XI.
He never even remembered landing on Dragon Island. He came awake from a daze at once. "Did you find anything?" Astrid asked. A half-conscious response, "Yes…" "Better tell everyone." Standing before the village square. Still puzzled. Still uncertain. "Did you find anything, Chief?" "Is the Vigilante's Bewilderbeast going to kill us?" "Are our dragons safe, Chief?" "Is anything going to happen again?" And he had to hold up his hands. Silence them. Look his people in the eye, Tuffnut and Ruffnut and Starkard and Hoark and Brunnhild and Hildegard and his dear wife Astrid.
He'd be lying to them all.
"Ah – ah, yes, yes I did," he stumbled. At least I've never been much of a public speaker. This won't seem unusual. He held himself up, attempting to appear calm. "I went back to Fort Sinister," he said, "to see if the Vigilante's Bewilderbeast was still around."
People listened to him now, stirring slightly, but calm enough. They were Vikings, accustomed to war.
"It seemed that the dragons could only turn against us like that for a few seconds if a Bewilderbeast was around. This means it had to be either Drago's or the Vigilante's. I looked to see what happened to the Vigilante's."
Hiccup blinked once, twice. And after swallowing once more, he said, "Her dragon is gone."
He could see Astrid's shoulders relax from the news, and other Vikings deflate in relief. Yet other Hooligans frowned, and a voice rose up, "How do we know that Bewilderbeast isn't somewhere else without the Vigilante?"
"We'll keep patrolling the areas," Hiccup assured her. "But I think it's safe to assume the dragon's gone for good and won't be bothering us again. This side of the war is - is over. It means what happened to our dragons yesterday, had to have happened, ah, from… Drago's Bewilderbeast."
Before people could worry over that, Hiccup assured them, "And now that we can concentrate all our efforts on this side of the war, there's an even better chance we can drive the Visithugs back before their Bewilderbeast can have any further effects on our dragons."
And that had been that.
Yet once the people dispersed, Hiccup slipped to the gaol, hoping no one would see him except the two guards stationed at the entrance. He managed to slip in and sneak down the corridors with no one the wiser.
He headed straight to his mother's cell.
When he approached, Hiccup watched Valka stir slightly. Her green eyes glowed in the dark almost like a cat's, and she sized him up as though she were a cat, too. "You came back," she remarked evenly.
The chief of Berk wasted no time. He placed his hands on the door, leaned in, and whispered intently, "You lied to me."
"Oh?" This accusation did not even ruffle her.
"You told me," Hiccup explained, "that you were the only one who could control a Bewilderbeast. You suggested you'd be able to control Drago's."
"Well, yes." Still the dragon lady remained unperturbed. She did not even shift her position cross-legged on the floor. Instead, she simply watched him from the corner of her cell, back straightened but still leaned up against the wall, arms folded casually in her lap.
Hiccup watched her closely, attempting to read her body language. He hated the discomfort he felt around her. This is my mother. "The thing is," Hiccup continued, "you couldn't even control your own." It still was not the full truth of what he observed, what he assumed, yet he needed to gauge the Vigilante's reactions one bit of information at a time.
The Vigilante did not deny his accusation. Simply sat in her cell. Said nothing.
"I went back to Fort Sinister," Hiccup said. He glanced over his shoulder to ascertain no one was around. His voice dropped lower, anyway, just in case the walls echoed to the guards outside. "There were dead dragons in the Bewilderbeast's cave. They had jaw marks in them. Huge jaw marks. The Bewilderbeast attacked dragons from its own nest."
If her expression had been unreadable before, now it was pure ice, harder than the ice fortress Hiccup had just investigated. "Yes."
Time to ask the ultimate test question. I can't believe I'm doing this. "Then why do you think I would trust you controlling Drago's Bewilderbeast if you couldn't even keep yours from killing its own dragons?"
With a sigh, the Vigilante stood. Slowly she stepped toward the bars of her cell. Had she wanted to reach out her hand, she easily could have touched her son. At first she paused, but then she responded, "The dragon is still more reliable and less violent than any human I ever met."
"That's beside the point and you know it."
Valka returned to topic. "I have spent twenty years with that beast. He is a gentle creature unless provoked. Now I told you that the dragons would leave without my control. And that is still true."
"The Bewilderbeast also left before we arrived at Fort Sinister," Hiccup pointed out. He had to point out all her flaws to assess her. Can't believe I'm doing this.
"That… is also true." She grimaced slightly, and then requested, a little coldly, "Would you let me finish my explanation?"
Hiccup gestured to let her continue.
Definitely can't believe I'm doing this.
"I held the Bewilderbeast as long as I could because he was needed to fight here. But I can't win over a dragon, nor should I. When it became dangerous, I had to let the Bewilderbeast leave."
"And all of this is supposed to give me confidence in you how?"
"Think about it this way: Drago has next to no experience with a Bewilderbeast. If mine could turn rouge and temperamental – for good reason, though, mind – then how soon will Drago's dragon get out of control and even more violent? There's no chance things will turn out well. The results will be cataclysmic whatever happens with his dragon. Do you really want to risk it?"
Hiccup said, "Your explanation is still full of holes." But his mind was whirling. She said what I thought she would.
His heart thumped so loudly he almost missed her response. "I'm not telling you everything," she said.
"No you're not." Do I actually go through with this now?
They stood at an impasse.
Thor, this better be the right decision.
Better be… right.
"So you're going to risk your dragons succumbing to Drago," she mulled disapprovingly.
But Hiccup responded, "No."
He hesitated. "No. I don't want to risk it."
Oh gods, I'm actually going to do this.
And he glanced around, checking the hallway five times before he spoke in a whisper, "I'm only doing this because there's no other way to stop Drago, okay? And I'm going to keep a close eye on you the whole time. Be ready to leave at midnight. I'm taking you out of here."