Hello all! Quick update! Woo! Let me just say, if you are in need of some seriously awesome action, you are in for a special treat. Let me know how you like it! As always, read, enjoy, and review!
FUN FACT: Cora's middle name is Silvenar, named after the city she grew up in, in Valenwood.
Chapter 21: Why We Are a Team
Hiccup burst out of the shed, throwing the door open roughly, causing it to shake violently on its hinges. His eyes scanned the surrounding trees of the marshes quickly, and, seeing no sign of his companion, he began to panic.
Toothless, who was dozing under a nearby tree, was instantly at the side of his paranoid human soul mate, ready to help in any way he could.
"Cora!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, head whipping to try and glance everything at once. "Gods, Cora!" The last thing he wanted to do was lose one of the most important things in his life.
Astrid appeared through the door after him, equally as frantic. "Cora!" she called, scanning the horizon.
His eyes continued their frantic searching, but he still could not see anything. He quickly got an idea, but turned and grasped Astrid by the shoulders. "I know this is going to look really weird, Astrid, but you have to trust me, alright?"
To this, she crinkled her face. "Um, ok?"
As quickly as he grasped her, he released her and turned outwards towards the marsh. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw in concentration, balling his fists and feeling the power begin rippling through him. He felt the blood and souls of dragons pursing through his veins with lightning speeds, and finally opened reptilian-like eyes, submitting to the beast within.
"LASS YAH NIR!"
As soon as the shout left his throat, Astrid and Toothless were glowing bright red, but only to his eyes. She was grinning and shook her head before crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her right leg. "Dragonborn," she mused through her victorious grin. "Babette owes me fifty septims."
Hiccup flashed her a lob-sided grin in relief, reminding her that he was still, very much, Hiccup.
His eyes returned to the landscape, seeing the life of a few fish, birds, and rabbits. He squinted hard before seeing a glowing figure moving briskly within the nearby trees, and he wondered why he'd not see her before. He turned to Astrid.
"I see her!" he said, pointing into the trees to their left.
Astrid directed her eyes to where he was pointing, before rolling them and giving up her search. "I don't see anything, but I trust you." She then turned her head and whistled, and, to Hiccup's amazement, a massive black horse with piercing and glowing red eyes galloped beside her. The eyes eerily reminded him of Cora's, and he glanced back at the trees, still seeing the aura of red light emitted from the elf's beating heart.
Astrid easily jumped and swung her leg over the steed with incredibly ease and grace before turning back to the Viking.
"You take care of this, Hiccup. I drew a map of how to find me at the Falkreath Dark Brotherhood sanctuary and put it on Toothless," she said, pulling her cowl back over to cover her face. She grabbed the reins to pull the horse up to whinny and kick its front legs out in front of it. "Answer the door with the phrase 'Silence, my brother' and it will allow you to enter. Whatever you do, get her to the sanctuary. We need her. I will see you soon, Hiccup. I love you," she said, as if she did every single day.
She turned her attention away from him, and with one final "ya!" and a crack of the reins, the horse was bolting into the cover of the trees. He watched her disappear before running back inside the shed and cutting the people free from their binds as fast as he could, not wanting Cora to get even further away or Astrid to return. She'd made a point of leaving them there to rot.
"Speak of this to no one, sparing you is a gift," he mumbled as he cut the last man free. The woman wordlessly scrambled free and bolted for the door as soon as she was released without looking back, but the Nord and the Khajiit nodded with a thank you to Hiccup before exiting the shed.
Hiccup sprinting back out of the shed, happy to see Cora still glowing faintly in the distance. Grabbling Toothless' saddle and swinging his body onto his dragon, he settled in for flight. "Alright bud, let's go get her. You know what to do," he said, clasping his flying suit to his dragon.
Toothless gave a quick nod of understanding before taking off at a blistering pace, blurring the ground below them. He danced between the trees with incredible ease and soon took off with one firm flap of his wings, stirring the finely packed dirt below them into the air. He snapped his prosthetic into place and clicked it to release his tail fin, sending the two spiraling into the sky.
Toothless let out the incredible roar of the Night Fury as they spun, echoing throughout the entire valley. Hiccup glanced the ground again, not needing the magic of the shout to detect Cora from this altitude. She was sprinting now, hauling herself over rocks and logs, trying desperately to avoid the dragon.
Hiccup leaned towards the girl trying to make the escape, and Toothless quickly followed, diving through the trees and gaining on her quickly. The dragon held out his feet as they closed rapidly on the elf, and, when they were close enough, he wrapped a clawed paw around Cora's upper arm and hauled her into the air. Cora screamed and let her feet kick out from under her.
"By the Nine!" she screeched in horror. "You goddamned Dragonborn, put me down!" She continued kicking and punching at Toothless' foot, but all he did was snort and roll his eyes at her attempts.
Hiccup clicked Toothless' tail into autopilot and slid to the side in his saddle, tilting off the side, lowering his head to see Cora struggling from upside down. He wrapped his legs around the dragon's midsection with one arm still holding onto the saddle, the other drifting lazily in the wind angling towards the ground.
Even though he looked like a child hanging haphazardly off of tree branch, his face was stern and his eyes hard as stone. "No way in Hel, Moonbrooke," he said.
Her eyes widened at just how far they were off the ground now, Toothless gaining altitude in hopes of stopping her attempts to escape. "Oh come on!" she said. "You were going back to Berk! To be with her! Was I really going to stand around and see that?"
Hiccup was still serious, his hair blowing in the wind as the blood rushed into his head. "I was going to take you with me! Gods, didn't you hear me? I don't want to know what life is without you! Besides, Astrid needs you at the sanctuary, whatever that is." He was growing increasingly angry and frustrated.
To this she scoffed, legs now dangling towards the ground in surrender. "Astrid this, Astrid that. Let's go to some assassin camp just because she said to," she mocked in an overly nasally voice, throwing her shoulders into the statement as best as she could. She then crossed her arms in defiance even though she was completely at his mercy. "And obviously your definition of life being impossible without each other is a little different from mine," she said indignantly.
His head was fuming with her blatant disrespect for Astrid, but he cocked his head with a scowl. "What exactly are you insinuating?"
Cora looked into his eyes, full of anger but also full of confusion and full of love. He deserved the truth. She took a deep breath and her stomach turned, having nothing to do with the weightlessness and the altitude. She let her mouth run like an idiot. "Hiccup, I don't know you, but I know that you make me stronger, and a better elf. You're different from any man I've ever met. Just let me explain, please, now I know that I love-"
Toothless suddenly threw the trio into a mad barrel roll to avoid a collision with another flying object, just missing it by mere inches. The dragon yelped as they began to plummet towards the ground. He held onto Cora tighter, screaming as her entire body was taken into his legs.
Hiccup almost calmly clicked his foot back into Toothless' saddle and let out the tail fin to balance them out again, giving a calming "It's alright, bud," to his dragon. As quickly as they had fallen, they were in the air again, Toothless and Cora still a little shaken up.
Hiccup turned the slightly stunned Night Fury around to see that the object was, indeed, another dragon. His eyes widened at the sight. Unlike the dragon in Whiterun, this one dawned metallic silver and blue scales, not orange ones, and was a bit bigger as well. Its wings looked as though it had seen war, all torn, tattered, and bloodied. Its entire body was covered with thick spikes that ran up its back and made a bony crown atop its armored head.
It turned in the air with a hard bank, and was soon chasing the trio down, shattering the earth with its screams and blowing a thick and fast blast of white ice out of its mouth. Toothless flipped around and dove under the stream, taking off in the opposite direction at maximum speeds, desperately clinging to Cora as Hiccup squinted against the power of the wind.
He turned his head back to see the dragon right on his tail, and, with a surprised yelp, had to push Toothless into another barrel roll to avoid another fast stream of frost. "Odin, that thing is fast," he muttered, having to brush ice out of his hair. "Looks like running isn't an option, bud," he said, petting the side of his neck. The dragon answered with a snort, still focusing on his speed flight across the sky.
Cora peeked her head up from under Toothless to look at Hiccup, long black hair shooting out behind her and her eyes watering in the racing air. Somehow she still retained the ability to look sarcastic. "I'm sorry, what?" she said.
"You heard me!" he said, and she almost swore she heard a smile playing on his lips.
Suddenly, Toothless dipped his head underneath himself to take a buckle of Cora's armor in his teeth and pull her out from his arms. She screamed as he flicked his head back almost effortlessly, effectively tossing her backwards over Hiccup and onto the saddle, while still maintaining a blistering speed.
She instantly clung to Hiccup's back with her legs and arms, as, the second she hit, she felt herself bounce off of the saddle and almost tumble to her death. "Oh Divines, don't let me fall!" she cried.
The dragon behind them began to slow down, but still attempted to keep up and continued shooting at them with balls of snow, to which they effectively dodged through intensely complicated acrobatic tricks. "He's slowing down!" Hiccup called over his shoulder. "Now is our chance!"
Cora looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. "No trying to train it, Dragonborn?"
He let out a sarcastic guffaw. "Because a coma sounds so nice right now. And I like letting my companion out of my sight to kill people," he joked, but she returned his statement with a silent scowl. "Too soon?" he said with a grin. She simply rolled her eyes.
"Fine, fine," she said, drawing her bow. "I'm with you."
Toothless slowed down just enough for her to be able to turn around in the saddle to face the oncoming dragon. Hiccup reached his arms backwards and wrapped them around her abdomen to keep her from falling off while still facing forward. She drew an arrow from her quiver faster than Hiccup could blink, and he quickly pulled out his flame sword and held it out to the side. Feeling the flame in the wind, she stuck her arrow in the flame and withdrew it again, effectively lighting the head on fire. With one eye closed, she knocked the flaming arrow into her bow and fired it perfectly into the dragon's chest.
The fire immediately spread across its midsection, and the beast let out a shriek as it was momentarily consumed with flame. It howled in pain and slowed down further, now having trouble flying straight and with enough speed to keep up with Toothless. She fired three stealthy arrows before the dragon could react, the metal tearing through its wings and scales, burying deep in soft flesh and muscle.
"See, this is why we are a team!" Hiccup shouted triumphantly and with a laugh. "I fly the dragon and provide the flame, you fire the said flaming arrows." Cora hid a smile, feeling a blush in her cheeks and forgetting why she was ever mad at him to begin with.
As blood began dripping from its wounds, the frost dragon began falling to the ground. Cora tried to ignore the Viking's comment, focusing on taking down the dragon. She quickly put her bow on her back and unsheathed a sword from her side. "Turn Toothless around!" Cora yelled.
Hiccup suddenly shot her a grin, allowing her to situate herself forward once again, hugging his back tightly. "If you're up to what I think you are, let me be the first to say that you're crazy," he said grinning, but still pulled his best friend around into a bank turn to face the dragon.
"It's falling!" Cora cried, staring at now thrashing animal. It was frantically flapping its shredded wings and slowly becoming victim to gravity.
Toothless started flying towards it as Hiccup leaned forward. "You've got one shot, Cora, nothing more," he said, almost hesitantly, worrying about her safety.
Cora was fearless as she placed one hand on his shoulder to balance herself as she slipped her legs under her like a frog and teetered on the balls of her feet. Toothless continued his break neck speed towards the dying animal. He curved into a slight dive, giving her a clear line between herself and the dragon. "I know."
She mumbled a count-down as her heart pounded with adrenaline. The howling dragon came closer into view.
3…
She could hear it's horrifying and blood curling scream as it tried desperately to fly.
2…
Hiccup's hair was flying in the wind as she stood up on Toothless' saddle, still bracing herself, but finding her balance and preparing to test her fate. Her eyes narrowed to slits in determination as she saw her chance coming.
1…
In two swift bounds, she ran across Toothless' body with her sword in her hand and lightly stepped onto his neck. He too squinted his eyes in concentration as her foot landed softly on his head, and he tossed it back like a springboard to give the elf flight into the air. She raised her sword above her head and yelled a battle cry as she flew towards the beast's head with three hundred feet of air between her and the ground. She arched her entire body, putting as much force into her arms as she could.
"FOS!" she heard from behind her, and she suddenly had the force she needed to mount the dragon and put it out of its misery.
The momentum of Hiccup's shout propelled her forward through the air towards the dragon's head. It tried to blast her with frost, but the power of the shout got her there before it could, and she wildly wacked her sword downward into the dragon's neck as soon as she collided with it. Her body bounced off of its neck as she slid her blade into its neck roughly, blood twisting and spiraling in the air.
Her sharp Nightingale blade cut through its rough armor like butter, and it died instantly with one final roar, falling the rest of the distance to the ground in a lifeless heap. With the dragon now dead, Cora found herself in free fall, still grasping onto the horns of the dragon and screaming.
"HICCUP!" she yelled, feeling the wind rush against her body impossibly faster. Then the dragon below her started to glow, its soul swirling in the whizzing air around her. Its skin became too hot to touch, so she let go and tried to spread her arms out to fall facing the ground. However the wind caught on her armor, sending her into a tumbling ball, hurtling towards the ground at alarming speeds.
"I'm coming, Cora!" Hiccup called to her, outstretched hand inches away from hers. Toothless maintained his steep dive, but the ground was approaching far too quickly for Hiccup's liking and he began desperately reaching for Cora's arm. The swirling of the golden soul was making it hard to see and latch onto her arm, and Hiccup was starting to make out individual bushes on the ground.
"Odin, don't do this to me!" he shouted, and with one last reach, he managed to grab her upper arm and haul her back onto Toothless. The dragon spread his wings as soon as she was onboard and jerked the two back as the wind caught within them, less than thirty feet off the ground.
The dragon who was previously threatening them was now nothing more than a skeleton, and crashed into the ground roughly before shattering, sending bones and bone fragments in all directions over the grassy plain.
Cora was in Hiccup's arms like a bride, her arms around his neck and her head buried into his underarm, still shaking and panting. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her tightly and pressed his cheek against the top of her head.
"Hey, hey," he cooed gently. "It's okay, I've got you. You're safe now." He rocked back and forth in comfort as Toothless leveled off into a stable and relaxing flight. When Cora offered no response but clinging tighter, Hiccup laughed and petted the Toothless' rumbling side, telling him to land. "That's enough flying in for the rest of the week, bud, let's take a break on solid ground."
Cora looked up at him, the effects of free fall and almost becoming a pancake still on her face. "For the week? How about for eight lifetimes, my Gods," she said. "I wouldn't even ride a dragon in Sovngarde if it was offered to me!"
Hiccup laughed again. "Flying becomes a drug, don't worry. With me around, you'll be hooked."
Cora just rolled her eyes and clung tighter.
The trio landed on the ground and Hiccup hopped off Toothless with ease, but the elf tumbled and swayed, needing the dragon's head to catch her from falling flat on her face several times. Hiccup thought it strange that the woman who was stupid enough to jump off of one dragon and onto another hundreds of feet in the air was having trouble with something as simple as standing.
He tilted his head, watching her giggle and scratch Toothless under the chin, his back leg twitching behind him with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. She seemed so happy, and so carefree, and something about her captivated him more than he had ever been before with anything.
She was so gentle, but oh so deadly. So afraid of the world, but so brave as to wield a sword in the face of the worst it had to offer. She was willing to expose her weaknesses to him, and trust him with her life. She was not the type to trust others so easily, that much he knew, and suddenly he felt honored to be the only man to witness her frightened, or saddened.
He was back on that snowy mountain to again, overtaken with the power of the Dovah, and forgetting all about Astrid to focus on Cora. Seeing Astrid again was amazing and everything he had wanted, but he had never been so bewitched by her as he was with Cora. It seemed as she controlled his body as he found himself walking closer, desiring to be as close to her as possible.
He began humming a familiar tune as he got closer to her, and, hearing him, she immediately looked into his eyes and blushed deeply, letting her hands drop away from Toothless. He stepped closer still, a teasing smile on his lips as he continued to hum the song of the Dragonborn.
Before his brain had registered anything, his arms were wrapped around her tightly, pressing her thin but full body close to his. It took all of the strength he could muster to not fall to his knees before her in a sad ball of moaning pleasure. Astrid felt good, but Cora felt like a puzzle piece locking into place, just where she was meant to fit.
His lips found her ear, his hot breath rushing over her. "Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin…" he sang softly against her flesh, causing her to quiver and wrap her arms around his torso, pulling him impossibly closer.
She was here. Right now. Astrid had left and Cora was right here. Where she needed to be.
"You were awake," she said quietly, almost embarrassed, but he giggled.
"Of course I was," he said, kissing her temple gently. "But I thought that if you knew I was awake, you wouldn't have put on that wonderful tunic or come into bed next to me."
She pulled away to stare into his flirtatious eyes, but she frowned. "Hiccup, can you please make up your mind?"
He was puzzled by her strange remark, and was even more so when she pushed his hands off of her thin waist. "Make up my mind about what?"
Cora sighed loudly, wordlessly calling him a moron. "I took down another dragon with you, yes. But I know the second you see Astrid, you're going to be goosh in her palms. You'll just lie to her again to make it look like you don't care for anyone else…"
"You don't know that!" Hiccup countered, offended.
"Yes I do, Haddock, you did once already," she said.
He blushed madly and ran a hand though his hair before shifting his weight nervously. "That was shock, alright? I was at High Hrothgar and all I could think about was you. You're a mystery I can't solve, Cora. I can control myself around Astrid. With you, it's different. Gods, I don't even know how I got over here," he confessed, his entire face now in flame.
Cora was silent for a moment as she thought about his words, but suddenly heard something rustling in the trees about thirty feet away at the foot of the forest. Her body jerked towards the sound defensively in response. Toothless lowered himself to the ground and bared his teeth as Cora drew and arrow back in the direction of the footsteps.
But then she heard something else. Clapping. She heard clapping.
A figure then emerged from behind the tree putting his hands together in admiration. "Hell of a fight, Dragonborn," he gestured to the sky. "Saw the whole thing."
Hiccup relaxed before responding with an awkward grin and a thank you, but Cora kept her arrow knocked and took a step forward.
The man was older, easily in his fifties, with long grey hair spilling down his back, dawning a matching set of armor to Astrid's, without the boots and the cowl. This man was barefoot, strong, with the darkness of the Void itself swimming in his eyes.
Cora's past then hit her faster than she had been falling before, taken aback by the sudden clarity of her memories: her father's screaming, his blood, her screaming, and this man's face, disappearing, unscathed, into the darkness, never to be seen again until this moment.
She grit her teeth together, seeing the smug and disgusting look on the man's face, his arms across his chest like he owned the province and could kill anyone he wanted with the massive axe on his back. He glanced at the small girl with little concern as to her pointy little needle, but when she started advancing on him with a glazed look in her eyes, he dropped his hands and began feeling uncomfortable with the situation. He took a step back.
"Look, ham hock, put that bow dow-" he managed to spit out, before an arrow was fired directly into his shoulder, knocking him to the ground with a grunt.
"Cora!" Hiccup yelled, trying to grab her and stop her from advancing on the man, but she tossed him off, using her anger to kick his metal leg out from under him and push him into the dirt.
She knocked another arrow and pointed it at the man's head. He was strangely calm at being threatened, which just made Cora angrier, but it was satisfying to know what he was in pain, almost unable to even touch the protrusion from his flesh without utter and complete agony.
She took a step closer, pointing the sharp tip into his forehead and drawing a single drop of blood which proceeded to run down his nose. She was shaking now, so angry she thought she would explode, but suddenly words were leaving her mouth.
"That was a warning shot," she hissed. "Admit that you killed Gadnor Moonbrooke four years ago, and maybe, just maybe, I'll have mercy, and kill you sooner rather than later."
If you were wondering, my new cover art for this story is of this chapter, during the dragon fight. I have had this fight scene echoing in my head for months! Hope you liked. Feel free to review about the cover art as well, and have a wonderful day :)