A Switched Perspective

Chapter 2

Dagur stirred feebly, and Heather let out a sigh of relief. It had been a few hours since the device went off, and despite Fishlegs's assurances she had begun to fear that her brother would never wake up. He shifted a little, flexing his fingers spasmodically, before opening his eyes. Despite her initial relief, a feeling of dread stole into Heather's chest- she just knew that something was very, very wrong. When he looked at her, his eyes were strangely blank, and instead of speaking, Dagur's mouth opened to issue a small, "Graowww???"

Heather pushed aside the door to her little house and shouted, "Fishlegs! Something's wrong." Fishlegs hurried into the shelter to find Dagur sitting in a strange position, almost like a dog. Then the red-haired man looked down at himself and uttered a high pitch yip of alarm: the humans in the room had no way of knowing, but Toothless had woken up in Dagur's body, and he was very frightened and confused. "Hey Dagur, it's me, Fishlegs- you know me, right? And Heather?" When Fishlegs tried to get closer Toothless seemed to go into defensive mode; his upper lip lifted to reveal his teeth, and he let out a low growl. "Whoa, whoa, easy. We won't hurt you, we want to help." Fishlegs looked very concerned at this development, and Heather looked like she was about to cry.

Suddenly, Toothless leaped off the bed and made a mad dash out the door, crawling on all fours and scraping up his vulnerable human skin. He looked around with wild swings of his head, then saw Hiccup standing in the doorway and lept towards him, making an odd squawking noise in an attempt to sound like himself. He turned and saw Heather and Fishlegs chasing him, then noticed how they stood; seized with this idea, Toothless attempted to stand on his human legs, wobbling around wildly just as Hiccup reached him.

"Dagur, what's wrong?" Hiccup asked, putting a hand on Toothless's shoulder to steady him. Toothless tried to show him that it was him, that he was actually Toothless, but he couldn't think of a way, so he just stared mutely at his best friend, feeling hopelessly overwhelmed. Heath shook her head, looking sad. "I think that the tube thing somehow fried his brain. He's only made weird noises since he woke up, and he doesn't seem to really be there completely. There was also the crawling thing you just witnessed."

Suddenly a large black dragon came charging down the hill, stumbling and sliding. "Toothless?" Hiccup called, sensing that something was off about his dragon, "Whoa, slow down!" Dagur dug in his dragon feet but miscalculated, speeding past Hiccup and colliding with Toothless- himself? Well, Toothless in his body. Dagur knocked over Toothless, who sat down and stared back at him blankly. Dagur tried to speak, but the words came out of his mouth as chirps and growls.

He saw Heather and noticed that she had pink marks on her cheeks, as if she had been furiously rubbing away tears. To try and comfort her Dagur pawed at her hand, but she just jerked away as if she's been slapped. Then Dagur had an idea.

Slowly and clumsily, Dagur used his one of his new claws to write in the dirt. "I am Dagur?" Snotlout snorted in disbelief, but then thought again, "Is that possible? It would mean that Toothless is in Dagur's body, like they switched or something." Hiccup shook his head, puzzled, his eyes narrowed with thought. "I know Toothless doesn't know how to write, and Dagur doesn't act like a dragon... so I guess that's our best guess. Whatever's happened, maybe I can look at the Glassfire and try to reverse it. In the meantime we just need to watch them and make sure they don't hurt themselves."

Toothless leaned against Hiccup's leg and purred; since it looked like Dagur was doing it the exchange was incredibly strange to see. Hiccup awkwardly patted Toothless on the head and helped him stand, leading his dragon-turned-human on his two unsteady legs. Back inside, Hiccup sat with the Glassfire, trying to see what could possibly be done to reverse its effects.

Toothless played with Meatlug, waggling his but in the air and pouncing, wrestling with Meatlug just as he would in his dragon body. However, seeing Dagur act like an animal was terribly amusing to the twins, who laughed until they cried as they watched. Dagur simply curled up next to the table, feeling strangely tired. He fought back the urge to yawn but eventually yawned, his mouth opening wide, and a bolt of purple fire shot out.

Hiccup simply sighed and watched the roof catch fire for a minute before dousing it with a large bucket of water. Dagur hid his face under his large forefeet, trying to show that he was sorry. Snotlout called out to Dagur, "Hahaha that must have felt cool! Just make sure to do it outside next time." Well, it had felt cool, Dagur supposed. It was like a tickle of lightning exploding across his tongue, tingling on the roof of his mouth, hot but not painful in the slightest.

Hiccup stood at the table and groaned, stretching some sore muscles in his back. "Well, the good news is that they'll switch back. The bad news is that this-" Hiccup gestured to the Glassfire, "Has a timer. I think it has three weeks' time on it, which means that these two are gonna be stuck for quite awhile."

Snotlout scratched Hookfang behind his ear and asked, "What are you going to do then? We can't be down our best rider, and it's not like you can go around riding Dagur for three weeks." The twins snorted and giggled, and Hiccup shot a disapproving glare at Snotlout, who raised his hands in mock surrender, but he also wore a giant grin.

Hiccup looked down at Dagur, thinking, and said simply, "We'll think of something. Everyone should be extra alert for now." It wasn't a solution, but the dragon riders were so tired that it would have to suffice, at least for now.