Well, this chapter turned out to be way longer than I expected. I thought it would be short. But... no can do. I'm far too excited about finally introducing Valka that I wrote more than I originally planned. Only thirteen days until the movie! And I won't be there to see it on the day it comes out. Great. Lovely. Grrrrrr. I know that my compatriots will go and see it without me. I just know it.
The (sort of) requisite disclaimer: I own zilch. Except for my writing and dialogue. And Valka's epic Dragon Rider costume. And my song. I'm just rattling off crap to protect me from lawsuit, aren't I? *sigh*
The rider led them to what appeared to be a seaside cliff, and from it tumbled a great waterfall into the sea. They flew beneath the foam, and the mysterious rider took the lead, still beckoning for Hiccup and Toothless to follow- and they did not dare try to escape.
To Hiccup's great surprise, a hidden cave lay behind the falls, and they flew in with the sound of Toothless shaking off the water echoed around them for what seemed to be eternity.
Hiccup slid off his dragon's back, looking around the cave. Shuffling could be heard in grottoes and around corners, and ice hung from the tops, dripping down in white stalactites that looked like pointed teeth dripping with saliva.
"Who are you?" Hiccup demanded, looking around the cave. Their captor and his dragon had vanished, leaving an eerie silence broken only by the soft sounds of moving creatures that were out of his sight. "What do you want?"
A soft hiss echoed back to him in response, between the roar of the waterfall and the stifling quiet before him. Instinctively, he drew his sword, Inferno, and set it alight, the flames casting beastly shadows on the wall so that Hiccup could not tell what was real and what was a product of his frightened imagination.
Then, in the dim light that his blade produced, he saw the dragons. They were of all size and build, some species familiar to him and others utterly unknown. He had by no means believed himself to have discovered every dragon on their side of the great ocean, but to see so many, all creeping toward him in a single cave, their jaws parting slightly to reveal their own fire, was a sight that would make even his father and Skullcrusher anxious.
Toothless hissed softly, backing away from the dragons, but more appeared behind them in the shadows of the waterfall. His sword, like a dragon's fire breath, was to determine territory. But these dragons did not fear him. Their eyes were suspicious of him, as Toothless's eyes had been when he first met his night fury years ago. But he could not train them all.
"Can you stop your dragons from attacking me?" Hiccup called into the cave, waving his sword around and causing one or two dragons to back off slightly before approaching him again. He knew the rider was there somewhere, hidden between his dragons. But there was no answer but the hot breath of hostile dragons.
Hiccup closed his eyes as tightly as he could, counting out three seconds, hoping that this nightmare would somehow end and he would wake up in Berk, back in his own bed with Toothless hanging beside him from a wooden beam.
When he opened his eyes, the rider was before them, as if he had appeared from thin air. His armor was dark and coated with scales from different dragons, all of them old and twisted with the sheen of scales that had been shed as the great lizards grew, the scales hanging down on one side to the man's ankles and on the other gone, replaced by dark trousers. His boots were small and silent against the stone, as he crept toward Hiccup like a skeptical dragon sniffing its prey.
The mask, of course, was the most terrifying. The dark helm, painted like a dragon's face with spikes running down the back and through the armor. But where the dragon's eyes should have been were dark, empty sockets like the eyes of a dark spirit.
His double ended blade hissed like a snake as the rider tapped it on the ground rhythmically, as if it were a quiet war drum building up until the climactic moment.
"Who-" Hiccup choked on his words in fear. "Who are you?"
"No," the rider spoke for the first time, and with a jolt of shock Hiccup realized it was a woman's voice addressing him in the dark. It was deep and powerful, like distant thunder on a mountaintop as the calm before the storm settles in, but it was, nonetheless, a woman. "Who are you? Remove your helm, dragon rider. I do not often see strangers passing through my lands, and I do not take kindly to trappers and scouts."
"No," Hiccup refused with a shaking voice. "Not until you give me a name. I mean you no harm, but I want to know your name."
The woman thought for a moment. "I am the Dragon Rider, known as the Demon Rider by trappers who fear my name." The hardness and hatred in her voice was frightening as she recalled the trappers whose ship she had destroyed. "Now who are you?"
"You didn't give me a real name," said Hiccup, forcing himself to sound more confident than he was.
The Dragon Rider circled Hiccup, still drumming against the cave floor with her staff, holding the dragons back for the time being. "The passers by of this land do not need my real name, for they are no more who they appear to be than I am. How are you any different?"
"I ride my dragon," replied Hiccup, lifting his chin a bit "and Toothless is my friend. I wouldn't hurt him, and I don't want to hurt you. How can I get you to trust me?" He was doing best to avoid being asked where he came from, lest he put the people of Berk in danger, but he didn't know how much longer he could talk vaguely around the subject.
"Remove your helm," the woman ordered one more time, and Hiccup by now had no choice but to comply. He unstrapped the back of his helmet and tugged it off, running a nervous hand through his hair to occupy his fingers with something to do other than tremble.
To Hiccup's shock, the Dragon Rider went rigid.
"It cannot be." Slowly, she backed away, like a frightened animal, slipping around a corner and out of sight, her dragons crouching in the shadows, mimicking her attitude.
"That face…" came a low hiss, the voice cracking with emotion. "I know that face." Hiccup could hear someone, most likely the Dragon Rider, rummaging through something, muttering under her breath.
"I know that face. I would know it anywhere."
"After all these years?" With a start, Hiccup realized she was deep in conversation with herself.
"Yes! You know him, Valka. You can't just forget that easily."
"But you can't tell him either. Odin knows what his father's told him about you, or if he even knows how you died."
"But clearly I'm not dead…"
"Yes you are! You died that day, even if your body is still living. Your soul died that night."
She huffed quietly. "Don't be so melodramatic. I have a life here, thank you very much."
"You should tell him," she reminded herself.
"Don't be a fool! Even if it is him, he wouldn't know you. And it could be someone else entirely."
"I held him in my arms," she murmured, and her dragon-like mutterings and hisses died down into silence. "I held him in my arms when he was but an infant. I know those eyes like I do my own. It must be him." She spoke with finality, rustling about out of sight.
Hiccup concentrated on clearing his memory. How would he know someone like this? A lone dragon rider skulking about these cliffsides. But the name was familiar to him. Valka. He thought he had heard it before somewhere, although he couldn't put his finger on it. In a moment, the Dragon Rider reappeared, although her own helmet was gone, and in the dim light Hiccup could just barely make out her face.
She had a sharp jawline crooked to the left, as if it had been dislocated in a fight, and deep green eyes so like his own that for a moment Hiccup was mesmerized by them, as if he was looking into a mirror. Her face was hard and world-weary, but she there wa an air of primeval wisdom about her in the way she moved and spoke. Hiccup could not tell whether her lips and nose were crooked on her face or the other way around, as dragon fire flickered behind her like ghostly candle lights.
"Hiccup?" she whispered, drawing back her weapon and watching him carefully.
"How…" he gaped. "How do you know me?"
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Hiccup couldn't quite tell in his imagination whether she was a human, a dragon, or something else entirely as she lifted her staff, laying its tip on his shoulder and guiding him to the right.
"Come," she beckoned, leading the way with her hand held forward, and the crowd of dragons parted before her. Hiccup followed with Toothless, not quite sure what to say or how to react. She seemed to know him, and indeed she was familiar, but he could not put her face to memory. Even the name was vague, as if he had never spoken it properly aloud.
She led him through corridors and along narrow passages, each lined with dragons of different size and shape. Some were so small they nearly crawled through, and terrible terrors lined the stone walls.
"What is this place?"
The Dragon Rider turned around. "My home," she informed him curtly and leading him on through the tunnels.
"Where are we going?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
Hiccup groaned. "Well I'm sorry for being curious when someone kidnaps me out of the blue and acts like they know who I am."
She paused in her tracks and looked him in the eye, suddenly laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Never be ashamed of curiosity," she told him sincerely, without a hint of the brisk, sardonic attitude she had shown as they walked. Then she shook her head, as if clearing of unwanted sentiment, and said, "but I would prefer if you keep your mouth shut until we get there. The terrors are trying to sleep."
"Oh," muttered Hiccup grudgingly. "I'm sorry if I disturbed your lizard friends from their evening nap." In truth, he didn't even know the time of day anymore. The cave was dark on all sides. But he assumed it was late evening, judging by how much time he had been in the caves. But then, if he had learned one thing when he was a teenager, it was that how much time something feels like and how much time has actually passed were two very different things.
They rounded a bend, and Hiccup found himself in an opening in the tunnel, with only a rock blocking it. "Now what?"
She turned around and grinned. "You can climb. I've seen you." She stepped up and climbed the rock with the grace and ease of, as Hiccup noted with no surprise, a night fury. She was more like a dragon than a person, and he came to the conclusion that she had not seen another person in many years. Or at least one that she hadn't killed.
Then something occurred to him, as he turned her words over in his mind. "You were the one watching me!" he burst out. She hung by one hand and glanced at him.
"You knew I was following you?"
"I knew someone was, but you just admitted to it."
She pursed her lips. "So I did. Come."
"But you have to tell me-" Just then she vaulted over the top of the rock and vanished from sight like she was so apt at doing, and Hiccup had no choice but to follow her. He climbed as quickly as he could, but he was not as accustomed to this place as the woman who lived there.
When he came over the barrier, he was in a forest.
The grass was short and uneven over the bare rock, and a massive cliff rose up behind him. "Where are you now?" he shouted, sighing at how pathetic he sounded, but without the Dragon Rider, he would be lost in this place.
"Do you remember now?" came a voice behind him, and he was shocked to find the Dragon Rider crouching on a small ledge twenty feet above him, she crept down the rock and got to her feet, watching Hiccup with each step.
"Do I remember what?"
She rummaged through a sparse bush and procured a small satchel and from it, a sheet of parchment. Hiccup gasped. "Is this from my notebook?"
"Was," she corrected with a small smile. "I keep it here so no one can get to it. I'm the only one who knows the way around these passages. Folk of old were known to get lost and die here, but," she shrugged, "I haven't found any carcasses yet."
She seemed more of ease now that she was out of the tunnels. Less suspicious of outsiders. Clearly she trusted him a little if she was taking him to this place.
She hanged Hiccup the sheet of parchment, and he flipped it over. One side had an old drawing, and the other words from a poem of sorts. He read the song aloud.
The dead be rolling in their graves
As if they thank the living ghosts to roam
Their queen is whispering in the winter trees
With rattled winds and broken stones
She is the lord of time and stormy skies
Adorned in mist and bones
She is the queen of Pyrrhic victory
Upon her broken throne
And so she slips between the mountains
And she dances in the empty halls
Of men who lit the seas aflame
And fortune chose to fall
The walker of the night is speaking
Listen well and your deeds may be atoned
To the queen of Pyrrhic victory
Upon her broken throne
He gaped. It was an age old myth that he had been told when he was young. He flipped the page over to find a sketch, and his marvel grew. It resembled his own drawings, with the same steady hand, but it couldn't have been made by him. There, in the picture, was his father, but the lines were gone from his face and his eyes were not worn from duty. And in his father's arms was Hiccup himself, no older than an infant, lying peacefully in a woolen blanket, his eyes wide with wonder of the world.
His voice was shaking as he asked, "How do you have this?"
The Dragon Rider lowered her eyes. "Because it was I who drew it."
And then it all came flooding back. The woman's voice, so familiar to him but so far away, returned to his memory, singing quietly the myth of old that was scratched onto the page. Her voice was a low rumble, still faint, but the same distant thunder.
He heard his father's voice, deep in memory, telling him stories as a boy, "Your mother?" he chuckled. "She was a force of nature."
Valka. The name surfaced again, floating on a frozen sea. Etched into a broken tombstone worn and washed by the tide. Why hadn't he seen it before? He looked down at his own hands.
"Hiccup?" whispered the Dragon Rider. "My son…"
And she embraced him at last.
Me: Hallelujah! Valka's finally made it into the story!
Valka: I will concede that I got my dramatic dialogue.
Galadriel: I still dislike you both.
Me: Then why are you still reading?
Galadriel: After forty-thousand years of living in Middle Earth, you tend to get bored easily. Nothing's new anymore. And so when I discover something like fan fiction, it's a jackpot of new ideas.
Me: Point taken.
Smeagol: You nearly forgotses about me, precious! How dares they! We likes the dramatic dialogueses precious.
Me: See, Smeagol is on my side.
Galadriel: Smeagol is a schizophrenic ex-hobbit with multiple personality disorder and a romantic attachment to a demonic, possessed piece of jewelry.
Me: *quiet consideration*
