Night Fury's Lament

by JumpingShinyFrogs

Eyes in the Darkness

I wake up in some sort of dark room. At first I'm terrified that the sorcerer has blinded me, but my vision soon adjusts. I shake myself and wonder where I am. Looking round, it is a strange place. The floor is not like the springy moss of the woods. It's more like rock, but it's too flat to be natural. There is a set of stone stairs leading up to a wooden door. Benches and bookshelves surround me. Many of the benches have strangely coloured liquids in bottles on them.

The door opens. A small, bipedal creature appears in the doorway. His body is purple and scaly. His crest is bright green. His tail ends in a single point. He looks vaguely dragonlike, but he lacks wings.

"What did you want me to get, Twilight?" he calls over his shoulder.

A distant voice, with feminine qualities answers him, "Get the invisibility potion. It's the blue one with green steam coming out of it."

The creature enters the basement, his clawed feet tapping the strange floor. So far he hasn't seen me. He strides up to each bench in turn, examining the bottles, which I guess are potions. The last one he examines is the one nearest me. He appears not to find his target.

"Are you sure it's down here?" he asks, again addressing the distant voice.

"I brewed it in the basement and didn't take it out, so yes, it's down there," the voice answers. She sounds a little frustrated.

"It's not on any of the benches," he complains.

"It might be on the floor, Spike," the voice calls.

"Why is it on the floor? That doesn't seem very safe," the purple creature, presumably named Spike, asks.

Nonetheless, Spike begins searching the floor. He looks wherever he thinks a glass bottle might fit. At last he finds it. It's right next to my foot. He bends down to pick it up, and as he stands up, he locks eyes with me. He looks as if he's just seen a ghost.

I see him begin to open his mouth, probably to cry out. Before he has a chance, I leap out, and pin him to the ground, a claw over his mouth. I feel hot fire singe my foot, but I grit my teeth and bear it. All of this is silent. When you do most of your hunting at night, remaining undetectable by ear is key.

"Why are you so frightened, brother?" I whisper, for I am now fully convinced that he is a dragon, albeit the strangest one I've ever seen.

He cowers in utter terror, still flaming my foot. That's when I realise that this is a similar situation to the humans. I can understand him, but he cannot understand me. I sigh and release him. I lift my foot to see the nasty burn. I whimper and lick my wound, neither noticing nor caring that he is staring at me.

To my utter amazement he begins to speak in Dragontongue. Very shaky Dragontongue, but Dragontongue nonetheless.

"Who are you?," he asks, messing up his pronunciation, but I was still able to grasp what he was saying.

"My name is Umbra," I tell him. "If you don't mind me asking, what breed are you? I have never encountered one of your ilk," I ask.

"Umm, I'm a dragon," he stumbles with his words.

"Yes I know that, but what kind of dragon? I for example, am a Night Fury," I say with exasperation. He can't speak properly and he apparently can't answer the simplest of questions either.

"There's only one type of dragon, right?" he asks, puzzled. "Also what's a Night Fury?"

It hits me suddenly. The sorcerer has not sent me to a different part of the world. He has sent me to another world entirely!

I decide to confirm it with Spike.

"Do you know where the Isle of Berk is?" I ask.

"I've never heard of it. But this atlas might help you find it."

He heaves a massive book from one of the shelves. Opening it on the world map, we look over it for about 20 minutes, confirming that the Isle of Berk does not exist here. While we do so, I tell him my story.

"Spike! It's been half an hour! What's taking so long?" the voice from before calls.

"That's Twilight. She's really smart. She'll know what to do." says Spike.

"No. Please don't tell anyone I'm here. I'll reveal myself when I'm ready. What time is it?" I ask.

"It's about noon, why?" he tells me.

"I work better at night. So I guess I'm here all day. I hope you don't mind having a large dragon in your basement." I try to do something my older brother calls 'smiling' but all I can do is leer.

"SPIKE!" Twilight calls angrily.

"Gotta go!" Spike says in a panicked way. "I'll, uh, bring you some food later on."

With that, he runs up the stairs and closes the door.

~~~

Twilight Sparkle read through her notes for what felt like the hundredth time that day. If only Spike would hurry up with that potion...

"Got it!" Spike said, running up the stairs from the basement.

"Finally! What took so long?" Twilight asked.

"Oh uh, I couldn't find it," he said.

Twilight was suspicious.

"What happened to the rest of the potion?" she asked.

More than half of the potion had spilled when Umbra tackled Spike. But she had asked him not to tell Twilight about her, and his dragon's honour demanded he comply with the lady's wishes.

"I tripped and spilled it," he answered coolly.

"Spike! That stuff's dangerous. Show me where you spilled it, so that I can clean it up," she demanded.

Spike really didn't need Twilight in the basement. Surely she'd notice Umbra hiding in the shadows. Then again, until she jumped out, all he'd seen was a pair of glowing green eyes in the darkness.

Hoping for the best, he said, "Sure."

Spike lead the way to the basement door.

~~~

I've been sitting in my shadowy corner for no more than ten minutes when the door opens again. At first I think it's Spike, coming with the food he promised earlier but right behind Spike is the strangest thing I've ever seen. A purple unicorn, with a mane highlighted three different shades of purple. Don't get me wrong, I've seen unicorns before. But they were always white, and terrified of dragons. Just what sort of world was I in?

The unicorn trots forward, and that's when I realise why she's not afraid of Spike. Adorning her back is a set of feathered wings. They look way too small for her body, I doubt she can fly with them. She must not be a unicorn after all. But she's not a Pegasus either! Just what type of animal is she? Her flank has a...picture(?) of a large magenta star with five smaller stars surrounding it. Weird.

The strange unicorn says, "Alright Spike, show me."

I recognise her voice as Twilight's.

Spike points a claw at me. "Right there," he says.

The traitor! Doesn't he know anything? Ancient draconic code says to always comply with the wishes of ladies or your elders. I am both of these to him.

But, looking at his claw closer, I can see that he's pointing front of me. I let my gaze drift downward and see a blue stain on the floor. He must have spilled the potion. But still, why bother showing it to Twilight?

Twilight walked forward and stopped.

"Spike," she says. "What's that?" She points a hoof at me.

Shit.

"Um, spilled potion? Clean it up so we can leave. The basement is really creepy," Spike says.

"Not that, the glowing green things," -she points again- "They almost look like eyes."

She reaches out her hoof, and comes into contact with my snout.

"AGH!" she screeches.

"Close your eyes, put your head down and back up," mouths Spike from across the room.

I follow his advice, silently as always.

"What! What happened!" asks Spike. He's a better actor than he appears.

"There was something there. It was scaly..." Twilight says, clearly frightened.

"There's nothing there. Look." I can feel the air movement as he waves his claw where my head was previously.

"Really?" More air movement as she does the same.

I hear a strange sound, and Twilight's hoofsteps as she trots back up the stairs. The door closes.

"You're ok now," says Spike.

I open my eyes and lift my head. The blue stain is gone.

"That could have gone better," I joked, 'smiling' (leering) again.

Comments

[Squarepony]

Very intresting and unique!

I'm curious to see where this goes :)

[Quicksear]

Different tenses for different PoVs? Every single writer's nerve in my body sings against it, but...I'm surprisingly okay with this...I'm have to look into it myself.

As for the story it'self, interesting because I like How to Train Your Dragon, but after a slightly rushed prologue...shaky. Still, I'll keep an eye out, just because you've written well enough to keep me from bashing my head into a wall (Trust me, big achievement)

Regards
Quicksear

[Some random Rapidash]

Good story!

[Darwin4]

dragons are fire proof (at least in the how to train your dragon-verse)

[Night-Watch-The-DAD]

In reality dragons are Elemental proof. They are hard to bring down with anything but a rocket, arrow, bullet, or spear or sword. Dragons are naturally immune to fire otherwise it would burn them from the inside out when they tried to breath it and contain it.

[MonkeyPirate]

2963081 Ever read the Percy Jackson series? Because the Author of the series does a great job of Multiple PoVs.

[Warrior Kitten]

I feel hot fire singe my foot, but I grit my teeth and bear it.

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In HTTYD, dragon scales are fireproof. However, as shown by Toothless and commented on by Hiccup, dragon insides in HTTYD are a lot less fireproof. Basically, as shown by both Toothless and the Nightmare, they’re completely fine flying through and even being on fire, but if there’s fire in their mouth or stomach it’s an ouchie. Shown it doesn’t do much damage, but it’d certainly be painful and maybe with enough it would hurt/kill.