Hello everyone! This continues the saga (an appropriate term given the subject matter) begun in 'In Dreams and Memory'. Its part of something larger that I'm trying to put together as a means of keeping me sane. Basically, I've joined Berk on to the Disney-verse in a way that makes sense to me; I'm contemplating a related fic that tries to make my vision of how this works, but that might be a while in coming.
It should go without saying that I've borrowed some of Disney and Dreamworks best work to do this, and I don't own these fandoms. What may not be so obvious is that the majority of this chapter was written prior to the release of season 6 Race to the Edge. Just to pre-empt potential criticism, I am aware of the changes found therein and I mean to do something with them in later chapters. For now, please enjoy.
Of Bear Kings and Foolish Pirates
This…is Berk.
It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death. Located solidly on the meridian of Misery...
From those words, you may infer two things: that the weather is, by and large, considered unpleasant.
And that my fifteen year-old-self was no Skald...
Anyway, there's an old saying that many hands make light work, and it's certainly true in this case. Although Talons might be a more apt word since most of our workforce consists of...
Well... Dragons.
It hasn't been more than a couple of months since Drago Bludvist paid us a visit, and we've pretty much completely repaired the damage caused by the attack.
Most of the injured, like Spitelout, are in that peculiar state of being too well to sit around all day, but not well enough to help much either.
The dead, like my father, who now watches through stony eyes carved into the cliff-face, won't get any better though...
I'm trying to stay positive; not many of our people died in the attack, and wishing won't help them now, even if they could lend us a hand from Valhalla...
More pertinently, I'm chief now, and I can't afford to dwell on such things.
I do so more than I should anyway. That's just the way I am...
However, I have to agree with Astrid, my Thane, or General as the southlanders would name her; I have other things to worry about...
Just another reason why I love that woman...
News of Drago's defeat spread far and wide as his human army fractured into warbands.
Some of these had been pressed into service, and after a few awkward moments, purchased supplies sufficient for their homeward journeys and left the Archipelago. The inevitable exceptions have caused no end of trouble for all of us who live in these islands, and there have been deaths. Some smaller islands have been wiped out...
And, of course, Berk gets the blame for this.
They say it's our fault; that if we hadn't started to ride dragons, he wouldn't have thought us a threat. That we could have swooped down on his ships and burned them with our dragon army.
What they don't know, or choose not to, is that that 'army' numbers fifteen riders. And that's if we include all of the auxiliary riders, and Gobber, all of whom have more than enough to do as is.
Just because a lot of us can ride dragons, doesn't mean we're all combat capable. And certainly doesn't mean we want to be...
Then, just a couple of weeks after Drago had left, I get a letter from an old comrade in arms of my Dad's.
He never really talked about his campaigns with me, in fact all I remember him saying about this one at the time was an unflattering comparison between myself, six years-old at the time, and the man's four-year-old daughter...
In any case, he had heard about Dad's death and sent me a page of diplomatic small-talk that made it clear that he was more than a little bit concerned about what I meant to do with the Dragon 'army' I'd captured from Drago.
Well, if a king, with an army of his own is unsettled by us, you can't really ignore it...
Still, his letter was friendly enough, and he and Dad clearly got on quite well, so having a king well disposed towards us seemed such a good idea we...
...okay if I'm honest, I decided to invite him here to Berk.
To my faint surprise he accepted with fewer reservations than my people...
He and Dad must have gotten on well...
So, Fergus of Dunbroch, High King of Four Clans of Scotland, The Bear King himself, is coming to Berk, along with all the court paraphernalia that entails.
And the daughter I remember being compared to, though she's probably eighteen by now. Apparently her name is Merida.
I'm worried...
For obvious reasons.
Or I would be worried about the intrinsic problem of entertaining a king on an island less than a hundredth the size of his kingdom, if not for the slightly more pressing concern that his ship was due here this morning.
And it's already nearly sunset...
Whatever my people's opinion of how bad an idea this whole thing was, the Viking laws of Hospitality are very clear on the subject of losing guests...
A search party may be in order...
oooo
Merida had to admit she was getting a little apprehensive now. The delay in getting to Berk after the long sea voyage was one thing, but the sea fog that had wrapped their ship in a suffocating embrace for most of the day was another thing all together.
The helmsman, engaged in whispered conversation with her father was clearly lost, and with the sun beginning to set, as far as they could tell, the prospect of spending a night aboard where they couldn't see more than a ship's length away from them in any direction was not appealing. That they'd lost sight of the other ship in their convoy was also worrying.
Though she'd never admit it, she was quite glad of the warm, green woollen dress her mother had insisted she take with her, as it was every bit as cold as her dad's contacts had said it would be.
"Not much of a view, is it?"
Merida turned to one of her travelling companions. Because of the enforced proximity, she'd got to know them fairly well over the last few days, but being one of only two women aboard, she was glad she had her own space below deck. Even if she had to share it with a seemingly perpetually sea-sick lady-in-waiting...
It wasn't that she had any particular grudge against the poor woman, it was just that she didn't like the idea of a protocol that tied her at the hip to someone who had been selected for the job by the sole reason of another protocol altogether. At least she was easy for her to get along with.
The clans had all wanted to send a representative along, and the rushed nature of this excursion meant that the men that had come along were just whoever happened to be available.
The MacGuffin representative was a heavily built man with a neatly clipped beard. His name was Alec, and the resemblance to his Laird was unmistakable enough that the fact he was the Laird's younger cousin was obvious. She didn't know him very well, by virtue of the fact that he was on the other ship, wherever that was.
The Dingwall man standing next to her at the ship's rail didn't look anything like his Laird, having darker and neater hair, out from under which a pair of equally dark eyes gazed coolly and cautiously. Keith was his name, and as he was firm but fair, and more pertinently, not inclined to casually dismiss what she had to say, Merida had to admit she rather liked him.
Then the annoying Macintosh...
Merida needed no distinctive feature to recognise him. Tomas Macintosh's air of pompous arrogance extended at least an arms' length out from him, the mixture of seemingly well-educated and well-informed speech clashing incongruously with his obvious pride in the Macintosh rough plaid and blue face-paint.
Credit where it was due, he seemed to have learned (or been taken aside and quietly told more likely) that casual misogyny with women in the room would win him no friends, but the simpering 'respect' that had taken its place was no better.
"It's an improvement on sharp pointy rocks or jagged cliffs..." Merida replied, focusing on the here and now, rather than letting Macintosh annoy her without even being nearby.
"True enough." Dingwall replied. "A shipwreck would be all we needed right now..."
"Shh!" Snapped Merida suddenly, fixing her gaze on an area of fog directly ahead of her.
A neck like a bent branch, a strange bow-shaped lower jaw...
And it was gone again...
What was that?
"Ripples..." Dingwall whispered. Merida glanced at the sea's surface, seeing a small, but definite disturbance there. Her hand strayed to her bow, slung over her shoulder.
"You might want to stand back, open your range a bit..." Dingwall advised, in a low voice. Merida squashed her annoyance. He could shoot, but he wasn't a hunter. He knew no better.
"Sea-Dragons don't attack humans unless they consider them a threat." She said, a fact she sincerely hoped was true. "Like say, a weapon pointed at them..."
The tales of drunken sailors she had heard once-removed from the guards travelling with them were not the most reliable of sources however. She took two steps back from the rail, Dingwall at her side, noting with a quiet, detached part of her mind that the whole deck had gone silent.
A sudden movement in the water, clearly audible, suddenly had Dingwall going for his sword.
"Guards!" a voice called.
"Peace!" Merida snapped, bringing her bow arm up away from the weapon. The wake of the whatever-it-was was moving swiftly away from the ship. "It's moving away..."
"Where?" Gordon, the guard captain asked from behind her, bow out. Merida pointed. He nodded. He trusted her judgement.
"She's right boys, it's moving off." He said "But why the hell did she see it before you all did?" The remaining guards had the sense to look vaguely abashed as they turned back to watching the fog with greater vigilance than before.
"Just as well you're here..." Dingwall said, putting his half-drawn sword away again as Gordon went to hector his men some more.
Merida exhaled, blowing her cheeks out in the process. Her first encounter with a dragon...
Oddly disappointing.
But then again, she was alive...
A large hand came down on her shoulder, and she looked up at her father.
"Must you embarrass our soldiers, Merida?" he asked, a faint smile ghosting his face.
"You didn't want me to shut my eyes and jam my fingers in my ears did you?" She replied.
"Respectfully princess," the nearest guard piped up, with a small smile, without turning away from the area of sea he was watching. "We'd rather you didn't..."
Macintosh, shadowing King Fergus as always, glared at the man's back, no doubt wondering how best to rebuke him for being too familiar with her. He was frustrated in that effort by the King chuckling.
"No, I wouldn't either..." he said.
"Sir!" snapped the guard suddenly, drawing his bow, as a dark shape loomed from the fog.
"Ship to Port!" Someone else shouted. It was a second before they realised this was the other side of the ship to the shadow, which was indeed a longship of Viking make, though fairly run down in condition. Several men, all heavily armed, were visible on the prows of both ships.
Everything's happening at once! Merida thought, raising her own bow and reaching for her quiver. Her father's hand pushed her firmly backwards.
"Look after the helmsman." he said in a low voice. "They might be friendly, but if they're not, I want him defended."
Merida held his gaze for a second, but nodded and moved in the man's direction.
Reckless she may have been, but she wasn't stupid.
"Anyone you recognise?" she heard Dingwall whisper. Her father shook his head curtly, then straightened up.
"Ahoy friends!" he called, with the appearance of good humour. "Who are we to thank for our timely rescue?"
"No-one!" came back the amused reply, almost immediately. "You've not been rescued!"
"Who's the girl?" Someone on the other ship asked, with a leer in his voice, in the laughter that followed. Merida spun round and nocked an arrow in the same movement, only to see several arrows pointed at her own ship.
"Aww," said one of the men holding a Bow, "the lass thinks she can shoot!" The laughter returned, redoubled.
If only he knew... Merida thought, but she couldn't fight a squad, not even with the short sword she had stowed below deck. Conscious she was now the centre of attention, she glanced back at her father.
King Fergus was slowly purpling with rage at the insults done to her, but replied in a relatively level voice.
"Vikings, where is your hospitality?"
The man who had spoken first grinned, showing several missing teeth.
"Your pardon good sir," he said mockingly, "but I think we have misplaced it!"
Merida could feel the tension building, and got the sense that the attackers were waiting for something...
"Now, if you'd just make things easy on yoursel-" the man's grin abruptly vanished as a high-pitched call began to sound in the distance.
Merida turned to the prow of their own ship, just in time to see a ring of ghostly purple light wash down the length of the ship, the sound travelling with it. There was no heat to speak of, just a purplish glow in the gathering dark, like the sound had taken form.
"Night Fury!" one of the attackers cried, leaping for a ballista mounted on his own ship. As if that were the signal they'd been waiting for, most of the attackers ran for similar weapons, or pointed their own skywards. Five or six of them, led by Missing-teeth, jumped aboard the Scots vessel, crying variations on the theme of "Grab them, quick!"
They were most fortunate, as the Starboard-side vessel abruptly listed hard away from the Scottish one, under the weight of a blue, bird-like shape that had landed on the rigging. The ship might have gone over all together, had the shape not taken flight again. As it was, it rocked back and forth for well over a minute, causing minor injuries, acute seasickness, and a disinclination to give trouble among most of the remaining crew.
At the same time, the port side vessel was set upon by wings of fire.
It took Merida a moment to realise that it was in fact a pair of Dragons, on fire from the neck down. An unmistakable trait that she recognised immediately.
"Monstrous Nightmare..." Merida breathed, as the dragons exhaled in twin lines of flame down the deck of the attacker's vessel.
She turned, to see her companions having drawn their swords now, fighting off the boarders, who seemed surprised at the fact they could defend themselves as well as they could.
Thus distracted, she failed to see the man who grabbed her from behind. She elbowed him in the stomach, and turned, raising her bow again, just in time to see the helmsman strike him in the helmet with an inexpertly wielded mace. The foul-smelling man went over like a felled tree.
I should be protecting him... Merida thought, as the helmsman's goofy grin was illuminated by an explosion on the port side ship. A huge, beetle-like dragon was hovering over the ship, which was now, quite obviously sinking. What drew Merida's attention was the high-backed saddle, just behind the dragon's head, and the grinning, black-haired man sitting in it.
The piercing, sonic call was back again, this time flying over the starboard side ship, still rocking faintly. Merida caught a brief glimpse of a swift black shape as it knifed over the ship, circling.
Missing-teeth saw this too, and waved his axe in the air.
"Come down here and fight, Coward!" he roared after it.
There was a dull thump behind him, and Merida saw Dingwall, having knocked his opponent down, gasp in shock.
She turned her head, as a figure in black leather rose from the deck, its head encased in a black helmet, and arms connected to its legs by...
...wings?
The figure slipped its wrists free of a pair of loops, and the wings, that Merida could now see were made of hide, fell loose to its sides.
Missing-teeth growled, and charged the figure, who produced a sword hilt and handle from its belt. There was a barely audible click, and suddenly, the sword had a blade, about three-feet long, apparently made entirely of fire.
Missing-teeth flinched away from it, and got his axe hooked on the blade, pulling it from his grasp. Before he could recover, a purple bolt of plasma struck him in the side, knocking him to the deck, groaning.
Both Merida and the helmsman ducked involuntarily as the black dragon swooped over their heads and landed next to the figure. One attacker tried to rise, but was abruptly pinned to the deck by the talons of the blue bird-like dragon as it landed, its barbed tail lashing to and fro.
"Guards!" Squeaked Macintosh, waving his sword in fright. The blue dragon fixed him with a cocked headed stare, as a petite blonde woman rose from behind its spiky head crest, wielding an axe of her own, and made as if to leap at him.
"Hold!" King Fergus bellowed. "Hold I say." The young woman glanced at the black-clad figure, who had raised his own hand, then steadied herself on her dragon's back.
"Unless I miss my guess, these are our hosts," he proclaimed. Weapons were lowered, but not put away, a fact not unnoticed by the two dragons, who seemed on edge still.
"Astrid," the figure said, gesturing, putting his own weapon, the blade now extinguished, away. The woman stowed her own axe somewhere on her saddle, then spoke soothingly to her mount.
Merida kept her eyes on the black-clad figure, as he lifted his left leg – she could now see it was false below the knee – and it spun, becoming a metal foot more appropriate for walking around on. As he bent at the waist to do this, she noted a fin rising from his back.
"King Fergus of Dunbroch?" enquired the figure, turning his blank-faced visor to the king.
"You have me at a disadvantage, sir," he replied in a neutral tone. They'd been fooled once already tonight...
The figure hesitated.
"Oh, right... One moment..." He said, reaching down to his legs, where the 'wings' were flapping loose, taking a couple of moments to roll them up and stow them in pouches attached to his legs. Straightening up again, he wound a small dial to the left of his chest, and the fin on his back slowly retracted into the armour again. These motions drew the attention of most all present to him.
Now looking much more human, he reached up and removed his helmet. The tousled brown hair that emerged wasn't even shoulder length, but Merida noted a couple of small braids in it all the same.
"Hiccup Haddock III," the young man said, once the helm was removed. "Son of Stoick the Vast. In Odin's gaze, Chief in Berk."
oooo
"Hail, well met," Hiccup added, keeping his eyes on the king, trying to ignore the wide-eyed disbelief of the people around them.
"Hail, well met, and honour be upon your house," King Fergus replied. "And since we've obeyed the forms, what's say we put them aside for now, where they belong?"
"Your majesty... has no concept of what a relief that is..." said Hiccup, smiling uncertainly, not wanting to get too informal right away, but the relief was entirely genuine. To his further relief, Fergus laughed.
"Oh I think I do! I was a chief like you until someone decided I looked better with a crown on my head..."
Hiccup didn't know how to respond to that, particularly since Fergus wasn't wearing a crown, so he was quite relieved when Fishlegs hailed him from above his head.
"I don't think all the pirates can swim..." he called. There were indeed cries of distress from the smouldering wreckage of the sinking ship.
"That ship isn't sinking," he said, pointing at the other one, now being secured by the king's men. "You and Eret get them aboard, then help keep order."
"Got it chief," Eret called from nearby, moving to assist immediately.
"You," said Astrid, to the recumbent attacker, having persuaded Stormfly to get off him. "Get back there too. Leave your weapons!" The man staggered in the direction of the gunwale with a drunken species of haste. He needed help from a couple of his fellows to get aboard, but fared better than the man with missing teeth, who was unceremoniously picked up, semi-conscious, and thrown onto his own ship by a couple of guards.
"Sorry we're overdue, we got lost," said Fergus, smiling at Hiccup. "I'm afraid we rather assumed that your trader friend was exaggerating about this archipelago's fog banks..." he added with a wince.
"You wouldn't be the first." Hiccup replied, looking around at the gloomy sky. Night had fallen properly now. "But this is bad, even by our standards..."
"Snotlout, Gustav!" Astrid called out. "While you're both still alight, see what you can do with the fog."
The acknowledgements of the two riders were lost in the crashing noises of Meatlug and Skullcrusher looking through the wreckage of the stricken ship, but both Hookfang and Fanghook, still aflame, began circling the ship at high speed.
The King leant forward to speak to Hiccup quietly.
"Are either of them related to Spitelout Jorgensen?" he asked.
"Snotlout's his son," Hiccup replied, "Gustav just idolises Snotlout... How did you know?"
Snotlout chose this particular moment to let out a wild whoop as he passed by. Fergus looked from him back to Hiccup.
"Call it a lucky guess." he said dryly.
The King's conspiratorial smile reminded Hiccup inexplicably of King Mikkel of Nepenthe. Unlike the young chief of that island however, there was no sense of feckless irresponsibility like that which Mikkel had displayed initially. Quite the opposite in fact; Fergus radiated a solid competence that reminded Hiccup a lot of his father.
"There was another ship with us," a dark-haired man next to the king said.
"They're safe," Astrid called across from her perch on Stormfly's back. "They dropped anchor just outside the fog. They're worried sick about you all, but they're fine. We left some riders with them."
The inquirer nodded. King Fergus cocked his head, staring at her for a moment.
"Didn't catch your name, young lady..." he said, sounding curious.
"King Fergus, may I present, Astrid Hofferson, my Thane, and Stormfly." Hiccup said, introducing them formally. The dragon squawked at the mention of her name.
Fergus brightened visibly.
"So you're young Astrid!" he said, "Your Uncle could barely shut up about you!"
Astrid blinked, and looked away, embarrassed.
"He'd... be honoured you remembered him," she said eventually, patting her chuckling dragon in a distracted fashion.
"Hard to forget him!" Fergus laughed. "Or Stoick..." he added, more soberly. "I was sorry to hear of his passing..."
Hiccup smiled as best he could. "From what I hear, you got along well..."
"Aye..." said Fergus, his eyes misting for a moment. "I didn't expect to find I had this much in common with you though," he added, slapping his false leg.
Hiccup looked down, registering the king's missing extremity properly for the first time.
"Me neither..." he replied, looking down at his own prosthetic limb.
"I would hope demon bears aren't common in these waters?"
Hiccup shook his head. "I'd hope you don't have a Red Death in your lands either!"
The name turned heads, as well it might. Eventually, Fergus chuckled.
"Even after all this time, you Vikings never run out of long stories!"
Hiccup laughed too, finally beginning to feel comfortable with the man. "Oh we have a few of those all right!" He looked up at the slowly receding fog. The stars were becoming visible again. "Around the hearth in Berk maybe... Can I see your charts?"
"Princess!" a voice suddenly rang out.
oooo
Merida jumped, having focused upon the conversation between Hiccup and her father. Macintosh's cry hadn't surprised her as much as the sudden feeling of someone touching her hair, and she span round.
The black dragon froze, eyes wide, one claw extended towards her. For an infinite moment, neither of them moved. Then the dragon shifted its head slightly, the pupils of its eyes dilating, nostrils sniffing gently.
The attitude was one of intense curiosity, and Merida was surprised to find that she wasn't afraid of him.
"Toothless."
The dragon looked past Merida at Hiccup.
"Give her some space, bud. She's not used to dragons yet." He sounded far away all of a sudden.
"Toothless..." Merida whispered. The Dragon looked back at her and made a low noise in his throat. Moved by an impulse she couldn't explain, Merida hooked her bow over her shoulder and raised her right hand slightly.
"Perhaps you'd better come over here Merida." came her father's voice, suddenly sounding far too loud for the occasion.
Merida flinched as if she had only just come awake, and lowered her hand again.
"Right..." she said, moving away slowly.
Toothless looked over at King Fergus, looking slightly annoyed.
"Your dragon seems to like my daughter..." Fergus said as she walked over to them.
"Toothless is naturally curious," Hiccup explained, drawing a book out from under his chest armour "but he's mostly harmless."
"Mostly?" queried Macintosh, sounding mildly alarmed and clutching his sword again.
"If he gets too friendly, the slobber doesn't wash out." said Hiccup off-handedly, kneeling down on the deck.
Toothless scowled and stuck his tongue out in Hiccup's direction, making a gargling noise. Hiccup's head snapped up from where he'd laid the open book on the deck.
"Manners, Bud!" he said with a grin, pointing with his left hand.
The snort of exasperation that Toothless gave him was almost human. The way he curled up sulkily, hiding his head under his tail however, put Merida in mind of a big cat. She couldn't help smiling.
"And you call yourself the king of the Dragons..." she heard Astrid mutter. Stormfly made a cackling noise that it took Merida a moment to identify as laughter.
"King... of...?" Macintosh was out of his depth already.
"Well, he did beat Drago's Bewilderbeast." Astrid replied, speaking to Macintosh in the studiously neutral tone that translated to everyone but him that she was more than mildly annoyed with him.
"Be... wilder..."
Fergus however was paying no attention at all.
"My word..."
Merida turned around again, noticing that Hiccup had spread out a map from his book, spectacular enough that it eventually drew the attention of all present. The helmsman seemed highly embarrassed by the charts he had purchased for the trip as he handed them over.
"Okay... so you're about here..." Hiccup muttered, pointing it out on both charts. "Nice charts by the way... they look up to date..."
Merida knelt down beside the spread chart as Hiccup and the helmsman lapsed into the incomprehensible dialect of the specialist, then frowned. Did those runes mean what she thought they did?
"Itchy... Armpit...?"
"Oh, you didn't actually call it that, did you?" Astrid said, dismounting and walking over to where Hiccup was kneeling. He looked up at her.
"Well, Toothless did as much for this map as you and me!" he said, his voice faintly teasing. "I asked what we should call it and he scratched his armpit! Don't you listen to your dragon? What was I supposed to do?" He glanced around as if looking for support from present company.
"Not commit geographical vandalism?" Astrid shot back, with what sounded like genuine exasperation.
Merida snorted with laughter, which made Hiccup turn to look at her, smiling faintly, before looking back at the charts, turning a scarred chin towards her in the process.
The young princess found herself studying him.
All she recalled of Stoick was a huge, fur-clad shape with a thick beard, through which a smile could faintly be discerned. Some memory courtesy of Merida's four-year-old self told her that it was the same smile, even if the stature and facial hair were different. Or absent.
He had a slim build, like Ryan Macintosh, the laird's son, but he wasn't so muscular. He seemed intelligent, not unlike young MacGuffin, who had a good mind behind the quiet nature, huge build and incomprehensible accent.
It was strange though...
Most of the chiefs she'd met or heard tell of were elitist or stuck up, but Hiccup seemed equally at ease with speaking to the helmsman as he did to her father. Although he did tend to make a point of looking round and showing he was paying attention in the case of the latter.
She found this rather appealing.
Perhaps if he'd been along two years ago, Merida thought, the family argument wouldn't have happened...
No sooner had she thought that, than she became aware that Astrid was studying her intently, frowning slightly.
Right... Girlfriend...
Merida looked down at the chart again, squashing the vague feeling of disappointment. Wake up, she thought irritably, that's not what you're here for...
The chart was easy to become distracted by at least.
Several drawings of different Dragons adorned the centre, circling the stylised (and slightly idealised no doubt) drawing of the Isle of Berk.
A neck like a bent branch, a strange bow-shaped lower jaw...
"Wait!" Merida called, as Hiccup handed back the charts, and made to fold up his own. "What's that one?"
Hiccup looked down at the chart again. "Which one? Oh, the Scauldron?"
"I think I saw one earlier, before the pirates attacked..."
"Where?" said Astrid abruptly.
"Um..." Merida found herself on the spot. She pointed out to the Starboard side of the ship. "It was out in the fog, so I couldn't judge..."
"Is that a problem?" Fergus asked, as apprehensive faces turned outwards again. Hiccup shot Astrid a brief glare before answering, the petite woman having the good grace to look slightly abashed at having worried people.
"Not normally," Hiccup said, folding the chart up and putting it away behind his breast piece. "Our concern is that the warbands have stirred them up a bit... Fishlegs! Eret!"
The heavily-built young man flew into earshot properly on the back of a dragon that looked like nothing so much as an overgrown sausage with a knobbly club tail. The older man left his larger, beetle-like dragon to menace the rescued pirates into order and came up to the gunwale of the captured ship.
"We've had a Scauldron sighting. It probably won't be much of a problem, but we don't want to take chances. Stay with the king until his party get to Berk and keep order with the prisoners."
"Much obliged, Chief," Fergus said, slightly surprised, as both men moved to obey.
"Fishlegs Ingerman is one of our experts," Astrid explained, "And Eret was once a trapper, so he knows how to discourage dragons away from ships."
"Plus, they're both good sailors." Hiccup added.
At this point, the two Monstrous Nightmares, now extinguished, came to a flapping stop over the ship.
"Fog's clear!" A surprisingly young man on the back of the purple dragon reported, grinning.
"Great. Gustav! You're path-finding for this ship until it meets up with my mother and the twins, then head back to Berk," Hiccup ordered. "Anything bigger than a Sea-Shocker, make sure they know about it. The princess has made one Scauldron sighting already," he added, indicating Merida.
"Aye aye, Chief." Said the young man. He turned his dragon around and started flying away.
"Nice and efficient..." Dingwall muttered.
"We do our best!" Astrid replied, brightly.
"You should be in Berk by this time tomorrow, all things being well," Hiccup said, gathering up his helmet again. "And we'll see that all's well!"
Fergus barked with laughter.
"Looking forward to it, Lad! Looking forward to it!"
"Toothless!"
The Dragon lifted his tail as if trying to decide whether to stay sulking or not, but allowed Hiccup to mount him. The young chief reached down to his leg and it changed configuration again, interlocking with the pedals on the Dragon's harness. It was only at this point that Merida realised that Toothless' tail was false, and that these pedals were less like stirrups (not that she ever used them anyway), and were probably essential for his ability to fly.
"To a warm hearth," Hiccup said. Fergus needed a second to come up with the response demanded by protocol.
"And... to cool mead!" he said at last. "I think we'll need it!" he added.
Hiccup grinned, snapping the faceless visor down over his face again.
"Count on it!" he said, to further laughter. He shifted his mechanical leg, there was a clack of moving parts, a red portion of Toothless' tail extended, and the Night Fury leapt near vertically into the air.
Astrid's blue dragon followed by virtue of jumping to the ship's rail and simply stepping off over the shifting wreckage of the second pirate ship, wings flapping hard to gain height.
The red Monstrous Nightmare swept down the length of the ship after the other dragons, its rider dead set on catching them up.
"Well," Fergus said, after several seconds of silence, "what do you think to that?" He turned, and Merida saw a huge boyish grin on his face, and felt her own face lift in parallel.
"A wonderful display..." Macintosh said, carefully. Merida looked at him.
"Display?" she frowned. He shrugged.
"A Dragon sighting, a pirate attack, and an opportunity to prove their good intentions, all inside of a few minutes..." he said, "too much happening at once for us to react properly..."
"You are a real cynic Tomas, you know that?" Fergus replied, his hands on his hips with exasperation.
"I think it my duty to ask the questions no-one else dares to." said Macintosh, smoothly.
"Well if I might dare to answer it," Keith Dingwall replied, "I would think the answer would be, 'unlikely in the extreme'!"
Tomas subsided, and further conversation on that topic was suspended on the grounds of tact by the lumpy sausage Dragon landing nearby, and the large young man dismounting. He bowed, with some difficulty.
"Fishlegs Ingerman, your majesty," he said, "and the lovely lady next to me is Meatlug. How might we be of service?"
Meatlug's tongue lolled like that of a dog, the club-tail wagging in similar canine fashion. The combination of familiar and outlandish was both comical, and unnerving at once.
Merida however was looking over the prow, after the retreating chief and his party, thinking particularly of the dagger look that the young man on the red nightmare had been giving Macintosh. The look on his face suggested that the feeling was mutual.
This was going to be interesting...
oooo
"You felt that, right Astrid?" Snotlout asked.
"Be specific," Astrid asked, trying hard to get the image of the red-headed princess studying Hiccup out of her head.
Snotlout flew as close to Astrid and Stormfly as he dared.
"Something was off about all that..." he said, trying not to draw Hiccup's attention, as if hanging back and speaking to Astrid out of earshot wouldn't do that...
"In what way?"
"They didn't look too happy at being rescued..." he said. "That guy with the blue-painted face was glaring daggers at me the whole time..."
"They probably didn't think they needed it. Those guys were hopeless..."
Who brings their daughter into a warzone? Someone with a specific aim in mind...
"Astrid! Are you listening?"
"Wha... sorry Snotlout... What was that?"
Snotlout groaned. "I said that's the point, how did they get the chance to be so useless? The warbands that were once Drago's army would have eaten them alive!"
She was certainly pretty, and her dad's a king! What could you give him?
"Look, they're not used to Dragons yet, and some of them have had problems with raiders recently. Viking raiders. Maybe they don't like being shown to be wrong after so long hating our kind."
Astrid only realised she had answered the wrong question when Snotlout blinked at her.
"Astrid. Pirates. Useless. Why? How?" he said.
Astrid sighed. "Odin looks out for small minds!" she snapped, then regretted it. "Look Snotlout, I have a lot on my mind right now..."
You never saw what Hiccup wrote to her dad, did you?
Well, it wasn't like he needed her permission... So why did she feel left out?
"Astrid... do you remember when we first met Heather?"
Oh yes, don't you? Hiccup liked her then, didn't he... Shame she got all edgy... and... you know...
More like you...
"Get to the point." Astrid tried to stop her mind cycling, and Snotlout wasn't helping.
"You were right about her all along and no-one listened!"
Astrid sighed and looked up at him.
"I am listening Snotlout. I just... don't have the head space to think about it right now..."
Snotlout actually stopped himself from replying at her expression.
Stormfly and Hookfang flew on in an increasingly awkward silence. Finally Snotlout sighed.
"Look," he said, "my dad... well, do I need to finish? But... he's not that bad a judge of character when he's fought beside someone. He likes King Fergus, and now I've seen him myself, I agree with him. But he hasn't come alone, has he? That's what, or who, I'm worried about..."
No, he hasn't...
"There we agree..." Astrid replied. It seemed easier to just go along with it...
"Great. Now can you get that through Hiccup's mussy hair?"
"What? Why me?"
"He listens to you!"
He relies on you... He worries about you... He can't imagine a world without you in it...
What is he not saying here?
"Okay..." Astrid replied. The lacklustre nature of her response wasn't lost on Snotlout.
"Everything okay back here?" said Hiccup, slowing Toothless to allow them to catch up, his visor raised for easy speech.
Astrid felt Snotlout's gaze on the back of her neck.
"Hiccup, there's some people in the king's party we're not sure about..."
The young chief frowned. Snotlout seized the opportunity to launch into what he had noticed about the King's party, but Astrid wasn't really listening. Eventually, Hiccup spoke up again.
"No, Blue-face isn't my type either Snotlout. But I'm not asking you to like them, just be polite."
"So nothing's off about the timing of that "attack" to you?" Snotlout shot back.
"What advantage would it give anyone on that ship to stage it?"
Snotlout groaned. "Hiccup, I kept saying Johann was bad luck, and look what happened..." he trailed off, noting Hiccup's expression.
In spite of the warning glare, both Astrid and Snotlout could see Hiccup was considering Snotlout's words.
"Fair point," he said at last, "I was focusing on the King... So I didn't see what you did... There might be some politics in his court going on we're not aware of... keep your eyes open, both of you. Guests they may be, but I'm not about to be used as someone's Maces and Talons piece... Are you alright Astrid?"
Hiccup's been so driven... And I know there's a lot he's not telling me... What is he planning?
Astrid managed a tired smile. "A lot on my mind..." she said vaguely. Hiccup smiled back.
"Get some sleep when we get home. You know how I rely on you."
He certainly does...
"Yeah... I do..."
Snotlout looked from Hiccup to Astrid as the young chief flew off ahead, suddenly unsure of what to do...
Astrid clutched the amulet under her tunic. The amulet that had been given to Valka by Stoick, then to Hiccup to give to her...
"I do..." she murmured to herself.
But does he?
Hiccup had once told her that she knew who she was, that she always had.
Suddenly, Astrid Hofferson wasn't so sure...
oooo
Huddled in a corner against the cold, Matthias kept out of Eret's way as the former dragon trapper walked the deck, frowning to himself. It was obvious that he could see something wasn't right, but he wasn't sure what.
This was the most dangerous part of the plan. While they weren't distracted by any other problems...
The plan's architect was a genius though! He had clearly known Hiccup Haddock well. Not that his other ally would ever acknowledge this.
The major stumbling blocks so far were Eret, about whom he knew little or nothing and unpredictable Valka, neither of whom the plan's architect had accounted for, by virtue of not knowing they existed.
He let out a shallow exhalation of relief as Eret sighted one of the king's guards and tried to engage him in conversation.
Just a few hours more...
Well, there we go. More to come soon, I hope!