Unique (a HTTYD Fanfic)

Hurt

Edited oct10/2021

A couple weeks passed with the same routine I would go out at night explore the village looking for food or something I could use that they wouldn't miss come morning, and then the sun would rise and I would sleep until the afternoon. I would get up and keep out of sight but explore the woods getting used to my surroundings, one particularly warm day I was walking through the woods and I heard some boisterous laughter coming from what sounds like a particularly big man.
"Aw com'on lads we got to catch a nice fat deer for the chiefs pa'eh now, wot coud go wrong? We got dragons on er side"
I can hear the mans voice and he is getting way to close I am in my human form so I can't take them on but I can out run them but that might cause them to shoot at me but I can't be found either. Slowly I start backing away from the sound *SNAP!* I freeze in panic- a stick broke under my foot. The voices stop and soon hushed whispers come closer, I take off running as soon as I hear a arrow being drawn in a crossbow, I've been shot at enough where I know the sounds of the bolts being loaded up.

There's a moment when time freezes, and nobody moves, the only sound are birds in the distance, then everything happens at once the release of a trigger, me booking it out of there as fast as I can, a searing pain in my side, a wetness comeing through my fingers as I grip the arrow snapping it in half and pulling it out as I stagger through the dense woods and chucking the arrow as far as I can off to the side praying it gets them off my trail long enough and praying to the Norns that I don't pass out before I get to the stream. I start slowing down and I can hear the men behind me not as far as I'd like them to be but i can see the stream ahead. I run through slipping and falling on the mossy rocks as the river gets rid of most of the blood on me and in my weakened state I struggle to keep up my pace.
I past the river and rush into the trees going deeper into safety, I can feel my dragon side pushing me telling me I need a to change to survive this wound I slow down trying to listen to see if the men are behind me but all I can hear is my heart pumping, and my blood racing, and deciding that now is the time to do it now that I have a pause in the moment. I transform.

Years ago this pain of transforming would have been unbearable but as I got older my body adjusted and so did my dragon form. I can now transform smoothly and painlessly from one form to the next. my body grows longer as my arms and legs become stronger and shorter my muscle mass increases and my head grows as my teeth become sharper as they multiply. My ears change in color as they rise on my head and grow longer and thicker. More bones grow and some disappear as my wings sprout from my shoulders the cut on my abdomen is still bleeding heavily from the wound and the stress of the transformation but the pain is fading as my dragon's healing kicks in to heal it. Soon I'm a dragon, I perk my ear flaps up to see if I can hear the men behind me, after a moment I've decided that they lost my trail at the river. Lumbering through the forest I arrive at my cave and slink to the ground breathing heavily curling into a ball as darkness consumes my vision.