Tale of The Dragon Whisperer

Chapter 5 - Not Seen Or Heard

Over the next couple of years, Hiccup spent a lot of time outside the oasis, investigating the new and mysterious lands that had been opened up to him. He and Toothless frequently returned to that village under the cover of night to observe the humans that the alpha so feared and realized that whilst humans weren't that smart, they were extremely deadly in combat. Their muscles could move boulders the size of a fully-grown TwinTail, and their hands, whilst large and meaty were also quite flexible. Fluid even, as they could assemble their wooden structures and sea mounts within a few short hours of beginning construction. They also possessed a relationship Hiccup had grown up with. The kind of relationship where two random individuals can randomly start to fight with one another and become bitter enemies, only to reunite on the battlefield and forget about the entire conflict.

Something Hiccup could not understand was the language these creatures spoke. All dragons spoke one language: Dragonese. Admittedly different species had different dialects and accents which made cross-species translation difficult, but it was all the one language. But these humans spoke a completely different language, and it brought Hiccup great fascination. All his life, different species of dragons had all spoken one language. And now he had discovered a new language. Toothless thought it irrelevant but that didn't change Hiccup's thoughts on the matter.

Whilst Hiccup and Toothless mostly stayed out of sight of the humans, there were a few occasions where he had almost been caught. One time, he and Toothless had been walking through the local forest. He thought that they wouldn't be discovered since no one ever seemed to go there. Just as he thought this, a sharp object impaled itself in the tree right in front of him. He leaped back, landing on all fours before leaping on Toothless' back and flying off into the sky. As he looked back at the clearing he saw a young girl staring up into the sky at them, her face expressing both fear and bewilderment at the same time. As it turns out, that girl had almost caught them several times already, usually in the forest. From then on, Hiccup and Toothless stopped visiting the forest as often, though Hiccup did keep an eye on that girl from then on. There was just something about her he found... intriguing.

"So Hiccup," the bewilderbeast called out to him. "Did you find what you were looking for today?"

"Maybe," Hiccup responded, bowing his head before continuing. "I have noticed what you've said about humans and their coordination skills. When a lot of them join forces, they are a force to be reckoned with, despite being individually weak."

"Indeed." The alpha smiled. "I'm glad to see you're finally starting to see how dangerous they can be. Remember, even a Bewilderbeast can be defeated by a Basic swarm, as long as there's enough of them."

"Yes, but there's also something else I've noticed," Hiccup continued. "Whilst they seem to rely solely upon primal instinct and possess no intellect whatsoever, some of them seem to be... different. Like they know that what they are doing is wrong, or that something just doesn't add up about their lives."

The alpha nodded in confirmation. "That is also true. For creatures so simple, humans can be surprisingly complex. They can form bonds of kinship by beating each other unconscious, and those bonds can be just as easily broken by something as trivial as food or living arrangements. They are extremely hard to understand or predict, which only makes them more dangerous."

Hiccup responded, "Yes, I agree. But surely there must be a method to their madness, something that remains the same throughout all humans."

"There is none." The bewilderbeast was quite firm on this. "When I was young, I was no bigger than a Basic dragon. I frequently spied on human villages to find a link, a connection, something to prove that humans weren't as evil as we are all taught. For 50 years, I watched them. And for 50 years I found nothing. As of this time I had grown to the size of a Boulder, and could no longer hide from their observant eyes. I was hunted, attacked, and captured. I only escaped because my brethren attacked the box I was confined in and freed me from that nightmare. From that day on I stayed away from humans. I do not hate them for what they did; it is in their nature, and they hold no blame for that. But I would be foolish to try again after that experience." The bewilderbeast began to turn to deal with another issue that needed addressing, but finished with, "Humans are animals, Hiccup. That's just how they are. They may show feelings of compassion and kindness to each other, but toward us, they will show only hatred and bloodlust. If they find you, they will kill you." And with that, the conversation was over.