Chapter Text
Douxie
Camelot fell when Douxie was thirty-three.
Merlin had warned him about this, about the curse of immortality… doomed to watch societies rise and fall, languages be born and die out. Douxie just hadn’t expected to see his own home in ashes and rubble so soon.
King Arthur’s senseless war against magic drove them all to ruin.
He thought, at the very least, this marked the end of the persecution of magic… He was wrong.
As Douxie and Archie packed their few belongings, intending to leave the skeletal remains of their homeland to be picked clean by the vultures, knights came in search of them. Apparently, they hadn’t gotten the memo that Camelot no longer existed, and were intent on enforcing the laws of a dead king.
“Hisirdoux Casperan,” One knight said, raising his sword in a clear threat. “You are under arrest for the practice of magic on King Arthur’s land, the punishment for such is death.”
And Douxie wasn’t going to stick around to be executed by a bunch of knights clinging to the ghost of a life they could not return to… so he threw a magic smoke bomb in their faces, grabbed Archie by the scruff with one hand and his bag with the other, and fucking booked it.
They paid for passage on the nearest ship with what little money remained and headed north.
Douxie kept his head down, and his mouth shut about magic, unsure what response it would prompt from the gruff and weathered sailors he had for company. Sailors were a superstitious people, and with word of Camelot’s destruction spreading, magic users weren’t any more popular than before. They were already hesitant to allow Archie on the ship, but Douxie assured them the cat could pull his weight by hunting mice and rats.
The sailors treated him fairly, and often invited him into their card games. Douxie simply ignored the passing comment about how evil magic was and smiled and nodded as if he agreed. They never questioned him, and he never gave them a reason to.
It was stressful, but no more stressful than serving King Arthur. The mad king was always looking for an excuse to kill a wizard. One wrong word, and Douxie would have been thrown on the pyre without a second thought. The king only tolerated him because he thought Douxie was loyal to him.
Loyal was never the right word.
Subjugated felt more accurate. It was either submit to King Arthur or die on the pyre with all the other wizards and magical creatures he was so intent on purging from his lands.
They were on that ship for two months, pretending everything was fine, and just barely scraping by… And then one morning the waves turned violent. There was something moving below the water, circling them, stalking them like prey. Someone was shouting, but Douxie wasn’t listening. He stood at the edge of the ship, watching the dark shape with slowly rising panic as the crew fought to keep them steady.
And then the beast’s head broke the water, rising up and up and up—
Dragon .
Douxie stumbled backwards from the massive blue scaled creature. It had a head like a pelican, with a huge bowl-shaped jaw, and as it filled its cheeks Douxie realized, to his horror, it was about to attack.
“Get down!” Douxie warned as he hit the deck as the beast sprayed boiling hot water across the deck.
It splattered against Douxie’s back, and he cried out, but instinct sent him curling in on himself, around Archie, shielding his familiar with his body.
People were screaming , all he could hear was the screaming—
When Douxie managed to pry his eyes open, he was met with the sight of a sailor he had once played cards with, writhing in agony on the deck, barely a foot from Douxie. His skin was blistered red and peeling from the boiling hot water.
The ship shook and tipped, and Douxie had to catch himself on the mast as the beast rammed the vessel.
A terrible and damning crack sounded at the impact.
“We’re taking on water!” Someone warned. “We’ll sink!”
No no no no—
Douxie yanked his sleeve up to get at his bracer, lighting up blue with runes. He scrambled for the right combination, then threw the runes down on the ship, taking hold of it in a shimmering wave of blue magic, and just barely keeping them afloat.
The beast rammed them again, and Douxie felt his magic waiver, but he held on tighter, panting at the effort. He’d never done this on something so big before—
“Magic!” One of the sailors’ gasped, pointing an accusing finger at Douxie.
Please, not right now, Douxie needed to focus, or they would all drown—
“He’s a wizard! He must’ve summoned that monster—”
“Shut up!” Douxie snapped, “I’m trying to save us all!”
“Throw him overboard!”
Are you fucking serious right now?
A pair of hand grabbed his arms, then another , and another— sailors were grappling at him, and Douxie did everything he could to plant his feet and not move, not lose his focus, if he lost his focus they’d sink—
“Get off him!” Archie hissed, launching himself at a sailor, wings out and clawing at his eyes.
The beast rammed them again, and another dreadful crack sounded, the ship tipping and shaking, and threatening to spill them all over the edge and into the ocean.
Douxie’s spell broke for a second and he hurriedly recast it, only for hands to grab him again, ripping him away and shattering his focus. The spell dropped, and so did any control he had over the ship.
“No, no, you idiots!” Douxie kicked and screamed and tried to shove men off of him, but to no avail. “You’ll get us all killed! Release me!”
“Throw him over!”
“No, don’t—”
It was too late.
They shoved him over the edge, and Douxie hit the cold, unforgiving water with a splash. Everything went quiet, the shouts from above were muffled, and Douxie found himself fighting the waves to find the surface, to find air—
A flash of blue scales through the water caught his attention.
Please, spirits, no.
He clawed for the surface, desperate and running out of air, his head was going light, he was going to pass out if he didn’t— A sharp pain in his shoulder shocked him back to awake, and he screamed, water rushing to fill his lungs the moment he opened his mouth.
The dragon had latched onto him, teeth buried in his shoulder and blood clouding the water. Douxie kicked and thrashed and dug his fingers into the beast’s eyes until it cried out and released him.
Air.
He needed air.
He needed—
— — — — —
The cold tide lapped at Douxie’s legs, sending a harsh shiver up his body, and that’s what shocked him awake. Coughing, shivering, and pushing his face out of the sand… his memory felt fractured. There were flashes of the storm, and scales, and screaming .
Douxie scrubbed sand off his face with the back of his hand, but it hardly did anything, seeing as his hands were equally covered in sand as the rest of him.
The movement sent a debilitating shot of pain through his shoulder, ripping a scream from Douxie’s hoarse throat, and sending him collapsing back into the sand, clutching his wound. His hand came away wet and sticky with blood, and still covered in sand—
Sand in his wound, some delirious part of his mind pointed out, that can’t be good.
He needed to— what did he need to do? Douxie’s brain wasn’t cooperating. What was it that he needed to— Right. Wound. Blood. Sand. He needed to clean the wound. What could he clean the wound with?
Blinking against the sun, his eyes adjusted slowly to the light, and the world filled in around him. Long white beaches littered with what could only be the splintered remains of his ship. He had nothing to clean his wound with. Only soaking wet clothes caked in sand, and salt water.
His head was so clouded with pain, and he was drifting close to unconsciousness again, Douxie couldn’t quite figure out what he was missing here. Something was missing, someone was—
Archie.
The thought hit him far worse than his ordeal ever could. Panic shot him back to fully alert and he pushed himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain. He needed to find Archie.
“Ar—” He tried to call, but his throat was so hoarse it came out a pathetic rasp. Douxie coughed, choked, and spat up sea water before trying again. “Archie?”
The pain didn’t matter. Nothing mattered more than finding Archie, so Douxie forced himself back to his feet, unsteady and stumbling, clutching at his wound as blood trickled down his arm. Oh spirits, how much blood had he lost?
Or worse, how much blood did he have left to lose before he was beyond saving?
Douxie swept his eyes over the beach, searching in desperation for anything that could be his friend, and snagging on a shape in the distance. Not Archie, but something flying.
More dragons?
Douxie managed one step before collapsing back into the blood-stained sand, landing hard on his shoulder and forcing another agonized scream from his throat as the world blacked out again.
Archie
Dragging himself onto the shore, Archie shook out his fur like a dog. He was exhausted , and wet , and just watched his best friend get dragged underwater by a wild dragon. The image played behind his eyes with every blink, the look of terror and pain on Douxie’s face, the red in the water—
But he wasn’t dead.
Archie could still feel their familiar bond deep in his chest, like their heartstrings had been tied together. Somewhere, somehow , Douxie had survived. The question was for how much longer would that be the case?
He knew Douxie was injured, possibly bleeding out at this very moment. If Archie didn’t find him soon then—
No. He wouldn’t allow himself to think like that.
Archie just needed to find his idiot boy as quickly as possible, and everything would be fine. It would. Everything would be fine . He just had to keep telling himself that.
He supposed he should thank god that he wasn’t injured. That would make this much harder.
Archie spread his wings and took to the sky, soaring over ocean and shore alike, seeking any sign of his friend. It was the scream that snapped his attention in the right direction. Ripped out and agonizing, the sound of a dying man…
Something red snagged Archie’s eyes. A bloodied mess in the sands. Douxie .
His heart lurched, and he was about to fly closer when he noticed a group of people approaching his familiar.
They had dragons at their backs, all wearing saddles and following at close command. The breeds, shapes, sizes, and colors varied, but one thing was certain they were unevolved, meaning there would be no reasoning with these dragons. They couldn’t talk like Archie.
And they were bigger than him too, the smallest still outweighing a horse, and the biggest being a massive devil-horned red thing.
He wouldn’t even be a snack to them, not even a mouthful… at least not in this shape. But still, Archie needed to defend his familiar.
Perhaps he could… try to blend in? Shift into one of them?
He could only do black creatures, so his options were limited, only one of them was black. It was a sleek, agile thing with intelligent green eyes, and great bat-like wings. He could do that. Archie shifted mid-air, then had to struggle to stay up under the weight of his new form. It was nothing like flying in his usual shape.
But he was big enough to pose a threat now… big enough to defend his familiar.
Hiccup
“Did you hear that?” He pulled Toothless to a stop mid-air and strained to hear over the wind.
“Hear what?” Fishlegs and Meatlug came to a halt beside him, glancing around. “I didn’t hear any—”
“No, it was a scream, I definitely heard a scream.” He leaned forward on Toothless’s back, peering at the island they were coming up on. “It came from the island.”
“Was it like, a dragon scream or a human scream?” Snotlout asked, almost looking bored by the situation.
“Human,” Astrid beat him to the answer, a scowl settling over her face as she and Stormfly fell in line beside Hiccup. “I heard it too.”
“Uh, guys?” Ruff called, alarm rising in her voice as she pointed into the ocean. “Look.”
Hiccup followed her finger to what could only be the remains of a shipwreck, everything from massive pieces of the hull to splintered planks of wood rocking with the waves. The sail was still floating, and there was something moving with the waves…
Its head broke the surface, revealing a scauldron. The massive dragon snatched something out of the mess, and dragged it below, leaving a wisping trail of red in the water. It could only have been one thing.
“Oh my gods,” Hiccup felt sick to his stomach and covered his mouth on instinct, uncertain if he’d manage to keep his breakfast down.
“That scream—”
“It had to be a survivor.” Astrid’s expression shifted in that way it only does when she’s setting to a task, ready to get down to work. “Anyone still in that wreckage is dead, and the scream came from the island, someone must have washed ashore.”
Hiccup had to force his eyes from the scauldron and back to the island. Pieces of the ship had already washed up there, but he didn’t see any— his gaze snagged on something red. Blood in the sand.
“There! Follow me!”
They flew to the shore, and landed a solid thirty feet from the person, allowing them space. Hiccup dismounted, then crept closer on foot, taking caution. As he drew closer, he could make out more details.
It was a man, lying face down in the sand, soaking wet with both salt water and the blood covering his shoulder and seeping into the sands. He wasn’t moving.
“Is he dead?” Tuff asked, wide eyed and glancing at his sister.
She shrugged and gave a noncommittal hum of ‘I dunno.’
Hiccup, without taking his eyes off the man, picked up a splintered piece of wood that could only be debris from the ship, and inched close enough to poke him on the back with it.
The man didn’t react, but upon closer inspection, Hiccup noticed he was breathing .
“He’s alive!”
A collective sigh of relief swept through the group.
Fishlegs grabbed his first aid kit from Meatlug’s saddle bag and shoved his way forward. “Not for long if we don’t stop the bleeding!”
Hiccup dropped the piece of wood and moved to crouch beside the man, intending to turn him over, but a familiar roar made him pause. Toothless? But that was how he sounded when he was defending—
A massive black shape landed overtop the stranger and roared directly in Hiccup’s face, causing him to stumble back in shock.
His first thought was ‘Why is Toothless acting like this?’ but then another black shape was rushing forward from behind him, putting himself between Hiccup and—
Only seeing both of them at the same time made Hiccup realize what was happening.
Another nightfury.
Toothless and the unfamiliar nightfury were both screaming at each other, wings puffed out to look bigger, both with their pupils narrowed into furious slits, and both defending—
Wait.
Defending?
It was unmistakable, the way the dragon was standing over the man. It was a protective stance, guarding the man from harm, from them .
Hands grabbed Hiccup’s arms, pulling him back, further from the fighting dragons. It was Astrid, wide eyed and pale faced at the sight, too stunned to do anything beyond getting Hiccup out of the line of fire.
The strange dragon swiped at Toothless with its claws like a cat, and Toothless leapt back to avoid it before lunging and snapping at the dragon. Toothless caught the nightfury by the throat and—
Oh gods, oh no, Hiccup needed to stop this. He broke away from Astrid and grabbed Toothless by the saddle. “Toothless, no! Let go!”
He listened immediately, releasing the nightfury and allowing Hiccup to drag him backwards, giving the strange dragon space… but never taking his eyes off the beast.
The nightfury snarled, teeth bared, and eyes narrowed as it stood over the man.
“Everyone, back up,” Hiccup ordered, “Give them space.”
“He’s gonna bleed out, Hiccup—”
“I know that, Fishlegs, but letting the potentially last two surviving nightfuries rip each other apart doesn’t seem like it’s solving that problem!”
They backed up maybe ten feet, and only then did the nightfury seem to relax a tiny fraction. It took its eyes off them just long enough to sniff at the man, checking him over and licking his wound.
The man shook with a cough, coming to.
“He’s waking up,” Snotlout warned, looking worried, but Hiccup assumed it was more about the situation than the man’s health.
He pushed himself out of the sand, sitting upright, took one look at the nightfury standing over him, and seemingly decided it wasn’t a threat, because he reached to pet it.
The nightfury leaned eagerly, affectionately , into the touch.
Hiccup could barely believe what he was witnessing. Not only had he found what he’d spent the past five years looking for, another nightfury, but he found one bonded to a human!
The man rubbed the sand off his face, then seemed to notice them, a hazy, out-of-it expression on his face… like he was confused about what he was looking at. He opened his mouth to speak, then coughed violently into his hand, cleared his throat, and tried again, only to dissolve right back into a coughing fit.
“He needs water,” Hiccup grabbed his waterskin from his saddle bag, and held it up for the man to see. “Here,” He took a step towards the man, but the nightfury bared its teeth protectively so he stopped. “I’m gonna throw it to you, okay? Please don’t let your dragon attack us?”
Hiccup tossed the waterskin, and it landed a few feet from the man.
He grabbed it, and promptly chugged the whole thing.
Hiccup took the time to glance over the wound again. He still had blood trickling down his arm… gods, he must be in so much pain. They really needed to get that treated as soon as possible. “You’re going to bleed out. Can we help you with your wound?”
The man finished off the last drop of Hiccup’s water, then wiped at his mouth. He gave them an odd, confused look. Maybe he was too out of it to understand— “Non intellego te.”
That was… not Norse.
Most definitely not Norse.
Hiccup wanted to pull all his hair out. How the ever-loving fuck was he supposed to get this man help if he didn’t speak Norse?
“Any idea what he just said?” Astrid asked, a concerned scowl settling on her face.
“Sounded like nonsense to me,” Tuff crossed his arms.
Hiccup sighed and resigned himself to playing charades. He pointed to the man, then to his own shoulder. “You’re hurt. Please let us help you.”
The man glanced at his wound, grimacing, then back at Hiccup. “Auxilium postulo. Adiuva me placere.”
“That sounded like a plea for help,” Snotlout nudged Fishlegs forward. “So, go help.”
Fishlegs squeaked at the order. “If I go over there, that dragon will eat me!”
The stranger seemed to pick up on Fishlegs being nervous about the dragon, because he glanced at his nightfury, then spoke in a quiet tone to the creature. “Archie, mitescere. Bene erit.”
The dragon glanced at them distrustfully one last time before sitting down, relaxing just like Toothless had when Hiccup threw his dagger in the pond all those years ago.
The man waved Fishlegs closer. “Non tibi nocebit.”
Fishlegs took a deep breath and crept closer, never taking his eyes off the dragon. He crouched down in the sand beside the stranger and laid out his first aid kit. “You’re gonna be okay, alright? We’re gonna help you.”
The man shifted so his wounded shoulder was facing Fishlegs, providing access. Hiccup couldn’t help but think how much trust this man was putting into them right now, to offer your injury to a stranger you couldn’t even communicate with…
Fishlegs tugged gently on the man’s shirt. “I need you to take this off, please?”
The man seemed to get what was being asked of him, and he tried to pull it over his head, but that jostled his injury too much, and he couldn’t manage it. He cried out, and the nightfury snarled.
Fishlegs put up both hands in surrender. “I think we need to cut the shirt off, but I really don’t like the idea of pulling out a knife with the way this dragon is looking at me.”
“Here, let me try,” Hiccup slowly came closer, glancing at the nightfury every few steps to gauge his reaction. The dragon was watching him closely, but not snarling yet, so he took that as a good sign. When Hiccup was close enough, he took two fingers and gestured like scissors, then pointed at the shirt.
He saw it click behind the man’s eyes as he understood. He nodded.
“Okay, Hiccup, please keep an eye on the dragon for me?” Fishlegs said as he very carefully pulled out a dagger from his belt, keeping all his movements slow and predictable.
“I’ll let you know if he gets pissed.”
“Thank you.” Fishlegs set to his task, cutting the shirt apart, then helping the man slip the tattered and bloodied remains off. He set the knife aside and grabbed some disinfectant. “This will hurt,” he warned, despite knowing the man didn’t understand.
He cleaned sand out of the wound, and wiped away the blood, but then stopped, grimacing as he got a good look at the freshly cleaned injury. “This is a bite wound. I’d say the scauldron went after him… there are light burns on his back too, probably got hit with boiling water.”
“Has it occurred to anyone else that we might be treating a dragon trapper’s wound?” Snotlout spoke up, still lingering a short distance away. “That could have been one of Viggo’s ships.”
“We’ve never come across a trapper who didn’t speak Norse,” Astrid said, shaking her head, arms crossed. “I don’t think that’s what this is.”
“Oh, for Odin’s sake…” Fishlegs groaned as he noticed something. “There’s still a tooth in here.”
Hiccup startled and turned to look for himself, and sure enough, there was a scauldron fang broken off inside the man’s shoulder. “Well…” He began, trying to find a positive spin on this, “At least we know he put up a fight.”
Fishlegs risked a glance at nightfury, then back to Hiccup. “I need to pry this fang out, and it’s going to hurt, a lot.”
Hiccup sighed and began unfastening his belt, pulling it off. “He can bite down on this, should keep him from biting his tongue off.”
Fishlegs took the belt and held it up for the stranger to see. “You need to bite down on this, okay?”
When the man just blinked at them in confusion, Fishlegs folded the belt over and pretended to bite down on it. “Like this, okay?”
The man nodded and took the belt. He bit down on it, then reached for his dragon, as if for comfort, like he understood exactly what was about to happen and was bracing himself for it. The nightfury leaned into the touch.
“Okay, if he screams, and the nightfury kills us all, it’s not my fault.” Fishlegs selected a tool from his kit, almost like a pair of pliers. He made a point of showing it to the man. “This is going to hurt, I’m so sorry, please don’t let your dragon kill us.”
Then he dug into the wound.
The man lurched and gave a muffled yelp, eyes blowing wide against the pain. When Fishlegs went deeper, he screamed louder, muffled by the belt, tears streaking down his cheeks.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, so sorry, I am so sorry— It’s out!” Fishlegs dropped the pliers and tooth, throwing both hands up in surrender. “It’s out, it’s over. Good job.”
The man spat the belt out, panting and clutching his dragon. The nightfury shoved its head into the man’s arms, rubbing up against him in an attempt to sooth him.
“Yeah, Snotlout, there’s no way this guy is a trapper,” Hiccup said, staring at the pair in amazement. “This dragon loves him. It tried to protect him.”
Fishlegs rushed through the rest of his task, wrapping the wound, cleaning his tools, and packing up his kit. “All finished.”
The man muttered something they didn’t understand that sounded like a thank you, and stumbled to his feet, leaning heavily on his dragon for support.
With the man no longer bleeding to death, Hiccup took a second to glance him up and down, taking him in. The man was of a fair complexion, even paler from the blood loss, with soaked black hair pulled back into a knot atop his head. He was lean, maybe an inch taller than Hiccup, and with a long, narrow face and sharply defined jaw.
He was probably handsome when he wasn’t on the verge of death.
Hiccup pointed at himself, tapping a finger against his chest as he tried to introduce himself in a way the stranger would understand. “Hiccup.” Then he pointed at the man with a clear question on his face.
The man blinked at him, then hesitantly pointed at Hiccup and asked in his strange accent, “Hiccup?”
“Yes!” He nodded, grinning at the success, then pointed at the stranger again.
“Oh,” The man gasped as he seemed to connect the dots. He pointed at himself, then said, “Douxie.”
Douxie.
His name was Douxie .
Douxie
It took a long game of charades for Douxie to figure out everyone’s names. The skinny amputee was named Hiccup… the larger man who treated his wound was called Fishlegs…The blonde who was more muscular than everyone else combined was named Astrid… The short black haired one was Snotlout, and the last two were the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Don’t ask him which is which, he honestly couldn’t tell them apart.
Their dragons were called Stormfly, Hookfang, Meatlug, Barf, Belch, and Toothless. Toothless was the only one he could actually put a face to the name for, and that was because Archie had taken his form.
It wasn’t hard to work out why, even without asking, he knew how Archie’s thought process worked. He was trying to blend in with the unevolved dragons. Douxie had heard about such beasts, but never actually met one before…
Douxie couldn’t blame him. They already stuck out enough because they didn’t speak the language… These people had likely never met an evolved dragon, and if Archie started shape shifting and talking in front of them, that would freak them out. He’d just have to stay in this form for a while.
They’d make do.
They helped him further up the shore, into the woods, where they found a clearing. The group immediately started setting up a campsite, and Douxie was left awkwardly leaning against Archie’s side, feeling useless. He should be helping, right?
Astrid was working on a campfire, gathering sticks and logs in the center, so Douxie went to help her, but the moment he picked up a stick, she snatched it from his hands and gave him a stern look. “ᛃᛟᚢ'ᚱᛖ ᚺᚢᚱᛏ. ᚷᛟ ᚱᛖᛋᛏ,” she said like an order, pointing at his shoulder like it was evidence of her point.
Maybe it was, he didn’t know! He didn’t even know what her point was .
So instead, he tried to help Snotlout with the saddles, but he shooed Douxie away with an annoyed look.
Next, he tried to help Hiccup set up bedrolls, but the man took him by the good shoulder and forced him to sit down. “ᛋᛏᚨᛃ ᚺᛖᚱᛖ.”
Frustrated, Douxie sat in the grass, shivering in his wet clothes, bare-chested because Fishlegs destroyed his shirt, still covered in sand, and holding his aching shoulder. Spirits, everything about today sucked .
He watched them set up camp, working in sync, like they’d done this hundreds of times before, like it was routine… The dragons all settled down to rest.
Then finally, Hiccup came back over with a bundle of fabric in his hands. He offered it to Douxie.
He hesitated to take it, but when he unfolded the fabrics and realized it was clean, dry clothing, he let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
Hiccup just nodded with a polite smile, then walked off again.
Douxie got back to his feet and waved for Archie to follow. “Come on, I need to change, and it’s a good opportunity to talk in private.”
Together they found a secluded spot in the woods, where the others wouldn’t see or hear.
“Are you hurt at all?” Was the first thing Douxie asked when they were alone.
“No, I’m fine. You , however—”
“I’m okay now.” It was a struggle to get changed, his shoulder flaring with pain at every movement, but he endured it.
“You could have died , Douxie,” Archie said, a heart wrenching tone in his voice. “We were lucky they found us.”
“I know, we were even more lucky they’re friendly.” He fought his way into the dry pants. “What do we do now?”
“Stay with them, I think.” Archie nodded in the vague direction of the camp. “Our options are limited. Our ship is wrecked, we have no idea where we are—”
“We can barely communicate, Arch, I don’t think—”
“Don’t you have any translation spells?”
“Not off the top of my head, no! We can’t stay here, we can’t communicate with them, we don’t know them—”
“But they’re kind,” Archie interrupted. “And they helped us, so I vote we take them up on their hospitality as long as they’ll have us, at least until we have the supplies and the means to leave on our own.”
“Are you really okay with pretending to be an unevolved dragon for that long? Stay in this form? Not talking?”
“It’ll be fine, and with me in this form, we blend in!”
“I—” Douxie sighed and gave in. “Alright, but just for now, and they can’t find out about magic, or about you, okay?”
“That’s probably for the best… There’s no telling how they’ll react.”
They made their way back to the camp, and the moment he got there, Fishlegs wordlessly took his wet clothes out of his hands and laid them out by the fire to dry.
Snotlout was handing him a plate of food before Douxie had time to process that his hands were empty.
“Thank you,” He sat down by the fire, deliberately picking the opposite side from the others. They were kind to him, but he didn’t know or understand them… he thought it wiser to leave a bit of space.
Hiccup
Hiccup couldn’t help but stare at the man across the fire, wearing his spare clothes, hair still damp, with his bandages peeking out… with a fucking nightfury curled protectively around him.
He felt like he was having a crisis. The only other nightfury he’d ever seen, and not only was it trained , it’s rider didn’t speak a single word of Norse. This was the worst-best day of Hiccup’s life, and his emotions were so jumbled up about it, he honestly didn’t know what to think.
All he could do was stare, both at Douxie and the dragon.
Archie .
That’s what Douxie had called the dragon.
It was almost a perfect copy of Toothless, same shape and size, with only minor differences. For starters there was a white mark on its chest, and its eyes were yellow rather than green. It might’ve seemed small, but those tiny differences told Hiccup so much more about nightfuries than he’d ever known before.
And then Douxie’s eyes flicked up from his plate, catching Hiccup staring across the campfire. The firelight illuminated his eyes, making them glow almost an unnatural gold.
Hiccup hurriedly averted his gaze.
Astrid, sitting beside him and staring just as much as he was, but with less shame, asked almost absently, “...What if it’s a female?”
“Nightfury babies?” Fishlegs squealed at the idea of it. “Oh, they’d be so cute!”
“I’ll check,” Tuffnut stood, bravely stepped up to the dragon, and attempted to duck his head underneath to… well, check.
Archie snarled and swiped at him, and Douxie immediately started shouting at Tuff.
“Quod infernum te facere cogitas, pervertis!” Douxie aggressively shooed Tuff away from his dragon. “Pia, quid mali est?”
Now, Hiccup didn’t understand a word of that, but to him Douxie’s tone sounded a lot like, ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’
Tuff put up both hands in surrender and took a few wide steps away. “I don’t think either of them liked that.”
“You think?”
“Tuff, please remember that we both do not know this dragon and cannot communicate with its rider.” Astrid gave him a serious, scolding look, “You’re lucky Archie didn’t take your head off for touching it at all.”
“Yeah yeah yeah, whatever,” Fishlegs waves Astrid off. “What did you see? Is it a female?”
“I dunno,” Tuff shrugged. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Great so… how do we ask…?”
Douxie
“I cannot believe he had the audacity to try that,” Douxie said, arms crossed as he glared at the twin. He wasn’t sure which one it was.
Archie just grumbled in response.
Hiccup turned away from the others to address Douxie again, setting his empty plate aside with an almost pained expression on his face. He gestured to himself, then Astrid, then himself, then Astrid, then Archie, with a questioning raise of the eyebrow.
Douxie just blinked at him. “Mate, I have no fucking clue what you’re trying to ask me here.”
Hiccup sighed, then tried again, gesturing to himself, then Astrid.
Douxie shook his head. “Nope, still nothing. Not a damn clue.”
“ᛟᚺ ᛗᛃ ᚷᛟᛞᛋ, ᛁ ᚲᚨᚾ'ᛏ ᛒᛖᛚᛁᛖᚹᛖ ᛁ ᚺᚨᚹᛖ ᛏᛟ ᚨᛋᚲ ᛏᚺᛁᛋ...” Hiccup muttered to himself, cheeks reddening as he pointed directly at his crotch, then to Astrid’s—
Oh dear.
“Uhh…” Douxie glanced at Archie for help, but his familiar looked equally stunned.
And then Hiccup pointed at Archie, that same questioning look, and Douxie put the puzzle pieces together.
“Oh!” He gasped. “Archie, they want to know if you’re male or female.”
Alarm flashed across Archie’s face, but true to their ruse, stayed silent.
“I think they want you to mate with their dragon… Gross.” Douxie laughed, then turned to look at Hiccup again. He pointed at Archie first, then Hiccup, while nodding. Then he pointed at Astrid and shook his head.
Visual disappointment swept through the group.
Hiccup
“Damn… it’s a male.”
“No nightfury babies…” Fishlegs pouted, shoulders slumped.
Snotlout crossed his arms. “So, what now?”
“Well, male or not, finding another nightfury, and a trained one at that, is incredible…” Hiccup said, excitement and nerves all jumbled up together inside of him. “We have to learn what we can from this.”
“Hang on, Douxie might not even want to stick around, and we can’t exactly force him,” Astrid gestured to the man.
“Astrid, look at him,” He nodded towards the man. “He’s injured, and wet, and still shivering, and he’s got no supplies. If we leave him here, he’ll probably die.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll come with us.”
Douxie
Douxie ate silently, listening to the others talk, but not catching a word of it… Then the sun was setting, and next thing he knew, they were all bedding down for the night, settling in what looked like bear pelt bed rolls.
He was left sitting there like an idiot, with no bed roll of his own, shivering, resigning himself to the idea of using one of Archie’s new giant wings as a blanket, when Hiccup waved him over to present him with his bedroll.
Douxie tried to deny the offer, shaking his head. “No, I can’t—”
Hiccup
Douxie shook his head, trying to wave off the offer. “Non possum—”
“I’m taking first watch,” Hiccup tried to explain, gesturing to his bedroll. “You can take my bedroll. It’s fine.”
“Nolo imponere!” Douxie tried to walk away, but Hiccup caught his arm.
“Just sleep. Don’t be difficult.” He nudged Douxie towards the bedroll with a stern look, then went to sit on a fallen tree to keep watch.
Douxie stood awkwardly by the bedroll for a few more minutes before finally deciding to do as told and settling down to sleep… Hiccup didn’t miss that Archie stayed wide awake though. Keeping watch, with his tail curled around Douxie.
Looking at the way this dragon protected him, the way they relied on each other for help and comfort… Their bond was clear as day. Hiccup had a good feeling Douxie would fit right in around here.