Chapter 4: Awakening Within the Cage
Author's Note: Sorry yet again for the incredibly long wait. College and other priorities have been propping up everywhere. Here's another chapter where we meet another character. If the description doesn't help, look her up on Google.
Hiccup awoke to the sound of crackling fire and an eerie blue light dancing along the edges of his closed eyelids. He groaned in exhaustion, head aching from the impact of the dragon queen's tail.
His eyes shot open as the memory of what happened before he went unconscious came back to him. Shooting himself up from the floor, he attempted to call out for his friend, oblivious to his surroundings.
"Toothle-ACK!" He shouted in pain as his head collided with something on top of him. Whatever he had hit, it was apparently alive, as he hear another yelp.
"Ow! Watch it!" moaned the blurry figure in front of him.
Hiccup blinked several times as his vision began to come back into focus. He could see now that he was inside a cage, and the light was coming from a stand in the middle of the cage. On top of the stand was a bowl of fire, but the strangest thing about the fire was that it was blue, almost like it had been Toothless's fireball that had set it alight.
"Toothless!" He said to himself, looking around in the cage for any sign of his friend. But the cage was far too small for dragon to fit in. Desperate, the boy turned back to the figure, who stared at back at him confusedly.
The figure in question turned out to be a girl, slightly older than him with short white-brown hair that was wrapped in a bun and hanging slightly over her forehead. Her clothes were tattered-looking, almost like they hadn't been changed in a while. They were white, blue, and brown, consisting of ragged ends that hung out of the otherwise consistent wrappings around her body. From how pale she looked, it seemed as though this girl had not seen daylight for a long time.
"Hey!" exclaimed the girl, annoyed at how Hiccup was gawking at her and moving to the opposite side of the cage, sitting beside the stand holding up the odd-colored fire. "Don't look at me like I'm some object for you to observe. I get enough of that from the gods." she said bitterly.
Hiccup blinked, before shaking his head out of the perpetual confusion of his situation. Here he was, trapped in a cage with a girl, with his friend and fellow Vikings nowhere to be found, and he had no idea how he'd gotten here. He was so confused he completely overlooked what she had said in her last sentence.
Clearing his throat, Hiccup decided that it was best to try to get along with this girl to figure out how he got here and, most importantly, where Toothless was.
"Ummm..." he began nervously, trying to ignore the girl's suspicious glare. "Uh, I-I mean hello! My name is Hiccup. What's-"
Hiccup paused, feeling a weird sensation in his leg. Pushing himself up, he brought his back to the rounded bars of the cage and looked down at his feet, eyes widening at the multitude of bandages around his left leg. Bringing down his hand, the Viking slowly put his arm down on it, which turned out to be a mistake as a hiss of pain left him upon contact.
The girl, who was watching Hiccup as he noticed his bandaged leg, sighed. "You were in a very bad state when Athena brought you in here, so she did what she could to heal your leg and allowed me to bandage the rest."
Hiccup turned back to her, his expression confused. "My leg was hurt? I survived? But what happened to Berk? Where are the others? Did we kill the dragon queen? And where's Toothless?! And who's this Athena you mentioned?! Who are you?! WHERE AM I?!" he asked frantically, voice rising until he was literally shouting, but from the way he was pushing his upper body forward towards the girl, it caused him to apply weight on the appendage, making him cry out in pain, tears building up from the sting.
The girl, who had been looking more uncomfortable with each question thrown at her by Hiccup, widened in eyes in concern. Getting up from her crouched position, she leapt the short length it took to get to Hiccup and landed at his side, shocking the Viking at just how quick she was.
"Please," She said, calm but firm, "you need to relax Hiccup. I know you are scared for yourself and your friends, but right now, your leg is in a very sensitive state. I will answer any questions you may have to the best of my knowledge, but you need to trust me and hope for the best." she grabbed Hiccup's right hand and held it in both her own, looking at him with her grey-brown eyes intensely.
Hiccup was left speechless, his mind screaming at him to get away lest Astrid find him now this close to another female other than Tuffnut, but on the other hand, from how concerned this girl seemed to be about his health, she looked as though she really was trustworthy and sincere. So the only thing he could say to her response was a simple, yet humbled "Okay."
"Good." the girl said, "And for the future, or what's left of it after the war, you may call me Pandora. Now let's have a look at-"
"Whoa! Time out!" Hiccup yelled, throwing his arms up and pushing her back, face displaying shock at the newly christened Pandora's words. "What do you mean the war?! We killed the queen dragon! The dragons are harmless! I mean, they're still dangerous, but not to us if we just- what the heck is going on?! Why am I in this cage?! Where's my dad?! WHAT HAPPENED TO BERK?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FRIEND TOOTHLESS?!"
*SMACK!*
Hiccup's head was sent reeling to the side, his cheek throbbing from the force of Pandora's slap. Her face displayed a sharp, pointed look of anger, but her eyes betrayed a sad regretfulness at her action.
"Hiccup," she began, sympathy layered every word, even as she brought up the Viking's shocked face by placing her hand on his cheek. "I know that this may come as a shock, but whatever this 'Berk,' 'dragon queen,' or 'Toothless' you are referring to is something I know nothing about. Before I was put here, my father taught me all the names of the lands, and while I have been here a long time, I cannot recall Berk as being among the thousand cities in Olympus or any other part of the world. Therefore, whatever place you are thinking of... does not exist."
Hiccup's jaw dropped. Not just from what Pandora had said, but her head-turning slap had forced him to look through the bars of the cage, allowing him to see that the cage he was in was not only surrounded by a vast empty cavern, but also the humongous chains the size of a grown Viking holding up even more humongous box-like structures that hung from the ceiling, which he could not see. It was almost like being in the mountain of dragons again, only much more grandeur.
"I'm sorry that I slapped you, but you have to remain calm. I wish I could tell you what happened to your people, but I do not know."
Hiccup stared at her for a long time with wide eyes, mouth opening and closing like a fish due to the millions of questions he so desperately wanted to ask her, yet knew he had to be patient. Then after several minutes, he finally lowered his head in submission and sighed before looking back up to her.
"At least tell me you know where my friend Toothless is. Please." He pleaded, tears beginning to building around the rims of his eyes, desperate hope present in every syllable.
Pandora sighed heavily, regretting what her answer would be.
"I'm afraid I do not know who this 'Toothless' friend of yours is. Was he your brother?"
"He's my friend." Hiccup said, voice beginning to break. "We had just brought down the queen...and then...we were flying away from the flames...a-and then the tail-fin broke off just as her t-t-tail came toward us. Then the last thing I remember was everything going dark before...before...-"
The combined feelings of confusion, anxiety, and fear in Hiccup finally let loose itself when the boy completely broke down and began to sob, deep heavy breaths escaping him as scared tears made their way down his face. Pandora frowned, letting go of Hiccup's hand and moving closer towards him, raising her arms and wrapping them around the crying teen in an attempt to comfort.
Hiccup gasped at the unexpected contact, nearly wanting to push her away out of instinct, but when he realized that she was hugging him, he broke down again and hugged her back, crying hard.
"I j-just want to g-go huh-ho-home." He sobbed in-between every deep breath.
"Me too, Hiccup." she responded, patting the Viking's back. "Me too."
As the two continued to hug one another, neither of them noticed Athena floating above the cage, watching intently with a stoic gaze. She brought a ghostly hand up to her chin in thought for a moment, before slowly fading into nothingness.
Hiccup had eventually stopped crying, but remained depressed about being in a cage without any knowledge of where Toothless or anyone else was for that matter. However, he was also bewildered at the fact that Pandora, who was looking out on the other side of the cage, had little knowledge of Berk, despite it being infamous for its dragon attacks.
His thoughts were interrupted as a low grumbling came from his stomach. He wrapped an arm around his midsection, realizing that he had not eaten since the morning he had been forced to fight the Nightmare.
"Pandora?" He called. "When is whoever is keeping us here gonna come feed us? I'm starving."
"No one ever comes." She responded sadly, not bothering to even look at the Viking.
Hiccup stared back at her with a surprised look, before a nervous chuckle left him. "Heh heh...you-you're joking right? Of course someone has to come here. I mean, how long have been here anyways?"
Pandora turned to face Hiccup, her expression serious. "About several centuries." she answered simply.
Hiccup looked at her for a few more seconds, his face frozen in shock at the implications of her words, before erupting into spontaneous laughter.
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Oh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You- ha ha! really had me going there for a second. I mean, you look a little older than my age, and I'm only sixteen." He stated light-heartedly.
Hiccup's smile slowly deflated when the look on Pandora's face showed that she wasn't joking, nor did she seem the list bit amused that Hiccup thought she was joking. She didn't look angry, but her expression was one of impatiently waiting for someone to stop laughing so they could get on with the serious stuff.
"I'm serious Hiccup. I've been here in the Labryinth for several hundred years, while my father is trapped down in the Underworld, probably going mad without me to comfort him."
Hiccup frowned at the terms she used. "Wait. Labryinth? Underworld? What in Thor's name are you talking about?"
Pandora looked equally as confused. "You mean you've never heard of the legend of the Great War?" she asked.
"If you're referring to the war between Berk and the dragons, then yeah. Otherwise, I'm completely lost about how you can call it great, because let me assure you, it wasn't." Hiccup responded dully.
Pandora turned around to face Hiccup fully, scratching her head in bewilderment. "How can you not know about the most dangerous war between the Gods and the Titans?"
Before Hiccup could answer and ask what she was talking about, a strange phantom-sounding voice sounded all throughout the cage.
"He doesn't know Pandora, because he is not of this world."
"Who said that?!" exclaimed Hiccup, frightened out of his wits from the voice that seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
"Athena? Is that you?" Pandora seemed to call out to no one in particular. "He's woken up, but I think he may have some sort of memory loss of something. And what do you mean by not of this world? Does that mean he belongs in another realm, like the Underworld?"
"No." responded Athena, becoming visible near the locked entrance of the cage. The gate was held together by a glowing blue diamond the size of a sword, so it was virtually impossible to open. Athena flowed right through the bars, coming toward Pandora and Hiccup. "What I mean is-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Hiccup screamed, horrified at the appearance of a ghost. "PANDORA! GET AWAY FROM THAT THING! HELP! GHOST!" The Viking turned around and began to frantically try and fit his way out of the thin bars of the cage, hindered by the pain in his leg and the fact that the bars were too close together for him to fit through.
Athena and Pandora just watched, the former showing a gaze of indifference toward Hiccup's antics while amusement danced along the edges of Pandora's. Once the boy realized he was thoroughly trapped with the ghost, he turned around, flattening himself against the bars so hard that they were beginning to hurt. The pain in his leg was excruciating, but he ignored it due to the overwhelming fear he was feeling.
Athena turned and began to float toward the Viking, who backed away along the edges of the bars in an attempt to distance himself.
"Do-don't c-come any closer!" Hiccup pleaded, holding himself up on the bars behind him to lift some of the weight off his leg. Athena ignored him, coming ever so closer with her hand outstretched towards him.
"You are in pain Hiccup. It would be wise to sit down." She said calmly, her voice sounding distorted and more creepy to Hiccup's ears. But from how she looked, it was hard for the Viking to do what she was suggesting.
"I said, stay back!" Hiccup yelled. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying enough attention to how he was positioning his feet underneath him, and ended up smacking his right leg into his bandaged leg. Shouting out in pain, Hiccup fell to the floor, eyes squeezed shut while he hissed through his teeth to keep himself from crying.
"Will you let me help you, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third?"
Hiccup's eyes shot open. He looked up at the ghost, frightened at how intimidating she looked standing over him, despite the hand she had extended out for him to grab.
"How do you know my name?" He questioned, backing away from her on all fours, until his side hit the bars.
"I know many things about you Hiccup, but mainly that you are not in your place of time, or even your plane of existence." She answered sagely. Her face was completely emotionless in all this, giving no sign of what she was thinking or feeling in this situation.
"Why should- URGH!- I trust you?!" He asked defiantly.
Athena fixed her cold gaze on the Viking, who felt a shiver run up his spine.
"Because if you let me help you, I will tell you why you are here, and most importantly, where your companion is."
That changed everything for the Viking. Rather than back away, he instead lunged forward towards the ghost, reaching out to grasp her hand, but due to his quickness, the goddess did not have time to solidify herself to allow him to grab her. Hiccup yelped in surprise as he went through the ghost, crashing down on the floor in a tumble.
"Hiccup!" Pandora yelled in concern, rubbing forward and dropping down next to him as the Viking pushed himself up on his elbows and groaned.
"How about next time, you tell me when you actually are a ghost?" Hiccup asked Athena sarcastically. The goddess did not reply. Pandora, realizing Hiccup was okay, got up and walked back over to the bars of the cage, crossing her arms and watching intently to see what would happen.
Shaking his head clear of any more distractions, Hiccup faced the goddess.
"Where is Toothless? And where am I for that matter? I'm tired of not knowing what's going on, so you better have some answers for me, you-you ghost... thing." He said, pointing at Athena accusingly.
"Which would you like me to answer first?" Athena asked, seeming not to care about Hiccup's weak threat.
"Okay. First off... where is Toothless? He's a dragon, about as big as a small boat, has black scales, and-"
"A missing tail-fin?" Interrupted Athena. Her eyes became half-lidded.
"Wha- ye-YES!" Hiccup yelled, smiling hopefully and staggering up carefully to his feet. "Do you know where he is? Oh thank Thor, I was so worried. Where is he now?"
Athena drew herself up to her fullest height, taking a deep breath and brushing a ghostly hand through her hair as she sighed heavily. She looked away the ground for a moment before turning back to the hopeful Viking.
"He is dead, Hiccup."