A Dragon's Life For Me [HTTYD/PJ Crossover]

Chapter 6: Grasping Hope

A deafening grumbling of heavy doors and creaking hinges echoed through the room, hissing and growls greeting the ones responsible for it. A line of light slipped through the doorway, cutting through the darkness like sunrise after an endless night. But unlike that sunrise, this was not salvation. He shifted, just slightly, but didn't bother to lift his head, or even open his eyes.

It was not his turn yet. He had just recently finished his turn, and he was still bleeding sluggishly.

If there was one thing he learned and was sure of in his time as a training dummy for young vikings, it's that he was too rare and valuable to be killed off. He was the first and only Searing Wingsnake they had ever come across, and, as a water dragon, the only dragon that can give young vikings the opportunity to practice fighting against water dragons while they stood on their boats. He was not easily replaced.

Unlike the others.

The cage next to him rattled as the dragon inside was forcefully subdued and hauled out. It snarled and struggled, but was quickly disoriented from the sound of weapons banging against shields. Percy winced, but remained unmoving. The doors were closed again, leaving the dragon outside its cage but only trapped inside a bigger one. Percy knew that this bigger cage would open, and the dragon would be greeted by a cheering crowd and a small group of teenagers training to kill.

He had long since learned not to get too close with his fellow captives. Even if they manage to survive for more than a few months, it was moot point the moment winter comes and food becomes scarce. Percy shivered at the thought, opening his eyes a sliver to look at the dragon outside its cage.

This one was young, a zippleback barely the size of the grown adult that Percy had previously known as a fellow captive. He doubted that the young one will survive long, and while he told himself to harden his heart, he can't help but at least see his fellow dragons off before they go to their potential death. A little gesture of respect, albeit a pointless one.

After an indeterminable amount of time, which the zippleback spent frantically flying and crawling around the walls and cages, fruitlessly searching for a way out, the double doors opened to let in the roaring of a crowd and to let the dragon out. Even with the sound of the vikings, the light and chance of freedom was too tempting of a chance for the desperate youth. So it burst out of the opening, right into the humans thirsting for blood to be spilled.

Percy sighed as darkness claimed the prison, once again. But he stayed still; he needed to conserve energy.

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The village chief visited him only once.

It was when he was newly captured, still unmarred in body and soul by death and sharpened steel. Percy stood at the back of the cage, low to the ground and with eyes warily watching their every move. Not quite huddling in fear of them like the rest of the captive dragons, but not quite outright challenging them either.

"This an odd one, ain't it? Heard your boy was found alive in the woods. Bloody miracle if I've eva seen one," The other viking next to the chief commented. He was short, smaller, but his missing hand and leg told of viscous battles that he had fought and survived in.

Stoick said nothing, at first. Instead he stared right into Percy's eyes and Percy stared right back, clearly afraid and wary but unyielding. This dragon was not one to bow in fear in front of them. There was something unreadable in the chief's eyes, and now Percy realized who exactly the boy was that he had taken away from the battle.