Hookfang's Tale (HTTYD)

10 - Here in the Nest I Love

A/N:
Easter Egg time. For the previous chapter, I tipped my hat to the Foundation series, by Isaac Asimov. It was the foundation (pun intended) on how I ended up tackling telepathy in this story (and my other stories #ShamelessSelfPlug). The third book in the Foundation trilogy featured a very powerful telepath that gave me some ideas for the Red Death. Anyway, here are the quotes I used.

"Past glories are poor feeding."
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."
"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."
"To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well."
"It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly."
"Violence is the last refuge for the incompetent."

Here in the Nest I Love

With wings locked in place, a strong headwind lifts me up higher and higher without effort. Arriving at a sufficient altitude, I flick my tail and pull in one wing to face the direction I want to fly and angle almost straight down, then level out with my wings partially tucked in to glide at high speed just over the waves of the ocean. As my speed drops almost too low to sustain flight, I give a lazy flap and lock my wings again, angling myself so that the wind can carry me aloft.

It is the most energy efficient means of flying long distances. Ascend on the thermals and stiff winds, dive, glide over the water where the wind is almost nothing, then ascend again and repeat. It's not the fastest way to fly, but it's the best I can manage for now.

I suppose it was unavoidable, really. Firefly is alive, but in dire condition. His left leg that all the land-striders were pointing and hissing at is something that will not heal. In fact, the entire body is draining itself of vitality while trying to deal with the injury. The offending limb is currently in Toothless's toothless mouth, soaking in saliva. Beast was not too thrilled by what looked like the dragon eating his rider's leg, but nobody could deny that exposing the burnt, shattered, and bloody limb to open air was much more harmful, so Beast eventually relented.

Stick-leg, having experienced the loss of two limbs - one of them from me while I was under the queen's mind snare if memory serves - has no room for doubt that Firefly will die if the mangled portion of his leg is not cleanly severed off immediately. Already, signs of infection can be observed, and it will only worsen as time drags on. Toothless can lick the surface all he wants, but death spreads from within.

Once again, surprisingly enough, the ability us dragons have to burn, shred, and destroy doesn't solve all problems. All the land-striders on the now-dead queen's island are just like us in this way. With the exception of the Beast breathing life back into Firefly, they are good at taking life, but not so good at giving it back.

They need the skills of a certain land-strider. Raven. The one who has comforted dragons as they die apparently has the skills to restore vitality to a dying body. She's back on that island where we trained land-striders, though. With all the wooden vessels shattered and smoldering from the queen's wrath, unless the land-striders learn to stride on water - an amusing talent one small species of wingless dragons possess - they're stuck.

All that, of course, led to Toothless looking to somebody to spread his wings to save the day. Somebody needed to fly off to bring back Raven to heal Firefly. Somebody was the only dragon with a pair of working wings after all the chaos and fighting. However, even after whatever paltry food offering could be scrounged up, somebody still felt like he needed to eat a shark and a bear and then sleep for several days before he could feel like flying would be a good idea.

The urgency of Firefly's condition didn't allow me time to go hunt for food on a nearby island or dive for fish, so I tried nibbling on the queen's flesh and ended up heaving myself sick. Unlike land-bound creatures, I don't carry around thick slabs of fat under my hide to sustain me for days without food. There's simply nothing left and now I'm flying over open water and feel completely dead on the inside.