Author's Note:
Tumblr prompt from an anon for Enemies to Lovers + War AU.
I may continue this as a series (?)
The battlefield is alive with the dying.
She sees him across the western front, surrounded by the corpses of her fallen soldiers. Through the blood and the smoke and the dragon fire, Astrid pauses in her conquest to watch the man.
Sword ignited, he swings it in heavy arcs around his body to ward off her soldiers as they close in on him and the dragon that curls around him.
Teeth bared and body bloodied, the beast snarls at her men. She wonders, briefly, why the pair do not take to the sky where they have a clear advantage. That question is answered, though, as the beast swings its crippled tail at the soldiers.
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, King of the Wilderwest has lost the battle.
Astrid knows this.
He knows it as well.
The flame of his sword has dimmed and the fire that burned inside his Night Fury has grown cold with overuse. Besides, without a tail, the dragon is grounded and everyone knows that a downed dragon is a dead dragon.
Around him, men and dragons lay dead and dying. The remaining cries that rise above the clash of steel are not ones of rage or fear, but of pain and acceptance.
Her soldiers converge on the remaining Wilderwesterners, cutting down any and all who stand in the way of their queen's ascension. A platoon of her most skilled surrounds the king and his Night Fury, spears and swords ready to strike.
"Not him." She says, her voice carrying over the crowd of fighters and carrying the weight of her station. Her hands are full with the bloody ax that struck down many of his men. Her face, covered in the blood of dragons and human alike, stares him down. Eyes of ice meet eyes of fire. "He is not to be killed."
Her soldiers heed her words, ripping the man and dragon apart, but doing them no further harm.
The King of the Wilderwest doesn't surrender.
Struggling and biting and cursing, more dragon than man, he is brought before her. It takes two soldiers to force him to kneel at her blood-soaked boots, but once he is in the mud, prosthetic ripped away, he doesn't fight. Crippled, he glares up at her.
Their eyes lock in a silent battle of wills that both know will end with the loss of a throne. Beneath all the blood, Astrid sees freckles and green eyes that stare into her with such intensity that she fights the urge to shrink under his gaze.
His eyes break from her, not in submission, but in concern for his dragon.
Behind her, her soldiers have bound the beast's wings and legs. Four men hold the beast's head to the ground as they force a metal muzzle over its snarling mouth.
"Don't hurt him!" The usurped king cries, fear in his eyes for the first time.
Astrid raises a hand and the soldiers step away from the dragon. It writhes on the ground, bound and chained, but desperate to return to its master's side. "Keep the dragon restrained, but leave it alive. For now."
At her feet, the king releases a sigh, lungs heaving as though the weight of the war had finally settled on his shoulders. "Thank you," he breathes in a quiet whisper.
"You are the dragon king." Astrid states. "Pride of the Wilderwest?"
"I was." He spits through blood-stained teeth. Looking around him, he sees few Wilderwesterners who are on their feet. Those who survived the bloodshed are now in chains.
"The battle is over," She informs him. "Your forces are defeated. Your dragons dead. Surrender."
"I will never surrender."
He will die a free man. He will die for his people and his home and his body will be laid bare in the earth soaked in the blood of his people.
"I wouldn't expect anything less from the last Night Fury." She says. "But I need dragons if I am to defeat my enemies. I have heard stories of your wisdom, Hiccup Haddock. Surrender, train dragons for my army and those who claimed loyalty to you shall be spared. Human and dragon alike."
"Dragons are not tools for war." He says, but he doesn't meet her eyes. Regret hangs heavy on his features.
"They will be." She says.
She leaves him with her men, but he can see her, in the distance. She gives commands to round up his soldiers and she organizes the retrieval of her wounded.
He is led away by two of her knights, forced to hop along in their grasp until he can be placed in a wagon for transport. Bound, bloodied, and his crown stolen, he is an easy target for the victorious soldiers' jests. They jeer at him from their horses and look at him with disdain.
Resolute, the king of dragons ignores them. With his chin held high, he looks at the sky, knowing he will never feel the thrill of flight again.