How To Train A Dragon (Merlin)

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There were very few things that Hiccup feared-

Okay, that was a lie. Hiccup was afraid of almost EVERYTHING. Spiders, bugs, people... if there was a phobia for it, he probably had some variation of it. It was probably why he was such a failure of a Viking. But ironically, the one thing that terrified him more than the rest was the one thing he'd seen constantly since the day he was born.

Dragons.

It wasn't so much that the beasts could end your life in probably a hundred different ways, or that they had a ridiculously large appetite. It wasn't even their horrendous appearances that scared Hiccup. No, it was the fact that they were intelligent. He still remembered the emotion and intelligence he'd seen in the downed Night Fury's eyes. He dwelled over it more than he'd like to admit. Maybe they were wrong about the dragons. Maybe they weren't something to be feared...

Of course, he had no way of testing that theory. That was, until a dragon decided to make a flyby over the field Hiccup found himself in. Naturally, Hiccup flipped out. He probably would have screamed if he hadn't been frozen in place. All his training went flying out the window when the dragon roared and circled high overhead. He spun around desperately trying to find somewhere to hide, but it was too late. The beast landed incredibly close, wheeling its large head around to face him. Hiccup's gaze locked with the dragon's and he stayed frozen in place as the creature's breath puffed over him. But it didn't attack. Hesitantly, Hiccup reached out a hand, trying to see if he could touch the reptile and see if it was actually real.

[Merlin Emrys]

When Merlin spotted the dragon circling down into the field, his first assumption was that Balinor had sent it, so he immediately headed out to go meet it and find out why it was here. What he didn't expect was to see someone else in the field, reaching out towards the beast.

He didn't want to run over in case the dragon wasn't from Balinor, in case this boy had control of it and would give the order to attack if startled. Merlin's magic might be good enough to protect him, but he wasn't sure he was quick enough, and there wasn't much point finding out if he didn't have to, so he walked over casually, making sure to stay in plain sight as he neared.

"Excuse me, is that your dragon?" he asked without even thinking about it, pausing as soon as the words were out of his mouth to realise just how odd they sounded.

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Hiccup hadn't really been paying attention to anything besides the dragon, so when Merlin called out, he visibly jumped and yanked his hand back. Stuffing his hands under his armpits, he laughed nervously, sidling away from the dragon as he replied quickly, "Who? Me? No no no, gods no. Why would I have a dragon?"

The winged lizard seemed to take offense to his tone, growling and turning its head away with a derisive snort. "Sorry," Hiccup muttered before he realized it. It took him a moment to register that he was apologizing to a dragon. "Wait, no! Why am I apologizing to a dragon? Why am I even talking to a dragon?!" He tried to glare at the beast, but he found himself unable to be even remotely annoyed with the creature. Gods, he was certain now that these things were intelligent. He could see intelligence in the dragon's eyes. It was unnerving.

Turning slowly to the wizard, he tentatively asked, "... Can people own dragons?" The idea seemed crazy, but somehow, it also seemed kind of interesting. He was curious, honestly. Was there in fact a way to live without having to kill dragons?

[Merlin Emrys]

Now that he was a little closer, he could tell that it wasn't even as the boy denied knowing the creature, it was definitely one of Balinor's - and it was giving the boy a very despairing look as he babbled away.

"Well... I suppose not... really," Merlin admitted, moving over and reaching out a hand to press against the dragon's side in greeting, it was still quite a young dragon and so he could get away with the affection. Older dragons tended to be a bit too haughty for that, he couldn't imagine ever doing the same to Kilgharrah, no matter how close they became.

"They sort of belong to themselves, but..." he couldn't think of a way to explain it, there was definitely a bond between a dragonlord and his dragon, but ownership was probably not the right way to describe it. He'd know better when he fully came into his powers, he supposed, but for now... well, not having them meant his father was still alive, somewhere, and that was a comforting thought.

"Sorry, on reflection it wasn't the best question to ask."

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Hiccup watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as the older boy walked right up to the dragon and touched it. He flinched, half-expecting the beast to whirl about and take his head off. But nothing happened. The Viking blinked, quite surprised. Even more confusing was the way this person spoke of dragons, almost like they were human too.

"No, it's fine. It's just... The way you talk about dragons is weird," he said without realizing it. Well, that wasn't the most flattering way of wording it. Apparently his brain-mouth filter was completely turned off. Stammering slightly, he quickly added on, "I mean, uh, not in a bad way. It's just, where I come from, dragons are... We don't..." Sighing in exasperation at finding a good way to word what he was thinking, he just sort of went with the first thing that came to mind. "Vikings kill dragons."

Oh, because that was a good thing to say. Cursing himself silently, he babbled, "Well, sometimes. Occasionally. A lot. Only when they come after our sheep. Which is generally every week. I don't kill dragons, though." Hiccup's expression grew slightly somber, and he dropped his gaze. "I can't. Which probably isn't good, considering how everyone expects me to be Mister Dragon Slayer, and only because I'm the village chief's kid..." He didn't realize he was saying most of this out loud. The boy wasn't used to being around others, so his habit of vocalizing practically every thought was turning against him.

[Merlin Emrys]

"Weird?" Merlin turned to look at him, momentarily confused, until the boy uttered the immortal words 'where I come from' and he immediately realised that, wherever that place was, dragons were... a little different. Despite the fact that he was practically babbling, Merlin couldn't help but listen with interest - he loved learning about other worlds and how things were different there, even if that learning came from a rambling teenager.

"I see," he said eventually, taking pity on the slightly wretched turn the boy had taken "well I'd be careful before killing a dragon here, they're..." he paused before saying they were different, because honestly he didn't know that they were. How much experience had these vikings had with dragons before they started killing them? Had anybody tried to communicate with them? It wasn't like people didn't kill dragons in Camelot, Kilgharrah was the last of his kind now.

"Well. Where I come from, dragons are intelligent creatures, it doesn't mean they're not going to make off with somebody's sheep I guess, but they're not automatically bad. Some of the dragons here... they're a little more like ours, and Balinor, the magic teacher, he's from my world and he's a dragonlord, so he can communicate with them, control them."

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Hiccup couldn't help the snort of derision that slipped out when the older boy insinuated that he would be doing any dragon-slaying. "Oh, what? Me? Kill a dragon? Not likely... I'm useless, apparently," he muttered bitterly. "I can't even use a proper sword because it's too heavy." Maybe his father had been right to not let him try to fight dragons at an earlier age. He probably would have been killed on the spot.

He pushed such thoughts out of his head. The other boy's conversation was much more interesting, anyway. "They're intelligent?" he blinked, intrigued by the idea. "Do they talk, or something? Or is that a stupid question? Dragons don't talk where I come from, but maybe they're really different in your world." Hiccup paused, wondering absentmindedly if maybe there were dragons that talked back home. Vikings did have a "kill first, ask questions never" mindset, so maybe such dragons did exist. Of course, no one was going to volunteer to go up to one and ask, "hey, do you talk?"

He ended up staring at the dragon at some point, marveling at how remarkable the creature was. He'd only ever been up close to two dragons. One had tried to torch him and make him into a crispy snack, and the other had roared in his face and flown off. Really, when they weren't being terrifying, Hiccup supposed that dragons weren't half bad. Maybe.

The idea of controlling them, though, still sounded a bit far-fetched, and, to be honest, very foolhardy. Hiccup frowned at the thought. "What do you mean, control them? I mean, they're basically wild animals, right? Do you have to train them or something?" Training a dragon. Now that was an odd idea.

[Merlin Emrys]

Merlin nodded sympathetically, he could definitely understand feeling useless, and not being very good with a sword in a world where being good with a sword was really important had to be a pretty rubbish thing, at least he'd had his magic to fall back on.

"The ones here don't talk, that I know of," he decided to move onto the more interesting topics, rather than making the boy feel any worse than he already did about his abilities or lack thereof "but back home they do... or they used to, there's only really Kilgharrah left, but he talks..." he hesitated, trying to work out if he'd ever known of Kilgharrah speaking to anybody else "well, he talks to me, but that might be the dragonlord thing even though I don't have my proper powers yet..." he realised he was starting to ramble a little and tried to pull himself more on topic. He laughed slightly at the idea of training them.

"No, not really, it's... it's not like training a dog or a horse, it's more like... people, I guess, because they're intelligent you can ask them to do things. The difference is that a dragonlord can...command them, they can summon them or make them do things... I don't know a lot about it, Balinor was starting to teach me but then the war happened and we both got a bit too busy..."

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Hiccup was quite certain he'd seen this guy somewhere, or at least heard about him. There had been rumors of a few wizards at Tintagel, but he'd never really bothered with really listening to such things. Maybe he should have. It seemed that a "dragon-lord" was some kind of wizard that had power over dragons. Which honestly sounded really cool.

Not that he'd ever admit that.

"So you can talk to them?" he asked, though it wasn't so much a question as it was him just repeating information so he could process it properly. He supposed anything was plausible, really. There were gods running around the place, for goodness sake.

Hiccup wasn't quite sure he understood what exactly Merlin was going on about with the whole dragonlord thing, but he listened nonetheless. It all sounded... rather incredible, actually. He was actually a bit relaxed now, and while he was still pretty freaked out about the fact that there was a dragon here, he wasn't going to bolt. Well, unless it tried to eat him. Then he might.

"Do they have names?" he asked suddenly. He surprised himself with the question, honestly. "I mean, you said there was one dragon in your world... Kill-ghar-something... If that one has a name, does that mean they all do?"