video, @hiccup

[thisisamazing]

[The camera clicks on at an awkward angle at first, but soon the young man in a tunic and leather armor manages to right his device and set it on a table. He takes a few steps back to address it with a sheepish smile.] So, uh. Hello, everyone. Wow, this place is something else. A box that allows for instant communication... It's faster than terror-mail! I could really use some of these back home. Uh, anyway.

I've heard a lot about the Perimeter Guard, namely that you guys, uh. Kill monsters. [There's a slight, involuntary cringe at that, as if his soft heart can't quite take the thought. It's startled off him and back into a smile, though, when a large black creature stalks into the room, wide green eyes fixed curiously on him, and then the device.] This is just a little, you know, public service announcement. [Suddenly, the screen blacks out - or, more accurately, becomes filled with the shiny black scales of a Night Fury as Toothless leans in to sniff at the camera.]

C'mon, bud, I think you're- Toothless, don't-! [Toothless makes a sound almost like barks of rumbly laughter, and- then a pink tongue fills the screen. Hiccup wrestles the device back, and now the video is... a little bit watery. The dragon is back on his haunches, 'smiling' a big, gummy smile. Hiccup's voice is dry as he continues.] This is Toothless. He's my dragon, and my best friend, and he's not dangerous unless you threaten him, so if you see him around the city, you know, he's... he's not a monster. [As he fumbles with it, trying to wipe off dragon drool, Hiccup mutters just before it cuts out,] You know this doesn't wash out.

Comments

[thisisamazing]

Oh yeah, really cool. [He says it dryly and pans the camera around to where Toothless is rolled over on his back in a communal common room, next to a knocked over floor lamp, foot stuck in the shade. He's trying to shake it off like an overgrown cat with a piece of tape on its foot.] Behold the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.

[Despite startling the Perimeter Guard orientation folks when they first came through the portal, Toothless has gotten a pretty good reception here in Riverview. It's a good thing, definitely, if a little strange, but Hiccup supposes if you didn't grow up with dragon attacks, you wouldn't have any prejudices against them. It's refreshing.] He's- well, he's more than a pet. He's family. And, uh, hopefully no ass kicking is necessary! That's the whole point of making this video... [Hiccup laughs a little, if slightly nervously, and can't help but pause, then.

He sort of motions to the top of his own head.] You have, uh. Are those-?

[bespredel]

[ Yuri can't help the laughter that sparks out of him at seeing Toothless struggle with the lamp shade, fighting it off with a true inelegant attempt at forced elegance only cats and cat-like creatures could manage. It was both hilarious, and absolutely adorable. ] Crap, that's way too cute.

Can he talk? [ Because the suggestion of him being family, a best friend- Yuri understands the sentiment. Potya is family, Potya was his best friend when he had no one else in the world- she might have been just a cat, but she was more than that; important. Still, a dragon is sort of a whole... different thing. And he didn't have very much experience in the realm of dragons, it seemed like talking might have been a thing they could be able to do? He had heard of stories like that back home, anyway. ]

What are what? [ Yuri squints at Hiccup, before running a hand up over his head, feeling up one of his own ears. ] -Oh. Sorry, that uh... I'm still getting the hang of it. Turning into a tiger. [ They sank away, disappeared with the ease that they had grown out of his head, a bemused smile passing his features. ] They gave me that here. The ability to do it.

[thisisamazing]

[That gets a bright laugh out of Hiccup and he shakes his head.] No. He can understand a lot, he's really smart most of the time,- [He is trying to chew a lampshade off his foot, so.] -but dragons can't talk. That doesn't mean they don't have their own way of communicating, with humans and with each other, but it's not speech. [Despite how bright Hiccup knows his Night Fury is, he's still an animal, who thinks and reacts differently than humans ever might.

But wait. What? What.] You turn into a tiger? They can- make it so people can do that here?