The island on the southernmost edge of the Barbaric Archipelago suffered only lightly from dragons, in comparison to their more northernly neighbors. The Vikings living there had little to fear from the skies.
Their terrors dwelled below ground, instead.
While other islands bestowed fearsome names to their children in hopes of scaring away gnomes and trolls, the Arcadians knew that such a practice was folly. Nothing scared away trolls except the threat of daylight, and gnomes were even worse.
Being closer to the mainlands gave the island greater opportunities for trade, without which they would have died out with the raids decades ago. The trolls fought them tooth, nail, and sword to the death year after year, century after century, and if the islanders hadn't been hardened by cold then they were hardened by war with their fearsome adversaries.
Far inland, in a covered arena, metal doors shook with tremors and roars as their occupants screamed and fought for release. Parents held their children in the night and told them, when the noise echoed throughout the village, that those were the monsters they would have to fight against one day.
.
.
A hundred crushed sailing vessels formed together a fearsome throne, nestled into the back of the deepest cavern. Upon its broken boards and masts were dozens of half-rotten, disfigured skulls, broken and flayed and displayed in grisly warning.
The figure seated upon the loathsome mass was just as twisted as his macabre throne, black and rough as the volcanic rock of the caverns. The reddened glow of his eyes shone as the only light in the darkness.
Each of his subjects was both a pride and a disappointment to him. Half of them served his needs in loyalty to him and his father, while the other half needed to be subdued with fear and threats.
Both of which, much to his fortune and pleasure, he was exceedingly good at delivering.
But all of his subjects shivered when his darkened laughter echoed up from the throne room.
.
.
Crouched against a support pillar, a red-headed woman sobbed into her arms. Several sailors, fresh off of a returning merchant vessel, tried in vain to comfort her.
"I…I'm sorry, Barbara," one muttered. "He just…left."
"We really did try to stop him."
She heard their words as if through water, weak and distorted beyond comprehension. She shivered in horror at the thought of explaining what had happened to her young son. Losing your spouse in a troll raid was bad enough. How could she tell her boy that his father simply didn't want to come home?
.
.
Chief Liefr walked from home to home, offering his services and condolences. As chief, he had to be the strongest, the most generous, the one with the fiercest sword and most gentle hand. Every troll raid drained their resources and took the lives of more and more of his people, and every one of them turned to him for help and guidance.
Behind him, his second-in-command noted who needed what and helped him to delegate. Without him, the chief would be hopelessly overwhelmed. They worked comfortably and companionably, the chief never knowing that the entire while his second was thinking of ways to cleanly dispatch of his leader.
.
.
Huddled together in a mass of stony silence and shaking limbs, two companions gently cleaned each other's wounds, their ears picking up sounds from the trolls around them doing the same; counting their losses, gathering their spoils, tending to their injuries. The tributes stolen from the night's raid would go directly to their leader, and they could only be hopeful that their offerings pleased him this night. If not, then more of their numbers would fall.
Far away, outside of the archipelago, a ravenous king feasted upon the remains of his weakest warrior. His singular eye burned in the darkness, illuminating scraps of bone and skin and gristle before they disappeared into his relentless jaws.
Trapped willingly within his realm for centuries, he relied only upon the eyes and ears of his spies and his son to give him word of his growing army. His attack could not happen now, could not happen yet; after the War of Killahead, his numbers were decimated too greatly to risk war again.
But slowly, surely, he gained power, and one day would permanently darken the world.
And on that day, he would truly feast.
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A/N: Honestly, it had to be done. Because I'm a fucking sucker for these kinds of stories.
It's short, but I wanted to establish our world here before we get into the story.
The hardest part was actually (but not surprisingly, given my penchant for naming things just the right damn way) finding corresponding Viking names for all of the characters. The trolls are alright, but the humans were a bitch to do while still making everyone immediately recognizable. The thing is, Vikings travelled, so they snatched up bits and pieces of cultures from wherever they went. Which is how I'm going to excuse the name 'Barbara'. I could have kept all of the original names, but it really grinds my gears to read a HTTYD fic with modern-day names, so nope.
I'll be adding a bit more of book-lore into this AU, especially when it comes to the trolls appearances. The Trollhunters book is a good read and I love the characterization, but hoo boy are the illustrations nightmare fuel.
Especially Blinky.
You ain't seen horror until you've seen what this bookworm nerd looks like in del Toro's original book. He is terrifying.