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dzamie-oc · 4 years

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Smaugust 20 - Death

Toothless takes Hiccup to visit his parents. It's not what Hiccup expected. (1915 words)

cw: spoilers for HTTYD 2

Toothless perched on the edge of a cliff, overseeing a long fall towards the wide, open ocean. Hiccup laid on the night fury's back, staring up at the night sky. The dragon's tail swished back and forth, quietly playing a game with the viking's prosthetic leg, each catching and releasing the other in a tiny game of tag. It was a time of quiet thought. Toothless was thinking mostly about fish. Big ones, little ones, raw and cooked, wriggling in his mouth and dangling lifelessly from a human's hook. He silently wondered if whales were fish, or if they were too big. Perhaps all that differentiates a dragon from a large fish is a breath weapon. Toothless imagined fish flying through the sky, where he would dart down and snap them up.

Hiccup, on the other hand, was not thinking about fish. He was thinking about Toothless, and Stoick the Vast, and Valka. "Hey, Toothless, I just realized: you've met both of my parents now." The thin viking chuckled. "I can't say I ever expected that to happen... any time before it actually did. Do dragons keep track of their parents?"

The night fury made an inquisitive sound, then quickly bobbed his head, nodding a confirmation. He wondered if fish had parents, and if it was better to eat a parent fish or a child fish. Maybe a distraught child fish would make itself easier to catch after Toothless ate its parents. Maybe the reverse was true. Or, the night fury considered, a fish might grow angry and flop ferociously at him in the wake of his piscematricide. An imaginary fish slapped him in the face; an imaginary version of Toothless ate it for its insolence, and also because it was tasty.

Toothless realized Hiccup was talking again, and decided to stop thinking about fish. For now. Probably.

"...so, it would be cool to meet your parents. I mean, if they're not dead. That would be, uh, awkward." Toothless's rider lost confidence and spoke more quietly as he kept speaking. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen any other night furies, actually. I hope you're not the last of..."

Toothless snorted and rose to his feet, jostling his human off. He flicked his tailfin open and wiggled his body, inviting Hiccup to mount up and fly. He had something to show the human. He trusted him more than enough.

The human in question, however, kept talking, mostly stammering as he continue to try to apologize for what might have been a slight but almost certainly wasn't, and several other silly human things. Toothless rolled his eyes, growled for attention, and wiggled again. It was time for Hiccup to be quiet and get on his dragon. And fortunately, Hiccup did just that. Toothless crouched as soon as he felt Hiccup's foot and fake foot slide into place at the controls of his tailfin, then leapt into the air and plummeted off the cliff.

Hiccup couldn't see so well in the dark, so Toothless pulled up early; as he not only expected, but knew in his heart would happen, Hiccup snapped open the fake fin as soon as the black-scaled dragon began to pull up, leaving them shooting off over the water, between a sea of stars and a sea of fish.

They approached the forest of rocky pillars, and Toothless built up the fire and magic within him. The dragon pulled his teeth in to avoid them getting hit, and a ball of superheated gas shot from between his lips, a shock of lightning on its tail. It zoomed into the cluster of stone, burst in a purple, white, and blue explosion, and sent several small sparks of lightning crackling and crawling around and through the pillars. Toothless watched as the lights all but disippated, then approached and vocalized a few noises, their signal for "let me fly." The dragon felt his human's feet disengage from the tailfin mechanism, and he flew silently into the darkened maze of stone. It was a familiar, yet unused pattern. With just the moon and the stars shedding light, the night fury was nearly invisible as he banked left around a few rocks, circled one, dove and rose through an invisible pattern of flight. The dragon landed on a pillar of stone and leapt off it, then ran down another before flaring his wings and zooming through a shallow slalom.

At last, Toothless soared back up, spiraling up around a towering spire of rock to shed speed. He burbled another signal to his rider, and felt the comfort of his partner ready for backup, to once more fly WITH him rather than merely ON him. And, all set, Toothless flapped leisurely out of the maze of stone, directly towards an island that he was certain Hiccup had never seen before.

The island was lit with torches that did not burn, and the weather was pleasant, even in the cool night. Toothless landed in a run, slowing to a trot as he neared the familiar - to him, at least - stone and wood buildings. Hiccup shifted to untether himself and dismount, but Toothless raised his wings up to either side. It wouldn't physically stop Hiccup, but he hoped it would let him know to stay on the night fury. As the brown-haired viking settled back into position on his back, Toothless relaxed and gave a low, approving warble as he walked along the island, headed towards a large house partway up. As he neared it, the night fury opened his mouth and shrieked a greeting. He stopped in front of the large front doors and patiently waited until they opened. Once inside, he let his wings droop, and Hiccup slid off his back, walking side-by-side with Toothless.

From a doorway ahead, a woman peered into the hallway, then smiled warmly when she saw Toothless. "Oh, hello dear," she said, stepping out and opening her arms for a hug, "it's been so long. You should visit more often!" She wore what Toothless remembered her often wearing - a loose, elegant, black shirt with a ribcage done in faint, light blue, and a pair of pants in the same style, long enough to cover even her feet, but never seeming to trip her up. Toothless leaned his head and neck into her as they embraced, the woman's bracelets of bone a stark contrast against both her clothing and his scales. "Your father is off brewing a storm for some big contract he has, otherwise he'd be here to see you too. Oh, and who's this?"

Hiccup was still busy staring, utterly bewildered, between Toothless and this strange woman, when she turned towards him. "You didn't tell me you got a boyfriend!" she said; Toothless hissed and grumbled, and she laughed. "I'm only playing, dear. I suppose I should be thankful one of my children thinks to introduce me to his friends outside of professional matters."

Hiccup awkwardly waved his hand, then offered it out to shake. "Uh, hi. I'm Hiccup. So, you're Toothless's... mother?"

"Oh, is that what he's going by now?" She looked over at her son, who moaned and brought his wings tightly against himself, trying to shrink away from sight. "And yes, though you can just call me Death." Hiccup jolted back, though he immediately looked more sheepish over his reaction than scared of the woman. Toothless rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what joke his mom was about to make. "Oh, don't you worry, Hiccup, I'm off the clock. The only thing I'm interested in killing right now is the stew I've been heating up." Yep, there it was. "Anyway, come in, come in. I'll get some bowls out for you both; I'm sure there's nothing like some fresh mutton stew after a flight, and I always make far too much for just me."

As they made their way into the dining room and to the table, Toothless watched as his viking's gaze went from him, to his mom, then back to him, doing that little thing with his mouth whenever he thought really hard. After a few seconds, he saw him mouth a few words, then his face went slack with shock. "The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself..." he mumbled.

Death returned with three bowls of stew - Toothless's being the widest and shallowest, with a nice, big piece of meat in the middle - and quirked an eybrow at Hiccup. "What's this about my boy being unholy?" she asked.

The viking blanched. "No, not that - he's amazing, trust me, saved my life more times than I can count - it's just, there's this book of dragons we had- have, I guess, but that was only in the old version-" he rambled. Toothless watched calmly after bolting down his meat, keeping his eyes on his rider while he lapped at his stew. "-and most dragons, they had these ratings and descriptions, like 'speed four, strength two, breath seven, extremely dangerous, kill on sight.' But for night furies-" Toothless flicked his focus to his mom, catching a glimmer of satisfaction at the phrase "kill on sight."

"-almost never seen, and certainly never captured - until me - so it was just 'speed unknown, size unknown, never engage; hide and pray it doesn't find you.' And the description it gave was 'the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself,' that was all I knew on it - on him - before I started learning about him from, well, him." Hiccup finally took a break to breathe and try some stew, then finished his thought, "anyway, so that's why I said that. I certainly don't think there's anything unholy about him. In fact, he's sort of the reason Snotlout isn't chief, and I-"

Toothless and Hiccup froze as the night fury and his rider considered the unsaid word, "chief," and the weight behind how Toothless granted Hiccup that title. They and their friends - the riders, for Hiccup, and the Berkian dragons, for Toothless - had spent such a long time trying to help them work through their guilt and sorrow of that event. And, luckily, their efforts had borne fruit. They soon calmed back down, although Toothless found himself much more interested in his lamb stew.

If there could be one saving grace of that moment, it was that both boys figured that they wouldn't have to explain their silence. Death, of all people, would know. "Well," she said, to break the silence and change the topic, "I'm glad my son has found such a 'very good friend.' One he felt was important enough to convince him to visit his mother after so many years."

It worked; Toothless moaned a complaint while Hiccup chuckled awkwardly. "Ah, that's partly my fault. He hasn't exactly had a natural tailfin for a while now, it was lost when he crashed in my net." Toothless helpfully raised the tip of his tail to show off the mismatched fins.

"Ah. Well." Death took a sip from her cup. "All's well that ends well, I suppose. Perhaps it's a good thing your father isn't home; he can be very protective of our scaly son."

Hiccup took another spoonful of stew, then looked back at Death. "Wait, if you're Death, and Toothless is of... does that mean that his dad, who'd be upset at me, is-"

Death smiled. "Lightning, yes. I believe you might know him as... what's that moniker, Thor?"

The viking's eyes unfocused. "Good to know. Now, if you'll please excuse me."

Hiccup fainted.

#toothless #how to train your dragon #dragon #hicctooth #httyd #smaugust #hiccup #writing #writers on tumblr #fanfiction #smaugust 2020 #text

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s-nebul0sa · 5 years

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Do you know what it’s like Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 Read on AO3

Christmas morning is upon them in the blink of an eye and Lena groggily wakes up to loud high-pitched screaming telling her and James, “it is time! Hurry up sleepy-heads!”

She’s never celebrated Christmas with an excitable, impatient kid. She’s never really celebrated Christmas at all, unless fancy dinners and impersonal expensive gifts — mainly given for show — count.

“Ss too early,” Lena slurs, pulling a pillow over her head to try and keep all the sounds out.

James laughs, a deep rumble that doesn’t care about the pillow Lena has clutched over her ears and just resonates through it. She pulls it away and angrily glares at him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he tells her, walking over and kissing her between her brows where she knows a crinkle is present. He affectionately cards his hand through her hair and she uses his arm to pull him closer, making him fall back on the bed. “I’d advise you to get up before Dax decides you need help and storms up the stairs.”

Lena grumbles and burrows into James’s side a little more before sighing and resigning herself to the fact she has to get up. She throws the covers off and immediately regrets it when the cold air hits her whole body, making her hairs stand on end and her skin break out in goose bumps. “Shit, it’s cold.”

James quickly holds a bathrobe up for her to slip into. “How are you feeling?” he asks as he slips his feet in a pair of slippers.

“Glad you insisted I take a nap yesterday before mass.” She punctuates her statement with a yawn and pulls the robe a little tighter around her. “What time is it even?”

“Six thirty,” James replies with a smirk, holding the door open for Lena so they can join the rest downstairs.

“No way.” Lena glances at her phone and curses under her breath when she sees James is right. “I’m glad we don’t have one of those running around every morning.”

James starts. “You don’t want kids?”

“Hmm?” Lena stops walking and turns around. “We talked about this, didn’t we? With you, I do if you want that too. I’m just saying I don’t mind we don’t have any right now. I’d like to enjoy my mornings a while longer.”

“Oh, okay. I thought you’d changed your mind for a moment there,” James admits.

“If I did, I wouldn’t spring it on you like this,” she reassures him as she walks over to stand in front of him. “But we barely moved in together so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. We’ll figure it out and I don’t mind too much either way.” Lena shifts to her tiptoes, pulling a little on James’s collar to get him down to her level for a kiss. “Don’t tell me for now you don’t enjoy getting to sleep in when you want to.”

“Oh, I do. I really do,” James acknowledges, pressing close for another kiss.

From the bottom of the stairs a shrill voice interrupts their moment. “Old people are so slow! Hurry up or you won’t get any presents.”

They breathe out a laugh and lean their foreheads together for a moment to enjoy each other’s closeness just a second longer before pulling apart and descending the stairs. At the bottom, Dax is waiting for them with a stern look on his face.

“So bossy,” James jokes, ruffling Dax’s hair before wrapping his arm around Lena’s back so they can descend the rest of the stairs together. Dax is impatiently trying to speed them up and complaining about how slow, like snails, they are.

They’re all huddled together around the Christmas tree, presents spilling out from underneath it, all with neatly written tags with names on them.

“Dax, honey, why don’t you explain to Lena how we always celebrate Christmas?” Olivia suggests. Dax immediately puts on a serious face and stands up in front of the adults as a teacher.

“First, everyone gets to open one, one-” he raises a single tiny finger to emphasise his point- “present from Santa. Those are in the socks. Then, we have breakfast and go for a walk to show we have patience and aren’t greedy. And then we get to open the presents together. Only one at a time so we don’t have, uhm, mommy?” He looks to Olivia for help and immediately gets it.

“Chaos,” she gently fills in for him.

“Yes, that. Chaos. Because that’s not nice. We always start with the rest of Santa’s gifts and then we do the gifts from grandma and mommy and daddy and uncle James and you and me. Santa always gives small gifts so don’t be sad if he gives something small because he has a lot of other kids to give gifts.” Dax proceeds by taking one gift from each stocking and handing it to the designated person.

Lena is still baffled they went through the effort to get her a stocking. She’s only ever had a dainty one with frilly lace, too small for gifts and only hung up for show in the room her parents would receive people in.

Dax hands her a small round object before taking his own gift and sitting back down on a pillow on the floor.

“Now you can open it,” Dax announces.

Lena carefully pries loose the tape and unwraps the gift, ignoring Dax’s excited shouting about receiving a banana himself. Her gift contains a small mandarin with a smiley face drawn in sharpie on the smooth skin. She can’t help the smile that spreads on her face as she looks down at the fruit.

“Ohhhh!!” Dax cheers as he looks at her mandarin. “If your fruit is happy it means you’ve been good this year. Look, my banana is happy too because I’ve been a good boy.” He shows her his banana with a winking smiley drawn on its peel.

After breakfast, which consists of a fruit salad with all their smiling fruits, waffles and eggs, they dress themselves warmly to go for a walk outside. It’s not necessarily freezing cold but warm is different. No snow has fallen yet, seemingly waiting for the new year to arrive before doing so, and the sky is clear and bright. The breeze is biting and Lena is glad for her scarf and gloves. She burrows her nose a little further in the fabric to keep her nose from getting too cold.

Dax runs ahead of the group, chasing ducks away from the pond they pass and pointing out each and every animal and vehicle he says. Everything gets a story and he rambles on and on about them, his words flying away on the wind as he runs away again. Lena cannot fathom having so much energy. They’re about halfway, she asked a few minutes ago, and she can already feel her body begging her to stop walking. It’s not necessarily a long walk but the cold is eating at her and makes her limbs feel like she’s wading through water.

Slowly, she starts lagging behind. She started walking in the front with Mary but now, she’s the last one of the group and the distance between her and them is increasing. James, of course, notices and slows down to walk by her side. He offers his arm and Lena wants to refuse it; she doesn’t need help walking. Except, she does. It takes her only a short moment to get over her pride and loop her own arm with James’s. She refuses to lean on him, though. It’s just a small support, she’s not going to use James as a crutch.

After a short while, Lena gets the break she’s been wanting but was too stubborn to ask for. Dax has found a tree surrounded by pine cones and insists on collecting all of them before finishing the walk. Not wanting a fight on Christmas morning, Olivia relents and lets Dax start piling all the pine cones. She tells him he can pick one to bring home, the rest he has to leave behind. That sets Dax on the search for the best one of the batch. Lena, James and Maria find a bench nearby to sit on while they wait.

Eventually, Dax has narrowed his choice down to two possible pine cones to bring home. First, he shows them to his parents and asks for their opinion and then he trots to the bench and lets Maria, James and Lena voice their opinions.

Lena ends up telling Dax about math in nature. She explains how the Fibonacci sequence shows up in many plants and flowers, also in pine cones. Dax curiously listens and soaks it all up. Maybe it’s a little advanced for his level of understanding but he seems interested and asks questions whenever they arise so Lena happily explains more and more about it.

“I love you,” James says softly when Lena’s done answering all of Dax’s questions and the boy has run off to put back the newly rejected pine cone — it’s Fibonacci numbers weren’t as pretty as the other one. Lena turns to look up at James. His eyes are soft and starry, smile soft and warm and his hand reaching out for hers.

“I love you too, darling.” Lena looks at James’s gooey eyes and completely out of this world expression and appends her sentence, “but why are you suddenly so sentimental?”

“You’re just so patient and never give up. Not when he asks difficult questions—” James points at Dax who’s running around in the distance— “or when work gets hard or when your body gets in the way. And I just— I realised I don’t want to grow old without you.”

James’s admission leaves Lena teary-eyed and as she quickly wipes away the water in the corner of her eyes, she playfully swats at her boyfriend. “None of that mushiness, James Olsen. We’d said no moving too fast. I’m not dying, we can take our time. We can grow old together but no proposals just yet.” She raises a warning finger causing James to burst out in a deep, bellowing laugh. He throws his head in his neck as his voice booms through the park.

Lena can’t help smile at James’s loud laughter. It takes him a bit to calm down and stop laughing, but when he does so, he pulls her close and embraces her tightly.

“Please don’t ever change,” he whispers in her hair.

She doesn’t reply. They both know changing is inevitable. Only the last year is enough proof of that already. But she gets what he means. Not ‘don’t change’ but ‘don’t lose who you are in the process’, a sentiment she wishes for him too.

James presses a kiss to Lena’s head and Lena returns one to his neck, the only place she can currently reach. He makes the world seem just a little less daunting for her. She grounds him. They’re not each other’s better halves but just two pieces of a large puzzle that happen to fit together well. The only thing with the potential to drive a wedge between them, though Lena is still very much unaware of the possibility as well as the truth, is Supergirl’s identity.

#guardiancorp #supergirl #lena luthor #james olsen #my writing #supergirl fanfic #fanfiction #do you know what it’s like #guardiancorp fanfic

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