Hookfang's Tale (HTTYD)

3 - Everything Wrong with How to Train Your Land-strider

A/N:
I have a sort of pop culture Easter egg hunt every chapter and you probably found a couple eggs in Chapter 2. They were from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The title is a line from Marvin, a manically depressed (but hyper-intelligent) robot. In one scene, he destroyed a ship by talking to the ship's AI, causing it to commit suicide.

The second is the ubiquitous, "Don't panic," as the Monstrous Nightmare came to terms with his predicament.

When the Monstrous Nightmare was about to snuff out his own life, his last thought was, "So long and thanks for all the fish". This was in reference to the final attempt of dolphins to communicate with humanity. After many failed attempts to warn the humans that Earth was about to be destroyed (these messages were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits), their last message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backwards somersault through a hoop, whilst whistling 'The Star-Spangled Banner'.

Lastly, Nose, the Terrible Terror, has been in captivity for 12 years. He was 30 when he was captured, so his age at the moment is... 42. Please excuse me, now, as I guffaw at your face-palming.

Sadly, I couldn't find a way to squeeze in the bowl of petunias, but Agrajag deserves a shout-out, anyway.

For this chapter, my Easter Eggs are particularly uninspired. You'll either recognize it immediately after reading the title or have to wait until the A/N at the start of the next chapter... or Google it.

Everything Wrong with How to Train Your Land-strider in One Day or Less

Life in a tiny, dark cave.

You would think it would be boring. You would think it would be frustrating. You would think it would be maddening.

You would be absolutely right!

Fortunately, us dragons have ways of coping with such situations. Even though we're separated by stone, we're never really alone.

Today is the deadly adder's turn to train the land-striders. We all had agreed to name her Greedy - a fitting name chosen by me since she chose to name me Spite.

As Greedy steps out of her cave and into the light of dawn, she looks around to take in her surroundings. The area under the iron web has transformed into a maze of wooden walls. They're tall enough that she can't see over them, even with legs as long as a land-strider is tall, but there's still clearance under the iron web to hop on top. Beyond the iron web, an endless, bright, blue sky stretches out above, just begging me to spread my wings and fly... were I not stuck here... in my tiny, dark cave.

It's bearable, though, thanks to an agreement we all made, as all other captive dragons have made in the past, to help keep each other sane. Only one of us at a time is let out of our cave, but if that dragon projects all of his impressions in real time - what he sees, hears, and feels - then we all benefit from the experience and can enjoy the warmth of the sun, the wind under our wings, and songs of the birds chirping, even though we're stuck in our caves.

Keeping up a constant projection of one's own senses is not a normal thing for a dragon to do. Usually, communication happens in short, discrete bursts. When flying through the hollow mountain of the queen's nest, we would avoid colliding into each other - a situation where nobody wins and everybody loses - by projecting flashes of information for the dragons around us. I would project a sense of proximity and the identity of the dragon in concern or the urge to veer right when I fly past another dragon, for instance.