riverview | video, @hiccup

[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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Hiccup glances down at the camera briefly, then away from it, out at Toothless rolling onto his back in the middle of the common room.]

Yeah, that about sums it up.

[Watching the dragon roll around he fights back a smile.]

Are you going to get him a gigantic ball of yarn?

Nah, he'll settle down once everything stops being so new. He gets plenty of exercise when we go flying.

It's almost too bad that he will. [Alec has the feeling that the destruction from a catlike dragon could cause would be impressive but it's also cute.] Where will you be flying?

Well, the people here have been nice enough not to side-eye us too much, I don't want to give them any cause to object to Toothless' being here. [Oh if only he knew what sort of destruction a Night Fury could do, if it were wild and given half a chance. It's much less cute.]

Out past the city limits, probably. They offered me a job mapping and exploring the unoccupied areas of the Quarantine.

Good idea. Some people aren't as open minded to a dragon as others. [Toothless is too much like something he'd read about in fantasy novels for him to be too offended by a dragon in the city. If Hiccup hadn't seemed so confident about being able to keep everyone safe, he might have doubts... or if Toothless looked like a dragon demon.]

If you accept, we'll be working together. I'm a member of the Perimeter Guard you're worried about.

So I'm noticing. [While the reaction to Toothless at his cutest has been mostly positive, there have been a couple of concerns. At least one from someone who admits he kills dragons, so Hiccup is taking that one with a grain of salt.] He really is harmless, though, unless you attack him first. So I thought explaining that beforehand might help. [Just to cut down on misunderstandings.

That gets a slightly nervous laugh, though.] It's not worried, exactly, I know you guys protect the city and that's great. I just don't want anyone to think Toothless is something you have to protect the city from.

Most beings are harmless unless you attack first. [Even though Alec's used to think of the 'harmless' ones who need protecting as having a more human form, he understands how others can see a 'monster' and react.] I try not to react based on appearance or some actions. Some beings can't control what they are or what happens during certain times.

In my world, I protected beings that people thought of as dangerous. I don't see Toothless as any different than them. Even if he was doing something that was dangerous, I'd try to stop him, not harm him.

If he was a dragon demon then my partner and I would be concerned.

Not everyone thinks that way. There are people who react with violence to creatures just being what they are, or trying to survive themselves. [He can understand it. There are untrainable dragons out there, ones that could be dangerous if left unchecked like the Whispering Deaths, but he and his crew have always tried to relocate before resorting to such drastic actions.]

What would be the difference between a dragon and a dragon demon?

They do it to people too, sometimes. [It isn't something he likes to think about, knowing the dangers Magnus and his friends had faced... and how some members of the Clave react to Alec's choices.] But everyone here seems to be open-minded as long as they have some kind of warning that what they're encountering isn't dangerous.

In my world, dragon demons come from another dimension They kind of look like dragons... [Alec catches another glimpse of Toothless and quickly amends that description.] What we thought dragons should look like, not like yours. Demons can't go out in sunlight. They smell like death and touching them can burn like acid. They basically exist just to destroy people.

No one would mistake Toothless for one.

So they aren't really dragons at all, then? More demon-like than dragon-like. Some dragons don't like the sunlight, some spit acid, and- and once in a while you run into a dragon who only wants to kill,- [Here he thinks of the Red Death, falling into the inferno of its mouth, of Toothless curling wings as black as night around him to protect him from the flames.] -but not all at once. Dragons are just like every other predator animal, not... not evil.

video, @hiccup

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject