Hookfang's Tale (HTTYD)

6 - Turned to Dust

A/N:
Easter Egg reveal time. The new name Fishbone is sporting is the TV series from which I stole some lines. If you've ever watched Firefly, I'm sure you'll recognize the line from the main theme, "You'll never take the sky from me!"

In one scene, Mal tormented a disarmed and downed opponent at the conclusion of a sword fight.

"Mercy is the mark of a great man."
*STAB*
"Guess I'm just a good man."
*STAB*
"Well, I'm alright."

I gave Nose those line as he tortured the chubby one.

Some other random quotes I used: "Sleepiness is weakness of character," "I think you have a problem with your brain being missing," "When someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.," and "When you can't run anymore, you crawl... and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you."

I'll admit I relied on just Googling most of the Firefly quotes. I only watched a couple episodes of the show. More of a Babylon 5 fan.

The pop culture Easter eggs for this chapter are from a pretty old movie, but definitely involves dragons. Well, a dragon.

Turned to Dust

Outside my cave, I can hear them. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, all howling and clamoring as loud as they can. Their projected thoughts wash around like a muddy river of chaos, churning with excitement and anticipation. Through all this confusion, though, there is one undercurrent that shines through.

They want to see blood. They want to see death. They want to see me, Spite, the nightmarish monster, pass judgment on their favored dragon slayer.

If they were not mere land-striders, I might feel flattered.

Aside from that, what they're thinking with their lips sounds like they're choking on their own tongues. We know, from knowledge imprinted on us, passed through several generations of history, that they're cheering for my "adversary". They're excited to watch him fight me and it sounds like they have great confidence in him.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with Firefly.

His ability to communicate with his dragon has improved. No, he cannot hear Toothless one little bit. Well, he can hear the growling, grunting, purring, and crooning, but that's the extent of it all. However, he's a fast learner. Toothless is now able to understand his rider quite well with the improvements Firefly has been making at projecting more clearly defined thoughts. It's far from perfect, but understandable... most of the time.

Firefly has come up with some interesting ideas ever since he and Toothless flew to the queen's nest.

What if everyone on this island turned into a Firefly or a Zealot?

I can carry several land-striders at once. During the next raid, I could fly over a dragon and a land-strider could jump onto his back. Maybe I'll be nice and tackle and pin the dragon down, first. Then, that land-strider can free said dragon from the mind-snare by touching him. Then that dragon can carry more land-striders to free even more.

We would enumerate like wildfire. In just two raids, the queen would lose half her dragons. We could starve her to death in no time flat!

Then again, the queen is old and clever. She would be smart about things. Why would she give us such an opportunity? With her ever-expanding range in which she can send out her dragon minions, would she even bother raiding this island? Would she just send every single dragon at her disposal to burn us all to a crisp this coming night before we can make a move?

Success depends on so many factors. Will the other land-striders listen to Firefly? Would they let us use them as... as... mind-snare scramblers? Maybe they're not ready for such a drastic change in lifestyle. Maybe they'll just throw themselves at each other in a great turmoil of confusion so that the queen can grow fat on their corpses. If I make the wrong decisions today, we all die in vain.