To my guest reviewer: certainly you are allowed to be curious, and I apologize for the bluntness of my earlier response. But the way your previous review was written implied to me that you were saying I ought not to be writing a story like this. Being in a snappish mood that day due to job difficulties and recurring back pains, I was harsher in my response than I intended to be. I'm sorry.

Chapter 6

To everyone's surprise, there was relative quiet and calm over Berk for the following nine days. Initially it was assumed to be the lull before the coming storm, but as the days went by and nothing out of the ordinary happened, people began to assume that Berk was back to normal. The Twins were up to their usual attempts to destroy things, especially the Chief's house, Fishlegs went back to his studies, and Snotlout went after Astrid, who spent most of her time in the woods avoiding him, exercising, and keeping an eye out for Hiccup. He had not been seen on Berk for days, and many dared to hope in private that he was gone for good. They deceived themselves.

They tried to forget about Hiccup as they had before learning he was a ghost. This was helped by a 'no-talking rule' which enforced itself because everyone was fearful of saying something that might unwittingly offend the ghost. They tried to forget about the tormented specter that was haunting Berk, as if hoping that such forgetfulness would mean nothing bad was happening, like a family dwelling near a volcano with the hope and belief that it would not erupt in their lifetime.

Yet any sensible person in such a dwelling knows there is always the chance the volcano will stir to life again. Still, people believe what they wish and reassure themselves that the worst will never happen to them.

Now most believed Hiccup had not been present since that fateful night. This was not entirely true. He appeared once, several days after, but only to one person.

Gobber had been busily working at the forge, as usual. A blacksmith's job was never over. There were weapons to sharpen and repair, new ones to build, each one incredibly time consuming, and then there were other goods that needed to be crafted, like nails. Nails were especially going to be needed to rebuild Mead Hall's roof. This and all the other many demands were enough to tax the most physically fit of blacksmiths, and that person was certainly not Gobber.

Hobbling about on his peg-leg, he grabbed a pair of tongs with his good hand, picked up a red hot chisel, than using his other arm, attached to which was a prosthetic with a hammer appendage, he pounded away at the metal to get it into shape and remove the impurities. Even though it was a cold day sweat was running down his face.

He dunked the chisel in a bucket of water. Steam hissed into the air. "Whew! All right, next one—oh, thanks, Hiccup," he said absentmindedly as another red hot chisel was placed on the anvil. Suddenly Gobber looked up and dropped everything. "HICCUP!"

"Careful or you'll set the building on fire!" the ghost shouted, quickly picking up the red metal. Gobber watched him in astonishment. "Oh sure, I can't feel the heat or cold and I don't have a physical being, so this doesn't harm me in the slightest. Here—want some help?"

"You know, I could sure use a ghost in here…" Gobber remarked thoughtfully, as he put the tongs around the metal. "You could work night and day without tiring, you wouldn't need to worry about burning yourself…"

"No thanks," Hiccup said. His expression went from amusement to sorrow. "No thanks,"

"So what exactly are you going to do now?" Gobber asked uncertainly.

"I'm still trying to find out who killed me."

"It wasn't me, I swear!" Gobber said at once. "I would never have done such a thing!"

"I know it wasn't. I know for a fact you were down at the docks greeting the ships when it happened."

Gobber breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good to know. But do you have any other leads?"

"That's one thing I came here to ask you about. Who went with you to the docks that day? Did anybody?"

Gobber thought a moment. "One or two did, mostly the dockhands. Oh, and Silent Sven was there."

"So that's another person off the list," Hiccup muttered, pacing about the stall. "Good. I didn't want it to be him. Do you know where any of the others were that day? Astrid, Snotlout, and the Twins, for instance?"

Gobber shook his head. "I think Astrid was in the woods—probably killing trees with that axe of hers. I can't speak for anyone else."

There was a very long silence as they refocused on the blacksmith work. It was difficult for both of them because blacksmithing was suddenly among the things they wanted to think about least.

"I just can't believe this," Gobber said at last. "I never thought things would turn out this way."

"That's how it goes. One by one the leaves fall off until the tree becomes a mere skeleton," Hiccup sighed. Once the last chisel was submerged he resumed his pacing. He became so absorbed in his thoughts that he walked right through the furnace without realizing it. Gobber's mouth fell opened and his fake tooth dropped out.

"I sometimes forget I can go through solid objects," he admitted after Gobber explained why he was staring at him like a fish. "I don't even need to walk, really, but it's such an old habit that I can't seem to shake it off. Maybe I should go have a talk with Fishlegs. We could write 'The Book of Ghosts' together!" he laughed morosely, "I can see the entries now: 'Extremely Dangerous, but you can't kill on sight because they're already dead. Just run, hide, and pray they never find you.' It'll be my legacy to Berk."

"Speaking of talking with people, have you talked with your father?" Gobber asked tentatively.

"Not since the night I scared Berk silly,"

"An' why not?"

"What would I say to him? And equally important, what could he say to me? He hardly even cares that I'm dead!"

"Of course he cares, Hiccup! How could you say such a thing?"

"Oh really? Then why doesn't he permit people to insult me when he's present? I was there, remember? When Snotlout said 'remember: Hiccup would've been a lot worse!' what did my father do? Nothing! He let them laugh, showed no sign of anger, and I dare say he even felt inclined to agree with him!"

Gobber swallowed. "I know you two haven't had an easy time—"

"To put it mildly,"

"—But he still cares for you! Hiccup, you know men like Stoick don't like showing their tender sides in public!"

"Tender side?" Hiccup snorted, "He doesn't have one. He's only ever cared about Berk, my mother, and the imaginary son he's always wanted to have; those and his reputation for being a tough Viking."

"His raw Vikingness?" Gobber asked lightly.

Hiccup shook his head. "Oh Gobber, there were consequences to that all right, in ways we couldn't have even dreamed of! That was the night that started everything."

Gobber frowned. "I thought you said you…died the day the ships returned?"

"I did."

"Then what does the night of our most recent raid have to do with anything?"

Hiccup looked at him strangely. "A simple series of decisions and actions that started that night led meanderingly to my demise."

"What?"

"I can trace the events that led to my death back to that night."

"Oh. But what happened?"

"I shot down a Night Fury."

Gobber smiled slightly. "Hiccup, I know you're really proud of what you think you did, but—"

"I'm not proud of it," Hiccup glumly interrupted. "Not anymore. And by your tone, I'm guessing you still don't believe I actually did it."

"Lad, it is kinda hard to believe that—"

"That a weak and pathetic fishbone could do what nobody else has ever done? That it's impossible to believe that where the perfect Vikings failed I succeeded? Is that what you're saying?" Hiccup said sharply, "That a boy can't possibly do something better than the adults?"

"Well…no, but you've gotta admit it's highly unlikely."

"And you think I lied about it to get attention?"

"Of course not. I'm sure you did hit something that night, but I don't believe it was a Night Fury. In the darkness, it could have been any kind of dragon."

"Well I did hit one." He suddenly put a hand over his face. "And I'm torn between being glad I did and wishing I hadn't!"

Gobber was still confused. "But how did shooting down a Night Fury lead to your death weeks later? Unless that Night Fury killed you? But you've said that you weren't killed by a dragon, so…c'mon, Hiccup, you've gotta help me out here! I can't make heads or tails of this! Can't you let me know the truth?"

"I think I've kept you from your work for too long," Hiccup said. He turned away and walked through the door. Gobber looked around expectantly for a few minutes, waiting for him to return. Eventually he accepted the reality that Hiccup was not returning, and he dejectedly resumed his blacksmithing.

Hiccup stood invisible outside. There had been rain that morning but it was clearing off now. The muddy ground was covered in orange pine needles and small golden leaves, slopped together in slimy collections with dark brown sticks and pine cones. The sun was out, poking feebly through the thin white clouds that were scattered across a sharp blue sky, but it provided little heat. Hiccup knew this because he could see the breath of those who unwittingly passed him. It may have been sunny, but it was still a chilly and crisp day. And he could not feel any of it.

He watched people passing by, going about their daily routines. He could hear children helping and hindering their parents or running around with friends. He could see the Twins sneaking away into the woods. Ruffnut looked so enthusiastic that she was almost dragging Tuffnut away. He saw some men applying red paint to the trimming of a house. He could hear Snotlout attempting to flirt with Astrid—for who else would he be flirting with?—and then heard a loud cry of pain that usually followed such attempts. And there was his father, directing the rebuilding of Mead Hall's roof. Stoick looked like he had no other care in the world other than his current project.

Hiccup wondered if he felt any guilt for collapsing the roof, and after a moment of thinking he decided he did not. He could not feel a thing about it, nor did he find anything wrong with his actions. He wondered if that was the right way to feel. Or did it even matter? Morality often was backed up by threats of the immoral and moral ones being punished or rewarded in death, respectively, but he was already dead. What more could they do to him? He had been moral on Berk, far more moral than others, and here was his reward for it.

He dismissed the thoughts when he saw a group of children running by. One of them actually walked right through him, though the girl had no idea. He wondered if he would reveal himself again. But if he did, villagers would probably either react by watching him suspiciously or by running away screaming. So he turned away and floated back to the lonely woods.

So Berk had experienced 9 days of quiet, but it could not last. Periods of quiet never do. One night Stoick, who had only recently gotten a decent night's sleep, was awoken by a sound he knew all too well: the village alarm bell. At once he leapt out of bed, threw on his boots while grabbing his axe, and ran outside to find Berk once again in the throes of a dragon raid.

It was sheer chaos outside. Several homes and defenses were already burning. Vikings were running in every direction, half trying to get something or someone to safety, the other half going for the nearest dragon. The great beasts themselves were spectacularly illuminated by the fires as they swooped overhead, carrying livestock in their claws. Stoick grabbed a set of bolas from another Viking and threw them at a Gronkle without any effort. The creature's wings got entangled and it fell to the ground with a loud thud. Stoick hardly noticed. For him it was just the routine.

"Right, what have we got this time?" he yelled once he met up with Spitelout Jorgenson.

"About the usual. Gronkles, Nadders, and Zipplebacks."

"Any Monstrous Nightmares?"

"None so far,"

"How about Night Furies?" It was such a habitual question that Spitelout already knew he was going to ask it and was already shaking his head. At that moment a burning tower collapsed behind him. While several people threw themselves to the ground to evade the falling wreckage, neither he nor Stoick reacted as if anything bad had happened.

"Right, get the livestock to the caves. The dragons will try to get them as they move and we'll take the pests down as they expose themselves!"

"Just so long as we don't lose anything for this!" Spitelout shouted over his shoulder as he ran off.

Stoick turned to another Viking. "Go and tell the new recruits they're allowed to fight dragons now."

"Are you sure, Chief? Aside from Astrid, I don't think anybody did too well,"

"Well nothing beats experience, right? Get going! This isn't the time to argue and we need every man we can get!"

Astrid's heart leapt for joy when she heard the news. "Yes! No more fire brigade duties!" She seized her axe and looked around wildly for the nearest dragon.

"And keep an eye out for Night Furies!" the Viking roared to no one in particular.

Astrid only took a few steps and then she heard a sound that she had almost never heard before during a dragon raid. It was the sound of someone laughing.

"Isn't fire such a lovely thing? 'When I'm dead, let fire consume the Earth.' Those Romans knew what they were about, didn't they? Shall I sing the Sack of Ilium?" She looked up and saw Hiccup sitting on one of the burning homes, looking completely relaxed as flames turned the wood around him to ashes. "I doubt you'll have to worry about Night Furies, by the way. It's very likely you'll never have to worry about them again!"

"How can you sit there laughing while your home is on fire?" Astrid angrily shouted.

"Berk was never my home," he said dismissively. "You guys always made sure I felt that way."

"Just listen to yourself! Don't you have a heart? Don't you care that people's lives are in danger?"

"No, Astrid, I don't have a heart anymore. I'm dead, remember?" he gestured to his chest. "And honestly, whose fault is it that lives are in danger? If you guys hate dragons so much, why don't you just settle somewhere else? Why didn't we do that a few centuries ago?"

"And just give up? Let it be known that we were driven out by a bunch of mindless beasts?" Her pride was stung by the mere thought of it.

"If your ego won't let you accept defeat, then whose fault is it if people's lives are in danger now? Who's lacking the heart now? I was forced to lose mine, but you lot seem to be deliberately giving yours up for the sake of your pride!"

"Don't you dare lecture me! So you had a hard life, big deal! Look beyond yourself for once! You've got all kinds of abilities now you could use for the good of the village! And all you're thinking about is punishing the people who made your life a little tough. You're so selfish it's just pathetic!" she turned away and charged at a Nadder.

Hiccup appeared in front of her. "And you're the picture of humility, aren't you? The girl who destroyed trees because she was so angry about getting second place is actually a selfless martyr! All your life you've only been interested in benefiting yourself! Oh sure, you can hide behind the façade of 'it's for the good of the village', but the truth is you just wanted to do the village good so you could get the recognition. You wanted to know my tricks because you couldn't tolerate the idea of anyone doing better than you and you know it!"

"That's not true!" Astrid shouted. She cursed internally, for this distraction had allowed the Nadder to slip away. "And you just made me lose my prize!"

"You see there? 'My prize'! Not 'kill', not 'prey', not 'victim', you call it a 'prize'! Because that's all they are, aren't they? A glorious award for you to show off to everyone!"

"Well you thought that way too, remember? You wanted nothing better than to kill one!"

"Yes I did! I once thought if I killed just one dragon everything would perfect with my life. And you know what I've realized? One—it would never have happened! One error and all the glory is forgotten. Two—I realized that dragons aren't as horrible as we think they are, and that killing one wouldn't be glorious or praise worthy—it would be WRONG!" Astrid took a step back, so alarmed was she by the ferocity of his last word. "But what do you care? We're all selfish, really. We all want things to go our way. The only difference is motives. I just wanted to be accepted." He disappeared again.

Astrid did not have time to dwell on what he had said. There were still plenty of dragons to fend off and fires to put out. And to think she had almost gotten involved in a philosophical discussion in the middle of a dragon raid! She shook her head and rushed towards a burning house that screams were coming from.

As she reached the door she heard a woman screaming for her infant son. Without a second thought she forced her way through the burning door. Tongues of flames were licking the walls on all sides. She looked around but saw no one, so she tested the small staircase. The stairs held by some miracle, and she raced up them to the second floor.

She saw a small boy crawling on the floor, coughing and barely conscious. She carefully picked him up.

"Who's lacking the heart now, Hiccup?" she thought proudly.

But as she started making her way down the staircase part of the ceiling came down, narrowly missing her. It collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. She had small hope of getting out that way now.

"All right, we'll try a window," she said quickly.

Outside, some distance away from Astrid's predicament, four Gronkles had been trapped under a net. They howled like mad dogs as Spitelout Jorgenson readied his axe to kill them. But he never landed a blow because a Nadder came running through the area. Between attacking a free dragon and four subdued ones he instinctively went with the former. And as he ran off, he did not notice the netting being undone by unseen hands.

"Oh no! The net is getting frayed! The dragons might escape! Whatever shall we do?" Hiccup mocked. "Go, guys. Get away from this place."

The Gronkles never knew what had happened, but the net had suddenly been broken through, so they were not about to complain as they flew away.

Hiccup watched them go wistfully. Some shouting caught his attention. Thinking another dragon had been caught he followed his ears, only to discover it was really Astrid trying to drop a boy from the window of a burning house. Everyone nearby had their arms raised, ready to catch the boy if she tossed him, but nobody seemed near enough. Nobody dared get any closer to the flames that were rapidly destroying the house.

Hiccup sighed and disappeared.

From the window, holding the boy as if he was an oversized doll, Astrid frantically looked for someone close enough to catch him. Nobody seemed close enough, but the house felt like it was on the verge of collapsing and those fires were not getting any closer to dying out. She would just have to take the risks and pray things went well. Then, without warning, something invisible grabbed her by the shirt collar and lifted her and the unconscious boy into the air.

"One of the nicer things about being a ghost," a voice said in her ear, "is that physical weight and strength mean nothing."

"Hiccup?" It was all she could initially get out.

"Who else?"

"Where are you taking us?" she cried wildly. "Put us down! What are you doing? Is this more revenge?"

"Relax," Hiccup said, "I'll put you down, don't worry. Just answer me something: when the ships returned, where were you?"

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. "I was in the woods. I was exercising and looking for you."

"Where?"

"Around Raven Point, I think. Yes, that's where you seemed to be hiding, so I was searching over there."

"Can you answer for anyone else?"

"Yes. Snotlout had been following me early that morning, for the usual reasons."

"I see…"

"Hiccup, I—"

"Sorry if you didn't get a scar." He said as he set them down. Astrid wanted to talk more but he seemed to be gone.

To the people below it looked as though Astrid was walking through the air on her own accord. As she slowly descended to the ground they gaped at her, except for the boy's mother, who in between sobs and prayers of gratitude grabbed him and worked to restore his breathing.

Only then did Stoick arrive on the scene, having been busy with other burning structures. The resounding cheers perplexed him. "What happened?"

"Hiccup and Astrid saved my son!" the woman cried, holding her boy as tightly as possible.

Stoick looked at Astrid in amazement. Her parents, who were joining the crowd, rushed to her side. Much as she would have dismissed it, being in the middle of a fire while saving someone had really done a number on her nervous system, and she was shaking and gasping for breath.

But there was no time for congratulations. A dragon raid was still going on and several more dragons had escaped somehow. Everyone who could quickly returned to the struggle. Bit by bit the dragons flew off, some with livestock, but most of them left empty handed. All of a sudden people looked around and realized there was nothing to fight anymore. The raids had a tendency to start and end that abruptly.

Yet even with the dragons gone there was still a huge amount of work to be done. Fires had to be extinguished, the wounded needed tending, and livestock needed organizing, among a host of other tasks.

For a people who loved violence, they absolutely hated this part. There was no entertainment in trying to help a man whose intestines were hanging out of his slit torso, or finding a woman who had been burned so badly she could not be identified, or trying to reassure a screaming and newly orphaned child that everything was going to be alright. At the back of everyone's minds was the fear of the livestock loss, for if it was too severe they faced starvation. And there was always the chance someone would go home only to discover everything they owned had been reduced to ashes.

Stoick, as he always was after a raid, was in a grim mood as he distributed tasks to his people.

"Chief, look!" someone cried, pointing at a fence which had been largely unharmed during the raid.

On the fence, in blood red letters, were these words:

'Snotlout and Tuffnut killed me'

Stoick dropped the hammer he was holding. Everyone flinched as they heard Hiccup's sarcastic laughter.