Understanding freedom - httyd fanfic

Feeling the cold ground beneath me, I was disturbed from my sleep by the chirping of some birds mixed with the hum of the wind rustling through the trees. I took a deep breath at the promise of fresh air brought by the sounds of nature around me. A rich scent of a lush forest-...

'Wait! Forest!?' My eyes instantly shot open and what greeted me was what I can only guess is a coniferous forest with little to no large bushes. The ground on which I was resting up until now was mostly stony, overgrown with mosses and some simple flowers. Wherever there was some more earth, ferns would cover most of the ground, sometimes parted by leafy vines climbing trees and rocks alike.

'Why am I in the forest?' I asked no-one in particular and stood up, slightly forcing myself through the stiffness of my muscles, but all my hands and feet allowed was for me to stand on all fours. 'What's going on?' Weird ideas popping in my head as I tried to figure out my predicament.

It felt really strange to pull myself using only my hands through the forest, but after some time I manage to coordinate this with my legs. The feeling was comparable to crawling on my knees, just different... Fortunately, it quickly became natural to me.

As I stumbled through this forest, a sound of running water entered my ears. With no other direction in mind, I travelled straight in its direction.

On the way there, I had come across a steep stone run and saw a small brook, the source of all this noise, running at the bottom of the slope.

With no grace, I stumbled and slid down the slope to the water and reached my hand to get some water to quench my thirst. '...What?' That was all that came out of me after this stroll through the forest in my half awake state when I saw my hand, or paw?

My hand was now a slightly chunky paw, covered in small, black, vaguely hexagonal scales armed with four short claws that at first glance can be mistaken as dull. Still in shock, I turned my head around and was met with a large black and leathery wing folded to my side, as well as a long black, scale covered tail, tipped with two symmetrical tailfins.

'There is no way!' With a weird mix of panic, excitement and curiosity, I spent the next few minutes tumbling around, trying to inspect every part of my new body. This included discovering the reason behind my impeded bipedal movement.

'Now, I can't exactly see myself from every angle, but I just watched the movie and I will be damned if I don't look very much like Toothless. Noticeably slimmer in a few places, but that's probably, because I'm a female. I am, right?' I ducked my head between my paws and under my belly. 'Let's just hope. I'm sure I am...'

Trying to distract myself from this new revelation, I lowered my head towards the brook and tried to drink some water from it. The fast flowing water made it feel like from one of those drinking fountains that you push a button to make water shoot out in a small arc, this analogy also made it much easier for me to actually drink anything.

The moment I figured that out even drinking couldn't distract me from what just happened. 'I was watching that movie, and then when it ended I heard my parents coming back, and I run to turn the DVD of, and... oh... uhm, so I'm dead?'

'Well, I'm clearly not, but I died... That... Hmmm... Nah, it's fine. It will be, just... what was it... Ah, yes. Reincarnation. Just go with the flow and come back to it after some time. Yes, yes, I have bigger things on my hands now, like learning how to be a dragon. Yes, yes that's it. Not right now. Ah, yes, wings, learn to fly, wonderful.'

What followed was a mess of an attempt to move or even feel my wings. An attempt is a good description. All I managed to do, was some small twitching from my wings.

'That's a problem... My tail works, though. It does mostly just whatever it wants as long as I am not actively trying, but it works.' In the process of consoling myself, I absentmindedly dragged myself down the stream.

While doing so I also discovered that my tail started to swish from left to right quite aggressively when I was mulling over the trouble I had with moving my wings, when it, at some point, hit a rock that I passed by. 'Is that a dog or cat thing?'

Time passed like this as I tried and failed many times to move my wings, but all that I got was this uncomfortable twitching and numbness. On the more positive note, my movements did gain some grace, since I now actively tried to coordinate myself better with my new physique in mind.

Apart from this, I noticed a bunch of different flowers peeking through the ever present ferns. One particular flower that caught my attention looked remarkably similar to a fern, but with a tall stem in the middle crowned by densely packed small spikes that formed what I first thought to be a flower. 'Curious thing, makes me all the more excited about my dragon life. As excited as a dragon can be when they can't work their wings properly...'

My casual stroll through the forest continued for a while longer, but to be honest, I didn't travel as far as one can think, because of me playi- training my mobility as I went. Jumping on rocks, punching a tree or two with my tail, and even some climbing, but that last one was harder to test or train as I didn't stumble upon any high vertical enough obstacles, probably because I was keeping to the brook all the time.

In time, the sky started to darken slightly, yet to turn orange, but no longer shining blue like it was when I first opened my eyes. Thinking such, I ones again was lost in thought, trying to figure out how to get my wings to move. When I tried to pry them open with my mouth it was just painful, like a cramp, so I gave up on that quickly.

Getting distracted from my train of thought, within the constant sound of flowing water, my ears picked up a new noise. Right now still just a gentle hum, but as I was getting closer, it grew louder and I subconsciously started fastening my pace.

Not much further, trickling between large rocks, forming a steep cliff about 10 meters high, if my sense of distance as a human has any meaning in my new body.

Below this trickle of a waterfall was a relatively small lake with some grass around it, that while not nonexistent was rare in this forest. The available land around the lake simply to damp or narrow for any trees or ferns to grow. The layer or dirt obviously very thin with most of the ground being hard stone.

Curious, I tried to peek over the edge more. My claws slightly digging into the gravel at the bottom of the small brook I've been following. 'It looks peaceful. Almost like the place where Hickup tamed Toothless, the difference here is the crack in stone on the other side of this... pit? That provides an easy entrance and exit for any dragon my size.'

Just as I was contemplating that, I slipped and fell down. In a simple act of desperation I clawed at the rocky wall to hopefully clip on something. When it finally did, it made loud sounds vaguely similar to metal rubbing stone. Taking the opportunity, I pushed of the rock and landed on my fours, thankfully avoiding falling into water.

'This was way to much adrenaline for poor little me.' I said turning around to see the water mirror behind me, the brook flowing to fast for it to be useful like this. 'Yep, a Night Fury in the flesh. Shame I don't remember the scene about Toothless's age from the second film, I'm now curious how old this body is...'