[HTTYD] Hybrid: Love (theme 2)

Hybrid: Love (theme 2) [rough draft], a DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic series by Raberba girl

List of themes by AngieChild, Variation 1 for the 100ThemesChallenge group on DeviantArt

A/N:  Because, in this fanfic, I've been using italics to indicate which language is being spoken, I think it's too much to also use italics for emphasis.  From now on, I'm going to experiment with using underlining for dialogue emphasis and see if that works better.

(Though if you're on FFN, be warned that FFN strips out underlined formatting, so FFN readers aren't going to see any emphasis in the dialogue at all.  Please read my fics on AO3 or DevArt instead, guys.  Please.  FFN sucks.)

I think the main conversation takes place during a point in time when Valka's still calling Ice Hunt "Icefisher."

o.o.o

The first time Valka met the king, she didn't realize he could communicate with her.  Her first few encounters with him only resulted in some mild, dizzy headaches, until she and he both stumbled upon the trick of connecting.

She found that if she sort of willed her thoughts at him, using images and concepts and emotions rather than words, he seemed to understand her, more or less.  He would respond with a flood of strange...mental...stuff, often containing his own images and concepts and emotions which she could pick out, and that was how they spoke to each other.  The more they did it, the better they got at it.

It seemed to work best when Valka curled up on his forehead, her skin touching his hide.  She informed him and confided in him, chattered to him and sought comfort from him.  She told him about her village, the tiny island home where her people fished and raised livestock and struggled to survive the relentless war.

For a long time, the king didn't believe her about dragons being so unaccountably hostile - he thought she must have misunderstood.  When he finally did realize that her memories of dragon cruelty were true, he was upset and deeply confused.  He eventually concluded that there must be some poison at work in the dragons of her land, some poison either of mind or of body.

His first instinct was to keep his flock far away and safe.  Yet when he watched his little human flockling going forth to rescue dragons from their human hunters, bringing foreigners home to be safe and accepted as new flockmates, he began to reconsider.  Perhaps, when the threats closer to their own home abated, they might go investigate the southern dragons and rescue them as well.

This thought was a long time in coming, for Valka did not speak of the war often.  She was more interested in telling, and the king was more interested in hearing, of the ways of her people.

"You still love your dam, even though you are an adult and she is dead??"

"Your picture for 'mother' is strange."

"So is yours.  Loving-and-safe-and-older-than-me-and-takes-care-of-me?" the king questioned, trying to understand.

"Yes.  Female-caretaker/guardian-of-young-child?"

They both considered, sensing that there were differences but unable to figure out what they were.

"I always love my mother," Valka finally said.  "Always always forever.  My 'mother' that I love very much, all humans are like that.  Most humans.  We love our mothers because they are our mothers; we love our children because s/he is our child."

"Ah!"  He thought she had been talking about herself and her dam, and then humans in general; but as she spoke of a 'child,' thoughts of her own crept in as always, and the king suddenly glimpsed the connection.  "Dragonheart your 'Hiccup,' he is loving and brave and clever and needs you, but that's not why you love him.  You love him only only only because he is your child, that is the only reason!!!  You are happy to love him because he is good, but even if he was bad, you would still love him and you would be unhappy to love him, because he is your child.  Yes?!  Yes, I am right?!"

"Yes, you are right," she said distractedly, finally understanding why he had been confused before.  "But I don't understand!  All dragons mothers love their children, all dragon mothers care for them and protect them and are affectionate to them?!"

"Parent.  Parent is very much important thing to be.  Take care of and protect and teach offspring, so they will grow up and be good and survive and mate and make more offspring.  But 'parent' and 'child' bound together with love?  Not important.  'Person' and 'person' bound together with love, very much important."

She was quiet a while, absorbing what he was saying.  "Your bonds of love are entirely unrelated to your bonds of blood," she finally concluded.  Then, addressing the king again, "But 'Ice Fisher' and his mate, they love each other??  They are 'husband' and 'wife,' they--"

"Stop, too much!"  The strange words she had just used conjured up a hopelessly confusing tumult of emotion and memory that he wanted to sort through later, but not until the current matter was cleared up.  "I think human mates/two-halves are different??  (Your human mate/other-half, I understand now why you cannot give your greatest love to Fourwing who loves you....)  Listen.  Ice Hunt your friend and Prickle his mate, they are two halves.  Very much adore each other always.  They are Matched and make babies together; not important for their love.  Very much love each other, that is important."

"No, wrong; is important!  Ice Fisher very much loves 'Toothless' his child/son!"

The king had to take a moment to translate this for himself.  "Ice Hunt loves this hatchling you call 'Toothless.'  Ice Hunt must take care of this hatchling until it's mature; that is important.  Ice Hunt and Humanhalf love each other as companions; that is important - DIFFERENT important."

Now it was Valka's turn to take some extra time to process this.  "...Ice Fisher and Toothless love each other if they are not parent and child?  Parent takes care of child even if they do not love each other?"

"Yes."

They rested quietly for a while.  Reaching an understanding between them was usually rewarding and exhilarating, but exhausting as well.

When the king had recovered, he decided to ask about her LOVE/PAIN/STOICK/MATE/PACK-LEADER/MISS-HIM-SO-MUCH/ANGER/SAFE/HOLD-ME/PROTECT-ME/WANT-HIM/SEX-ECSTASY/CHILD/HICCUP/PANIC/MISS-HIM explosion she'd hit him with earlier.  "Explain human mates and two-halves to me."

Valka laughed.  "Very big and difficult thing to explain, I am tired.  Later?"

"Later," the king agreed.

o.o.o

Author's Notes:  "he is loving and brave and clever and needs you, but that's not why you love him."  Keep in mind that the king is trying to understand this from a dragon perspective.  His basic conclusion is that (in general) humans' love for their children is automatic, permanent, and unrelated to the child's individual qualities and characteristics.  The wording might be different than what a human would use, but he basically figured out what he'd been misunderstanding before.

"Greatest love" - just like Hiccup with Toothless and Astrid in my more canon-based stories, Valka's love is too split between Cloudjumper and Stoick (and Hiccup); she can't in good conscience "capitalize Cloud's pronoun" the way two halves are supposed to.  The dragons try to be understanding with Val & Hicc because they're humans and form relationships differently, but normal dragon two-halves pairs would unquestionably love each other more than any other creature.  (I mean, I would argue that Hiccup & Valka do actually love their dragons more than they love any human, but as long as their beloved spouses and children are around, they can't focus their love as intensely as a dragon would.  If one of the dragons had to choose between his other half or anyone else, he would immediately choose his half; but if the humans had to choose between their other half or their spouse/child, their first instinct would be to choose their half, but it would be a heart-shredding choice with too many other factors involved to make the outcome certain.)

"Humanhalf" is Toothless.  There's a story I started writing many months ago which uses that name, but I don't think I ever finished and posted it, so I guess the name "Humanhalf" is debuting here in Hybrid instead.

Hey, so, I'd like some reader opinions on possible, non-romantic HiccStrid in this fic after all.  At first, I thought that if I let Hiccup have a sexual partner, he would mate with Camicazi in a plotline that was both against my religion and too off-track.  But it just occurred to me yesterday that if I pair Hiccup with Astrid instead, they can actually do most of the same important stuff, but in a way that isn't against my religion and which doesn't get too off-track.  (And which actually solves a Berk logistics problem I'd been pondering.)  I'll still want Hiccup to be ace (probably sex-indifferent), because otherwise it might cause unwanted complications in his interactions with other human females, but maybe this way I can actually help out both Astrid and Hiccup.  ...I might lose a conversation I'd had planned for Hiccup & Gobber (though it's possible I could still work it in anyway), but I think that would be the only story-related casualty.

Please keep in mind that even if Hiccup & Astrid do marry in this fic, they won't be lovers (emotionally) - it's solely a marriage of convenience, they'd both be openly using each other for their own ends.  That being said, what do you guys think?  Hiccup will be ace either way, and HiccStrid will not really have a romantic relationship either way; the main things that would change are Berk politics and whether or not Hiccup ever has offspring to raise.

Complete:  14/100