, more and more urgently the more he tried to extricate himself.

 

"Guys!  Look, you can send me pictures or something, but I'm finished now, okay?  I can look at the babies later, but right now I need to get home and explain to everyone what's going on."

 

They would have none of it.  Baby after baby after baby was offered to him, forcefully if he tried to refuse, and Toothless, rather than helping him, insisted that he hold each and every single new child.  "Toothless, I'm tired!  I am literally getting tired, I can't hold every single baby that was born today!"

 

"OUR BABIES, HICCUP.  YOU ARE QUEEN.  CLAIM."

 

When Hiccup tried to make a run for it, Toothless caught him and held his arms firmly, maneuvering them to continue the strange work.  Hiccup finally gave up and stopped struggling.  He got so tired that he eventually fell asleep, but he continued to hold babies in his dreams.  Realizing that he was lucid dreaming and that it was still happening on some level, he changed his body so that he had ten arms, which none of the dragons showed any objection to.  It did help, but there were still so many left, baby after baby after baby after baby....

 

After what seemed like years of this, and then of crazy ordinary dreams and nightmares, and then perhaps nothing, he woke up to find himself in a hospital bed.

 

"Hiccup!"

 

Hiccup looked around blearily and found Astrid, Fishlegs, Stormfly, Meatlug, and their new families all squeezed into the hospital room.  Hiccup cringed away from the sight of the babies and found that Toothless was curled up with him on the bed.

 

"Hiccup, are you okay?" Astrid asked, taking his hand and resting her other palm on his forehead.

 

"Is this real?" Hiccup asked weakly.

 

"Yeah.  Toothless brought you when all the dragons came back, but you were unconscious...."

 

"You slept for 15 hours straight, Hiccup!" Fishlegs piped up.  "At least, after you came home; I don't know how long you were asleep before.  According to the brain monitors, you were having lucid dreams for about 5 of those hours.  Were you in any dream worlds?"

 

Hiccup groaned, too tired to pull off the electrodes he could now feel stuck to his head.

 

"How do you feel, Hiccup?" Astrid asked.

 

"Like I just hugged hundreds and hundreds of babies...."

 

Awake but still resting for a while, Hiccup explained to Astrid and Fishlegs what had happened.  "Maybe it's a sort of claiming process," Fishlegs mused.  "You are their leader, and they're all technically new members of the flock, so maybe it was an initiation thing?"

 

"Huh.  Maybe...."

 

"Everyone was really glad to get their dragons back, Hiccup," Astrid said.  "And the babies!"  She herself was cradling little Cold at the moment.

 

Hiccup smiled cautiously.  "They're cute when you don't have to hug every single one of them."

 

"We thought they all had colic for a couple of days," Astrid chuckled.  "That was a nightmare.  Those jerks who haven't come around yet were making some nasty suggestions for what to do about it....  It turned out that the kids just needed time to get used to their new bodies."

 

"They can transform however they want in dream worlds," Hiccup said.  "Humanoid bodies aren't their favorite, so I guess they weren't very happy getting stuck like this."

 

"We've been doing tests and stuff," Fishlegs said eagerly.  "The Zipplebacks are fascinating.  Did you know that all the Zippleback babies, like each set of them, are identical twins, genetically?!"

 

"We knew that already, Legs.  Even Barf and Belch are genetically identical."

 

"But I mean, even if there were two moms with singleton births rather than just one mom with twins, there's still always two identical babies."

 

"Fishlegs, you were there when they were explaining how true-form Zipplebacks mate.  The kids are the same person, of course they're identical."

 

"Yeah, but my theory is that there's some kind of true-form trait that's being lost, or that's getting translated weird or something when they shape-shift.  The identical twins thing doesn't make sense unless biological sex is standing in for something else."

 

"Huh....  Yeah, I guess you have a point."

 

Hiccup recovered from his ordeal and managed to make it home in time for Snoggletog.  Stoick, who had been worried about him, had a hard time believing that Hiccup had been hospitalized due to excessive baby-hugging, so Hiccup started letting him believe that he'd assisted with the births instead.

 

For several days, Hiccup was hailed in the streets by grateful, affectionate dragon parents.  Hiccup didn't really understand why - he had nothing to do with their mating, after all - until Astrid took his hand and said, "Stormfly keeps pulling me into her nightmares by accident.  They were so, so scared, unbelievably scared, that their kids would be...chained up, I guess.  Her nightmares are about chains.  They were hurt so badly when they were so little, but now that they have a safe home, now that they know they can have children whose leader will love them and won't...and won't do anything awful to them...it really means a lot to them, Hiccup.  You're the reason they can enjoy having children now."

 

"I really didn't do anything, though...we all took down the Red Death together, it wasn't like I...."  He trailed off as he looked at her.  "So I did good, right?  Did I earn a reward-kiss?"

 

She smiled and kissed him.  "Yes."

 

When she started to pull back, both of them were startled when hands clamped down on them to keep them close together.  "You make babies now!" Toothless demanded.  "Court court court court when will you stop courting?!  This your mating haze is annoying, mate and it will go away!!"

 

"Ack, Toothless, no, it doesn't work like that for humans, let go...!"

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes:  I sometimes find myself consciously or unconsciously paying homage to my favorite authors....  In this case, the idea of a shape-shifting baby preferring a more capable body to a more helpless human body is from Diana Wynne Jones.

 

The stuff about Hiccup unknowingly being forced to mark all the new babies in his flock is a HSRMO version of my one-shot Induction.  Someday, if I ever get any ideas, I might write a fic taking place around the same time as the end of this fic that actually focuses on Snoggletog, but right now I cared more about the dragon offspring aspect.

 

I made a big chart to figure out how often dragon mating seasons happened, and realized that there would actually be one every five years.  Stormfly's generation (let's theoretically label them "Generation 9") won't be participating in the next mating season because they'll still be busy raising their first batch of kids, but other generations (theoretically, Generations 6, 8, and 10) will be ready to mate.

 

Born Unchained is now complete, but I have at least two more HSRMO dragon procreation fics in mind, one of them focused on Toothless and the other one focused on Freefall.  (I started writing the Toothless one a long time ago, but hit a roadblock because I made a mistake that will be a pain to fix.)  I'll try to fit my other ideas into those fics, but if I can't, I might do some vignettes.

 

In the meantime, I'm going to try to buckle down and resume work on Carried Off.  My momentum on that fic lasted for such an unusually long time that I'd hoped I'd actually be able to finish.  I will be annoyed with myself if I get truly distracted away from that story after I'd been doing so well for so long!