Chapter 13

Final Marks

Sukkoth was always an interesting time, spent either camping or going from house to house in festive moods for a week. Holly enjoyed it greatly, like always, friends and family getting together and her able to see friends she rarely got to hang out with normally.

However, as the first evening of the festival began to progress, the teenager was far from any other people. As the moon rose and began to acquire that blood hue that was expected to arrive (it was to be the last of the quartet of lunar eclipses coinciding with the feasts), Holly gave out a yell of excitement as she and Nara blazed over the mountains of the Berk interior. She knew she'd get an earful taking off in the evening without explicitly telling anyone later, but at that moment she didn't care; she sat on a dragon's back after all, and the first pieces of her new Myscale suit were clasped on and being taken for a test flight. Made from scales of both Amethyst and Embron, and underlain with a layer designed with Nara's scales for extra resistance, the girl was enamored with its red and black, stylish design and had to try it out as soon as she'd received it.

"You ever wonder about how amazing it is that we all got stuck together?" Holly asked over the wind, looking down at the Nadder. Nara glanced back, giving a smirk.

"Nah, I just take it as it is. The crazy part is that they let you and I hang out together all the time; that's dangerous right there!"

Holly laughed. "Speaking of which, want to get in some more target practice when we land, or just laze a while as we watch the moon come up? I'm good for either."

Nara contemplated the choice for a moment, before speaking up. "I vote target practice. We get to laze around often enough as it is."

"You mean you do. I have school now, remember?"

"Right, right. So you're saying you don't just sleep in class?"

"Unfortunately no."

Chuckles followed them through the sky as the duo angled into the mountains, looking for a suitably open spot that not only had a great view of the sky (which for once was not covered by clouds) but that they had frequented before. As such, the edges of the clearing on the mountainside were littered with makeshift targets and splinters that once had been targets. As Nara touched down, Holly immediately jumped off, lifting up the visor on her helmet and pulling it off before reaching into one of the many pockets that outlined her getup. Out of it slid a set of gleaming, silvery darts, a set Holly had come to favor over the months she'd been practicing using projectiles.

"Not working with your black ones?" Nara asked, ruffling her spines as she flexed. Holly shook her head. "It's getting dark, and the moon's going to be of little help so I kind of don't want to lose them. Plain Mysteel shows up a lot better." The teen turned and regarded an old wood stump propped up against the rocks about twenty feet away; once the base of a centuries-old pine, it had been removed when the plant was found dead and set up for a target, though now it was reaching the end of that use as well, littered with cuts and holes as it was.

A flick of the wrist, and a shiny projectile hurtled through the air, embedding itself all the way up to the handle and then some into the splintered wood. A second, third, and fourth soon followed, before a huff escaped the thrower.

"Still a little bit off center," Holly muttered, walking up to the target and removing the darts one by one, noting how they were all spaced just a couple of inches away from the painted center ring of the stump. "Got to work on that otherwise Cami will lord it over me." She stepped out of the way, before nodding to her companion. "Alright Nara, your turn! Bet you can't do better!"

The Nadder chirruped and took up a battle-ready stance, flexing and causing the spines along her tail to stand on end before whipping the appendage forward, a quartet of spines whistling off and sailing through the air toward the stump. A pronounced THUNK! echoed, and the duo observed the result of the attack: four Nadder spines, not quite neatly embedded in a line across the target, just a hair below center.

"Got a little closer than you," Nara teased, bouncing over to Holly. "You really going to let a months-old dragon beat you even?"

"Oh shut up," Holly snapped. "I said Cami would lord it over me, not you! Ugh, alright, I need to get this do-okay, give me some space would you?" she quipped as Nara jokingly laid her head on top of the brunette's helmet hair. Nara snorted and backed off, looking up and noting that the sky was truly getting dark now, and the moon was entering total eclipse, the blood red shadow almost completely covering the orbiting object.

Holly shook her head and reached up to straighten her hair, and then readied the first dart in her right hand once more. As her arm came up to throw however, she noted an odd, slightly tingly feeling erupt on the upper parts of her arm. Shrugging it off for the moment, she whipped her hand forward again.

The girl's senses suddenly came alive for a split second, everything crisp and clear and seeming to move in slow motion. For that moment she could practically see the exact path the dart would take when she let go, automatically adjusting her grip and aim so that as it left her hand, the weapon sailed perfectly straight, embedding itself almost completely in the dead center of the target.

"Nice job Holly, that was way better than last time!" Nara complimented. "Got it down finally?"

"No, I…something weird just happened," Holly said quietly, looking at her hand. Then, she glanced at her arm, where the odd sensation was still radiating out from. "Everything suddenly got really…I don't know, like I just knew exactly what to do. My arm feels weird too. Wait…wait a minute…" she reached up and began unclipping the holdfasts on her suit, unzipping it and releasing her arm from the outfit.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Nara queried, looking on with concern and coming up to look down over Holly's shoulder. The teen ignored her, quickly sliding the short sleeve of her shirt up to try and see if there was something that had gotten onto her skin or perhaps a scratch to make it tingle. What she found was much more shocking.

It was glowing faintly, a silvery color that almost matched the gleam of the Mysteel darts Holly had dropped moments before. The edges were still spreading, like a brand being etched into canvas and revealing an unusual design that didn't match anything either Holly or Nara had ever seen.

"What on earth?" the Nadder whispered. "You…what's doing this?"

"Not me," Holly whispered back. "It's like…oh, my, God." The teen sat bolt upright as a realization hit her, and her eyes looked up toward the eclipse hanging in the sky, before glancing back at the mark that was halting its spread, the glow remaining just as strongly though.

"What? What is it?" Nara queried.

"It's a symbol," Holly replied. "Just-just like Hawken said happened at Pesach almost two years ago. Everyone –Hiccup, Astrid, Ruff and Tuff- they all ended up with a symbol, Hawken said they started out glowing when the eclipse showed up, even Ember's birthmark. Tonight's the last eclipse too." A new light entered her eyes, and a smile showed up. "This…this means, oh geez this means I'm part of the team officially! I…I wonder if that's what the thing with the dart was?"

Nara cocked her head, and Holly raised her arm so the dragon could see the mark better, and Nara realized what the shape was. "I think so too," she agreed, examining the design: a sharpened arrow, the shaft laced with flame-like marks that stretched back to where it appeared to be fired from a dragon's mouth. It wasn't just any dragon either: it was a Night Fury's head profile. "Night Furies are famous for never missing. Holly, you've been marked as a marksman."

"Nice alliteration."

"You just got a supernatural tattoo and a gift and you're making fun of my speaking?"

The teen gave the dragon a deadpan look. "It's not a tattoo, remember the talk about those? And yes, yes I will; makes things easier to get used to."

Nara scowled. "Right, because you're never normal and making things more awkward helps. Still, you have a flaming arrow on your arm; pretty sure the sudden sense overload has something to do with that."

"I want to test that theory," Holly mused. She put her sleeve back in place, before reaching down and grabbing another dart, immediately whirling and letting the blade fly. Just like before, everything blazed into focus for her, adjusting even in her spin and resulting in the second dart sliding in right next to the first, causing the target to crack audibly, a long split racing out from the impact toward both sides of the stump.

"I think that confirms it," Nara commented. "We should tell Hawken about this."

"No, don't!" Holly suddenly exclaimed. "No, I want to keep this as a secret, wait until some really important time."

"But don't you think this is kind of an important time as is?"

"You know what I mean. Come on; work with me on this, will you? Please?"

Nara shuffled uncertainly, before sighing. "Oh, alright, I won't tell him. But you'd better have a really good reason for this. I don't think God gives this sort of thing out just because after all."

"No, he doesn't," Holly agreed. "Last time, it was right before a major battle."

Mom was not happy with Holly, that much was clear, but unfortunately short of me taking off to drag her back there wasn't much that could be done about my adventurous sister. She was with a dragon, so my mother settled for pacing back and forth as the sun set and the moon rose up in its progressively darkening show in the sky.

"She knows we're not here all night, and there's who knows what in the mountains; do you at least have some idea where those two would go?" she muttered, drawing looks from some of the villagers passing by.

I snorted. "Yeah, she's up at the target practice place they set up to the west of Thor's peak. There's not an animal on the island that would bother them anyway so long as Nara's watching either."

"She tell you she was heading there?"

"No, I just know where they are. Or at least where Nara is. Long story."

"Holly going to be back for the storytelling tonight?" Ember asked, walking down the steps from the Great Hall with Camicazi and Hiccup in tow. "We all know Gobber might not be the easiest to listen to, but he's not the only one for once tonight."

I shrugged. "Probably not. You do remember that Hiccup attached the first of the pockets to her suit a couple days ago, right? She's probably up there going all out with her pointy objects since she can carry them more easily now, and more of them."

"Right," Ember sighed. "Well, what about you guys? Heading up, or staying out with us to watch the moon for a little longer?"

"We're staying out here for now, unless Sam says otherwise," my mom replied, glancing over to where my dad was talking with Stoick (who was looking rather glad to have a welcome distraction from directing a bunch of rowdy Vikings hyped up for a festival). "Early enough that we might be able to watch the whole ec-Ember!"

I saw the mark on Camicazi's arm light up before I noticed Ember; in sync with the sudden illumination of the symbols we all wore, her eyes had gone wide, and she gasped aloud before collapsing to the ground. Immediately on alert, I jerked forward, catching her head before it hit the stone steps and trying to lift her up, before I made a different decision and let her lie down across the step.

"What just happened?" Hiccup asked, motioning Cami to help him keep gathering people far enough away to ensure Ember would not risk getting stepped on. "Dad! Ember just collapsed!"

"She's heating up, like that time before Jezebel first showed up," I noted, scales rolling across my arms and body as Ember began radiating enough heat to incinerate paper at a distance, her hair and skin glowing. "Mom, Dad, help Hiccup keep everyone back please, while we figure this out!"

"What about the marks?" my mom asked, pointing at both my arm and Hiccup's neck, where the designs that had been put there were both glowing. "Those lit up right when she went down. This has happened before, hasn't it?"

"The last time the symbols were glowing was when everyone except Ember and I received theirs," I said. "The last time Ember fainted like this was when she received a glimpse of the fight that was coming with Jezebel, some time before that. They didn't happen together like this, so either it's coincidence, or"-

"Or we're about to be thrown into something really bad," Hiccup finished for me. "If Ember is getting another vision of something to come, we're all getting some really big clues that we need to pay attention."

The night of Camicazi and Ruffnut's weddings suddenly came to mind. "Loki mentioned to me that Heimdall had received a vision a couple months ago," I said quietly. "If nothing's changed we might be getting a confirmation of what he saw."

"And you only decided to mention this now?!" Hiccup quipped, glaring at me from where he was trying to clear flammable debris away from Ember.

"He asked me to keep it private until we were certain it was a glimpse of the future," I replied. "So yes, I'm only mentioning it now."

Several minutes passed, and the glow of the symbols grew brighter as the moon above darkened, and Ember continued heating up, to the point where the rock beneath her was beginning to glow red. Nearly everyone had gathered around the steps to see what was going on. Then, just as quickly as it had started, all our symbols went dark again, the normal silvery outlines (or in my case, scales) all that showed, and Ember's glow died away. Moments later, her eyes fluttered open, and she gasped as she sat bolt upright, expression fearful.

"Whoa, hey, everything's fine!" I placated, kneeling down and placing a hand on her shoulder. Hiccup and Cami moved to do the same, before the heat of the still-burning rocks beneath us made them scoot back a little. "Ember, what happened?"

"I…it was another vision," she said quietly, confirming our concerns. She looked up at us, then Stoick, and my parents. "I saw flashes, all of us in a place I've never been to. It looked like your city, but much, much bigger." She took in a deep breath, and then shook her head. "Hawken, something's coming, and it's terrible. I saw cities leveled to the ground, thousands dead, creatures…nothing that has ever lived on earth, either earth. There was….it was like my gift, only a thousand-fold larger; fire and ice, meeting and driving death before them."

"Did it come from you?" Cami asked worriedly. Ember shook her head. "No, not from me. This wasn't natural in any manner. Oh Lord, I saw evil in it worse than anything Jezebel ever came up with; destruction for no other purpose but to destroy."

Then she looked at me, and tears welled up in her eyes. "Hawken, the thousands dead….there were Vikings, but there were also people like in your home world, as if they were fighting. I…I think whatever's coming is big enough to hit both our worlds. And…" she trailed off, seemingly not wanting to voice whatever was last on her mind.

"And what?" Stoick implored. Ember sucked in a breath, and shook her head again, before she spoke.

"Hawken, it was you. I saw you cold, burned….I saw you broken."

A/N-I know, I like to use cliffhangers and suspense a lot...

Yep, Holly's officially joining the team, but the rest won't know that for a while; as for what Ember saw...big things are on the way.

Let me know what you think, your predictions, critiques etc. in your reviews! And also, keep an eye out: the new RTTE season is out, and with it there appear to be several new dragons so updates will be returning to the Book of Dragons as soon as I make out the sketches!

Last of all, reply to guest reviewer THEFIREKING: I have an idea in place already as a semi-continuation after this series, but it will have a rather different, hopefully somewhat unique focus.