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[HTTYD] TPIIP: The Queen Falls, chapter 1

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Literature Text

To Put It In Perspective

(rough draft)

A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl

 

Book 1 - The Queen Falls

 

Summary:  "How to Train Your Dragon" where the human characters are dragons and the dragon characters are human. Narrated by Toothless.

 

A/N:  There is a fic with a similar premise called God of Thunder, Hear Me Roar by ilikeexploding on AO3. I really enjoyed that fic (though I came up with the idea for To Put It In Perspective independently), and was disappointed that it seems to have been abandoned (it hasn't been updated since October 2014, and the author never responded to my reviews).

 

The perspective is a mix of first person Toothless and third person omniscient.

 

The idea of dragon hoards providing them with essential nutrients is from Diana Wynne Jones's book Dark Lord of Derkholm.

 

There are some elements of dragon culture in this fic which differ from the dragon culture in my main headcanon, though much of it is the same.

 

Chapter 1

 

I've never liked raiding dragon nests.  Not many of us do.  My people have always known that human lust for gold leads to corruption of the soul, and our queen, a magic-user and therefore even more prone to it, is a picture-perfect example of greed at its worst.

 

But now we know that it's more than just a matter of abstract morals.  About 20 or so years ago, someone finally figured out that the dragons aren't being greedy, either - they actually need that gold as much as they need food, they will physically starve to death if they're deprived of it.  They can last a little longer if they've got enough meat, but without those additional nutrients from the gold and silver and gemstones getting absorbed through their scales, they'll still wither away eventually.

 

It's cruel.  Old studies, from before she ascended the throne, indicated that dragons are not aggressive creatures by nature, that they tend to use violence mostly for self-defense.  We're the ones who attacked them first, not the other way around.  They wouldn't have had a problem with us if we hadn't started trying to indirectly exterminate them.

 

Yet here we all are, night after night after endless night, invading hidden nests and plundering the treasure these creatures need to live and slaughtering all who get in our way.

 

To protect the dried-up remains of my heart, I've numbed myself to the sight of dragon blood and the sound of dragon screams, I've even numbed myself to the shame of making hatchlings shriek in terror.  But I try not to let myself go far enough to where I actually start believing the queen's lies, because if there's one truth in my life, it's that what we are doing is wrong.  To deny that would mean to give up my last shred of humanity, and for all the misery of this life, I still want to be human.  She already controls me enough, I don't want to become a soulless replica of her and the evil she embodies.

 

My job during the raids is usually to take out long-distance defenders.  Dragons are tough, strong, flying fire-breathers, most of whom are 3-4 feet tall (on four legs, since they're way taller if they're rearing up on their hind legs).  The 5-footers are rare but especially nasty.  All dragons are difficult to take down in hand-to-hand combat, but at least you have a good chance if you know what you're doing and are preferably well-armed.

 

However, when they're blasting fire at you from the safety of the air and you're reduced to darting around trying to use up their shot limit without being able to retaliate at the end, you have a lot less of a chance.  I've been in battle multiple times during every week of my life for two years, since I was thirteen, and being able to shoot dragons out of the sky has kind of become my specialty.

 

This nest is the closest one to our territory, therefore it's been raided the most and has the least to steal.  Still, we're desperate and keep hitting it on the rotation anyway, and over time, I've come to admire the exceptional stubbornness of this flock.  It's led by the most enormous dragon alpha I've ever seen (one of those fearsome 5-footers), whom we started calling 'Stoick the Vast,' and he certainly keeps his flock in line.

 

No matter how hard they're hit, they won't leave.  Their flock size never increases, but it's been slow to dwindle, too.  They almost always have treasure, so you know they must have half-killed themselves trying to replenish their supplies after every raid.  They are never afraid of us.

 

Their determination and their hatred of us runs deep, you can see it blazing in their reptilian eyes and thundering in their sky-cracking roars, and it's made them impossible to eradicate for decades.  That's good in that it means a continued source of plunder for us, and good in that it feels a lot less like a massacre when you're having to fight for your life, but it's bad in that the dragons of this flock are the scariest to face.  You're never less certain of your fate than when it's your turn to raid the Berk flock.

 

I don't have time to think about any of that right now.  At this moment, I am balanced in the shadows on a tree branch, wholly focused on my target, raising my arrow to fire.  Dragons don't have many weak points in their tough, scaled hide, but they do have a few, and I am one of the best at hitting those weak points from a distance and in the dark.  I loose my arrow, and the dragon falls to earth with a cry, where he will either be rescued by one of his flockmates or cut to pieces by my fellow warriors so that he won't be able to defend his hoard when we loot it.

 

I can't think about that right now, either.  My job at this moment is to draw another arrow, raise it up, aim--

 

Something knocks into me.  I don't know what it is, I'm pretty sure it's alive and purposeful, yet far too small to be a dragon soaring up behind me in the dark on sneakily silent wings.  But whatever it is, it's thrown me off balance, I'm toppling out of the tree, I'm already arranging my body to land as I've been taught, to roll up into a fighting stance and not lose a moment's--

 

The ground gives way.  I don't even have time to start rolling because it's not solid earth, it's a pile of sticks and fallen branches, I'm still falling, sharp points and edges are stabbing at me and tearing open my skin as I tumble without control down this freaking steep hillside, why can't I move, something tangling my limbs can't be just tree branches, vines, it's like this is a TRAP, what freaking insanely scary dragon is freaking intelligent enough to build a trap that can catch a human--?!?!

 

I come to a jolting stop as pain shoots through my skull, and I pass out.

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

At the first sign of approaching humans, the dragon alpha rushed to find his offspring.  There was only one, a half-grown male, who had come from the only one of the alpha and his lost mate's eggs that had ever hatched.

 

The alpha located his fledgling quickly, scooped him up in his jaws, and rushed away with him.  The fledgling, a runt who was closer to the size of months-old hatchlings than his own peers, knew better than to struggle.  He dangled limply from his sire's mouth, helpless and humiliated and resentful.  He was always treated more like a baby than like the maturing almost-adult he was.  Since there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, he allowed himself to be deposited in one of the burrows where all the real hatchlings and the younglings and the elderly and the sick were safely hidden during raids.

 

The alpha rumbled in warning.  The fledgling sighed, but obediently raised his head and exposed his throat in submission.  The alpha snorted his acceptance, licked his offspring for reassurance, then rushed off again to begin the work of defending his home from these terrible invaders.

 

As soon as the alpha was out of sight, the fledging trotted to the back of the burrow, toward the alternate exit.  He crawled through it, emerged on the edge of the battle, barked in excitement, then rushed away to his project in the woods.

 

It was distant from the nest because the fledgling knew that his sire would stop him if he found out, but also because he knew that not all humans attacked the nest directly.  He knew that mysterious missiles would appear out of nowhere to knock his flockmates out of the air, he knew that they often came from this hilltop, and he reasoned that a human must sneak out here and use the distance and the shadows to cloak itself as it shot down dragons.

 

Because the fledgling knew this, he had spent a long time collecting sticks and branches and jagged rocks and clumps of vines, stashing them in various places close to the hill.  He knew exactly what to do with them when the time came, all he needed was a human close enough to the right place, and enough time to set things up.

 

The little dragon moved through the woods, sniffing.  He was delighted to catch a scent, and flitted upward to locate his target.  There, on that tree branch, a monster in the shadows, entirely focused on the battle and not noticing the little runt silently investigating him...perfect....

 

The young dragon swooped away without a sound, and spent the next twenty minutes dragging the elements of his trap to the right place, arranging them as needed.  The sticks first, to give way under pressure and jab soft human flesh with their sharp edges.  Rocks a little farther down, to bruise and tear.  Large quantities of long, looping vines, enough of them to ensnare, to wrap around flailing limbs and hold them tight and stop them from reaching for horrible human weapons....

 

Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe this would work.  Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe the fledgling could actually catch a human and make it helpless and kill it.  Then he could bring a piece of its flesh to his sire and prove that he was a good dragon and not a useless baby, that he could help protect their nest, too.  (And maybe it would finally impress that beautiful golden female, and maybe she would agree to become his mate...?  Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe?)

 

When everything was ready, the little dragon couldn't help chirring very softly in anticipation.  Then he snaked soundlessly up the tree trunk, paused at the base of the branch, spread his wings to give him balance and courage...then charged forward and rammed into the human monster with all the strength he had.

 

The human squawked and fell.  And fell.  The dragon could smell blood and was delighted.  He flapped down to the ground and began to follow the trail to his captive.

 

He was so engrossed in the hunt, his very first hunt, that he didn't notice until it was too late when a meaty human fist came at him in the darkness.  It seized him, jerked him up and held him helpless in the air in a crushing grip.  The dragon only had time for a cry of surprise and terror before his jaws were clamped together.  He'd forgotten to try to shoot until it was too late.  He saw the glint of moonlight on metal, he was going to die, that blade was going to plunge into him and spill his lifeblood and he was going to die--

 

The alpha thundered out of the forest, roaring in absolute fury.  The human immediately dropped the runt and whirled to face the great beast.  There was a brief flurry of combat, the blade flashed again and again and missed both times.  Then the alpha managed to get his mighty jaws around the human's neck, and he tore.

 

The little runt sat shivering on the blood-soaked ground, cheeping like a hatchling in distress and misery.  Again, he did not struggle when his sire's still-bloody jaws closed around him and lifted him up, though he squirmed a little in dismay at the anger practically radiating from the alpha's huge body.  The alpha turned and stalked back to the heart of the nest, spat the tiny fledgling onto the ground as their weary flockmates crept close, and roared.

 

At the sound, the fledgling curled up in a miserable ball.  The humans had been driven off, but at a price; all the gold and most of the gemstones were gone.  If the fledgling had been hidden safely where he was supposed to be, the alpha would not have had to leave his post to rescue him.  The humans he had been fighting would not have escaped, the treasure would still be here, but now dragons might die from malnourishment and it was the fledgling's fault.

 

The runt, remembering the success of his un-dragonlike trap, uncurled a little to vocalize at his sire, trying to explain.  He had caught a human, he had been hunting a human before he was interrupted, he could show them and they would see--

 

The alpha ROARED again and pounced, pinning the little dragon under a giant forepaw, rolling him onto his back.  The fledgling protested and struggled for a long moment, the only dragon who would dare to put up any resistance whatsoever when pinned so helplessly and faced with the enormous alpha's furious growling.  But eventually, the young dragon realized the futility of it all, he stopped struggling and went limp.  Although his tail twitched restlessly to show his unhappiness, he bared his throat in surrender and huffed out a resigned sigh.

 

The alpha leaned down and bit him, not hard enough to injure, but firmly enough to assert dominance.  The much smaller dragon, despite the continued resentful twitching of his tail, whined in submission.  The alpha finally released him and barked an order to his beta, a large dragon who was still a capable fighter despite the two badly-healed paws that had been injured long ago.

 

The beta limped forward and nudged the fledgling, who climbed to his paws with a sulky look and trudged away, his head and wings drooping, his tail dragging.  He and his escort passed by the tired, resentful eyes of the rest of the flock, including a cluster of five other fledglings, the runt's only surviving agemates.

 

The sleek golden female spared a glare for the runt before she turned away to groom herself.  The second-largest male, his dark brown scales rippling over well-developed muscles, howled at the runt in derision, as the largest male, shoulders hunched in uncertainty despite his size, chittered in nervous excitement.  The last male and female - scruffy, yellow, almost identical clutchmates - cackled for a minute, then the female pawed at her brother and they tumbled into a play fight.

 

The runt half-heartedly hissed at the brown fledgling who had taunted him.  The bigger fledgling started to arch his wings aggressively, but the beta dragon snarled in warning, sending the brown fledgling toppling back into his companions.  The golden female got up and sauntered away, her disgust reflecting in the jerky flicks of her tail.

 

The beta marched his charge all the way to the alpha's cave aerie, where he closed his teeth on the little dragon and held him to the ground for a long minute, as if to say, "Stay there and do not leave until you're told."

 

The fledgling sulked, tail twitching, before finally baring his throat.  The beta released him, licked him affectionately, then hobbled away.

 

The fledgling lay curled up for a long time, tail still twitching, listening hard.  Then, when he felt sure that no one would see him, he crept out of his aerie and away from the nest and raced into the woods toward his prize.

 

To be continued....

 

Author's Notes:  Again, I did not come up with the idea of dragon hoards providing them with nutrients; that is from Diana Wynne Jones's novel Dark Lord of Derkholm.

 

I meant to keep my HiccStrid poll up a lot longer, but got indecisive about what stories to work on, so now there's a new profile on my FFN profile. ^^;  Please vote! :D

 

For this story, I had intended to stick very closely to the movie.  There ended up being some things that I had to change a lot or completely skip over, but it's still recognizable at HTTYD1.

 

The rough draft for the HTTYD1 arc is complete; it's 10 chapters.  I wrote the whole thing in a little over a week (I wish I could be so productive my original stories... *headdesk*).

Comments2
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Komori-Moon's avatar
Hmmm, interesting, very interesting. Little Hiccup as a dragon is kinda cute. And I'm sure Stoick as a dragon must be terrifying.