paradisalost | (no subject)

Entry tags:

hiccup,
toothless

(no subject)

Who: Hiccup & Toothless
What: Flying -- and accidental exploration!
When: 10/08
Where: The castle grounds + Beyond
Rating: PG?

Hiccup was excited -- maybe a little more than he should have been. He'd been able to fly a handful of times since coming to the castle, but with the weather as nice as it was, it was hard to want to do anything but go flying with his dragon. He had spent the past few days creating a new saddle: something of fine, supple leather with tools and materials he had never had access to back in Berk.

That was how he ended up in the castle courtyard then, an armful of saddle and Harness.

"Toothless!" He called, unable to keep a slight grin from his face. "I've got something for you, buddy."

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Toothless had been sleeping in the forest when he heard Hiccup's call. He lifted his head groggily, blinking one eye at a time before he got up. The nightfury parted his jaws in a wide yawn, his teeth briefly unsheathed before being concealed by the dragon's pink gums once more. Smacking his mouth lightly, he trotted out out of the foliage, headfins perked up in attentiveness--

Saddle. Harness.

Toothless immediately lets out an excited sound and bounds on over, sleepiness forgotten as he practically dances around Hiccup, all manners of hyper noises coming from him.

He missed flying so much!! He missed flying with Hiccup so much and now they were going to get to fly together and oh this was going to be a great day!!

Hiccup can't help it - he grins as Toothless comes bounding toward him, balancing the saddle against the ground.

"Yeah? Seems like I'm not the only one excited about this," he comments dryly, but his face is still caught in that wide, almost guilty smile. Why hadn't he done this earlier? "I've made a few adjustments, too. It should fit even better."

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP. Yeah, that's his tail going again. He squirms, as though he's ready to take off on the spot, but he manages to stay in place as he looks eagerly at Hiccup, giving an excited little noise and shoving him on the shoulder with his snout.

Come oooon, what are you waiting for? There's flying to be had!

"Just hold still," Hiccup says with that same smile on his face, making short work of saddling Toothless up and fixing the harness on right. It's a good fit, and he makes a little sound of satisfaction at the sight. "Feel alright?" he asks as he moves to the dragon's side, adjusting the weight of the satchel at his hip. He'd brought a few snacks, figuring they could settle somewhere on the grounds and have a bite to eat.

The night fury squirms a little, then nods.

Sorry, Hiccup. You're far too slow and he's far too impatient to wait around any longer.

So he bumps his body against Hiccup's legs to make the kid fall onto his saddle before he promptly launches himself into the air.

FLYING YAAAY

"Hey, hold up, I've got to --"

But instead of continuing to complain, he just hooks his feet into the stirrups, leaning forward and laughing as Toothless takes off.

"Okay, okay, sorry. I'll talk less next time."

He's already breathless with the excitement of it all. It's good to be in the air again; he can't imagine how nice it must be for Toothless.

Thankfully, Toothless is not breathless, or that would end very badly for both nightfury and rider involved. Once he can feel Hiccup's got a good position on him, he gives a croon and does a loose barrel roll.

He feels so reinvigorated, and it's taking him everything to not do the craziest aerial maneuvers around, really. Granted, Hiccup could probably adjust well enough, but even this dragon's smart enough to know that they should take it easy at first after such a long break.

Yes, barrel rolls are included in the 'taking it easy' air maneuvers.

Hiccup is more than okay with barrel rolls being shuffled into the taking it easy category, because nothing feels more like home than this - riding on dragonback in the air, clutching to the saddle and dragon for dear life and laughing until he's hoarse.

He's not looking out for where they're going, has no real direction in mind. The little viking boy is just happy to fly for now.

After he stabilizes from the roll, he turns his head a little, offering his rider a gummy grin. Looking back to the front, he pumps his wings, causing the two to ascend very quickly, and in just a dozen or so seconds, Toothless breaks through a cloud and appears above a sea of clouds.

The nightfury's head sweeps slowly from side to side as he takes in the view. God, he missed flying like this.

Hiccup gives into impulse then, stretching a hand out to skim along in the air, above the current that Toothless is splitting with his wings. "Impressive as ever, buddy," he comments affectionately. "We're gonna have to start doing this again more often. How's that sound?"

Toothless gives an eager response, tossing his head up a little for added emphasis. And suddenly, the wind picks up a little. That's what it feels like; in actuality, they're suddenly descending quite quickly. Confused, the nightfury pumps his wings-- and a startled sound comes from the dragon when they drop a few feet out of the air, his wings quickly snapping back out to allow them to glide again.

They've passed into the Dead Zone.

Hiccup jolts when Toothless drops, leaning forward hard to touch the side of the dragon's neck. No, that's not normal - something is wrong here.

"Toothless? What's going on -- you okay?"

A small, nervous croon comes from Toothless as he tilts his head back slightly towards Hiccup. Turning back forward, he beats his wings harder, but the result is the same; they drop a few feet out of the air once more before Toothless snaps out his wings to stablize them the best he can. They've descended back past the clouds, and seem to be headed for a swampy area.

He flattens his hand against the side of Toothless's neck, trying to soothe him as they start to descend. "Nope, not a good thing," he says out loud, though there's something sort of resigned to his voice. Why is he not surprised that this is happening? "Hey, don't worry about it - we'll land and figure out what's going on."

Because even in a land with a magical castle, Hiccup is assuming that it's simply a gear malfunction.

The touch does calm Toothless a bit, but he's still obviously very nervous. Nothing feels wrong with the prosthetic tail fin Hiccup made for him, and yet, here they were, quickly falling towards the ground. It was almost as though the air itself had changed. As though, suddenly, it'd become too thin to support much everything at all, much less an entire dragon and his rider.

After a bit of searching around, he leans his body towards an opening in the swamp. He pumps his wings fiercely to slow their descent, but it doesn't do much good. Their landing into the sludge isn't a very smooth one for sure, and the sticky ground causes Toothless to flip onto his side with a startled warble.

Hiccup holds on as long as he can, but he knows enough about rough landings to realize that he needs to let go, to roll away. And that he does, coated in sludge from the swamp and a little breathless from adrenaline as he hastily and clumsily pushes himself to his feet.

His first priority is Toothless. Immediately, he hobbles over to him, checking the dragon for injury.

Toothless struggles a bit in the muck, but manages to get himself back on his feet, an irritated sounds coming from him. That was quite possibly the most undignified landing he had ever had.

He's sore, and he might have lost a scale or two in the crash, but he seems fine otherwise. If annoyed by the sludge.

"Come on, bud," Hiccup breathes when he determines that Toothless isn't actually wounded. He'd hit the roll hard, but that was an advantage of being kind of small: he was able to just spring up out of it. "Let's try to find some dry ground and check your equipment."

But there was a little panic springing up in his chest, too. An altitude loss of that sort wouldn't have been caused by faulty equipment.

Toothless' headfins perk up as he looks at Hiccup, giving a small chirp of sorts as he attempts to trudge out of the muck. Given his weight, however? Yeah, he's sinking fast and deep, and while it's not deep enough to be a threat, it's deep enough to be very inconveniencing and very annoying.

Regardless, the dragon somehow manages to find dry land, and with a hearty struggle, he manages to get out... and he's brown from the chest down. A deep sigh of relief escapes him.

"This is pretty disgusting," Hiccup admits, and when Toothless makes it onto dry land, he shakes his head as if that will help him clear his mind. He paces over to the dragon, moving to grab the harness, giving it a pull there, a tug there. He's checking it thoroughly, then double-checking it.

".. everything's fine. It's a little dirty, but it's in perfect condition." He presses his hand to Toothless's side, giving him a comforting little stroke. "Are you feeling alright?"

Toothless' head perks up a bit when he feels the tugs, and he turns his head and watches Hiccup cross-examine the equipment. While he does so, Toothless looks around. He's never been in an environment like this, and he doesn't like it. The areas back home might have been heavily forested, but the ground didn't actively try to eat you.

His head turns back to Hiccup at the stroke and question, and he gives a little noise of affirmation before looking back around. He's anxious around all these different smells and this cramped, claustrophobic environment where literally anything could be hiding.

Hell, the castle was better than here.

Toothless isn't the only one that's anxious. There's something pressing on Hiccup's chest and shoulders, a very firm sense of something being wrong, and the fact that he can't figure out what, exactly, it is makes his skin crawl. "Hey - let's try flying again. How's that sound? See if we can get out of here."

Toothless' head fins perk up at the suggestion, and he nods happily. He then turns his head, lifts a muddied wing, and inhales...

Smoke comes out.

A confused noise. He tries again.

This time, nothing at all.

He just gives Hiccup the most bewildered look. What happened to his fire.

Something had happened to Toothless. What could have --

"We're in the Dead Zone," he blurts suddenly, realization hitting him like a sack of bricks. "I heard people saying their powers don't work out here -- I guess you don't really, either, pal." Hiccup drags his fingers through his hair, suddenly a little cold. They were going to have to walk back.

"Look, we can't be too far out. We should probably start walking - you'll be able to fly again when we get back to the castle, okay?"

Toothless watches Hiccup, listening to his every word. He doesn't understand, but Hiccup seemed to understand, so that was enough for him. Still, he can see the subtle signs of nervousness in Hiccup's movements, and it's making him feel uneasy as well.

He nods, but then looks over the area with a worried noise. If the ground was going to be anything like what they fell into, the trek home would be long, and quite unsafe.

Dangerous, and Hiccup knew it - but he was doing his best not to let his dragon know he was worried about it. Nothing seriously bad had happened to him since he'd arrived at the castle; surely they'd be fine on the way back, right?

"Come on," he says, forcing a lightness into his voice that he hopes Toothless hears, "let's get moving."

Hiccup, you are no master of disguise when it comes to your emotions, and Toothless knows that as well as you do. Regardless, he quietly turns to follow the boy, his head turning and moving about as he caught the scents and sounds of this strange, foreboding new place.

"You're gonna tell me if you smell anything dangerous, aren't you?" Hiccup tells him lightly, trying to disguise his own feeling of unease as he continues to walk, keeping himself slightly in front of the dragon -- like he would be the one to protect the night fury if something popped out to attack them.

If there was anything to smell, it might be the delicious fruit hanging on the trees nearby -- they smell like a lovely combination of strawberry and banana.

But you don't have time to check out the fruit -- because guess what? Looking further ahead, there is a massive stone monument, dusted with willow branches and a few cobwebs. In the middle of the monument, there seems to be a large hole where a boat could fit through to go inside.

Conveniently, there seems to be a boat with rusty metal seats and oars floating just a few feet up ahead.

Feel like exploring, guys?

The smells are interesting, certainly, but not particularly appealing to a carnivorous dragon. But the stone monument-- that's something that catches the nightfury's eye, and he stops in his tracks to look at the structure, his tail waving slightly behind him.

"Well. Isn't this convenient." Hiccup's voice is dry and a little amused, and as Toothless stops in his tracks, so does Hiccup, reaching over to still a hand on the dragon's flank. Getting back to the castle, or going in the monument. Getting back to the relatively safe castle with his currently flightless dragon, or going inside the creepy monument on that ugly little boat.

Hiccup sighs.

"C'mon. We don't have anywhere to be, do we? Let's go exploring."

He nods toward the boat, unable to help himself. Damn his charming natural inquisitiveness.

Toothless follows Hiccup long enough to go up to the water, but then he stops.

He's staring at the boat as though it just might be a cleverly disguised eel or something. That is to say, he doesn't trust it at all, and much less is he thinking of allowing the thing to carry him over murky waters.

Hiccup glances back at Toothless, before shaking his head and climbing in the boat. "C'mon, buddy -- where's your sense of adventure? We'll take a peek in and get back to the castle."

At least he'd have something to talk about.

He watches Hiccup go in, a nervous rumble coming from him. The only time he'd ever been on a boat was when he'd been chained and forced to be the Vikings' living compass. Besides the fact that that alone made it a rather unpleasant memory in general, when the flimsy thing broke, he'd sunk right to the bottom of the water and had nearly drowned.

Granted, Toothless is a smart dragon, and he knows things are a bit different this time. He snorts at Hiccup's remark before finally placing a leg in the boat, testing it.

......... this seems to be as far as he wants to get in.

Hiccup glances into the structure again, balancing his hand on the side of the boat as Toothless puts one foot in. The dragon clearly doesn't want to get in the boat -- and Hiccup frowns a little, not sure that he should push the issue. "Look," he says, doing his best to keep his voice soothing, "you stay out here and stand guard. I'll go on a little boat ride and be out in two shakes of a Nadder's tail, okay?"

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