Unbreakable

The middle of a war is not the best time for one boy to discover that he is not unbreakable. Sequel to 'Starlight, Star Bright'.

Chapter 26: Whether You Like it or Not

A/N: Hey, this chapter title reminds me of a great joke I heard: Animal hide. Leather you like it or not xD xD xD xD Anyway, I feel like I'm driving you all slowly insane with the sheer number of updates, so um...don't review. Like if you want, but like, you don't have to review, or even read this chapter. I probably actually shouldn't even be posting this just cuz...yeah...

Oh, also, to the person who asked me what my favorite DoB episode was, PhoenixofMyth... yeah. I'm not sure I HAVE one, actually. I really liked the Night and the Fury, and Tunnel Vision, but Live and Let Fly felt kind of like they were trying too hard to pander to little boys, and I'm obviously not a little boy xD seriously why is everything for HTTYD advertised to boys D: I actually thought they did amazing with making sure the movie appeared to both girls and boys. Girls enjoy the romance between Hiccup and Astrid, the friendship of Hiccup and Toothless, and the slow evolution of Hiccup's character. Boys enjoy it because dragons and fight scenes xD or at least, that's what I'm guessing because every ad that's for boys for HTTYD shows Hiccup holding his ornate shield or Inferno xP

It was not as dark as it had been in my dream about Eret, but it was still dim. The only source of light in the room was coming from a flickering, guttering candle. For a moment, all I could see was that tiny flame, trying so hard to survive, sure to be snuffed out when the wax burned down.

And then Alvin's scarred, sneering face came into view. He looked worse for the wear than I had ever seen him, with his beard tangled and his Viking helmet askew. His armor was on, mostly crooked, and he held a battleaxe in one hand, but he wasn't using it. He leered at the two men in front of him, over the candle, and my heart caught in my throat. Dad and Gobber stood across from him, both bound tightly by ropes and chained by handcuffs.

Unlike Alvin, however, Dad and Gobber looked unhurt, though angry, as Alvin began striding back and forth in front of them and the single guttering candle. "Where is it?" He slammed his axe down on some hard surface, and I realized the candle must be resting on a table, impossible to make out in the darkness. "Tell me, and your suffering will be cut short. If you refuse, I'll make you regret it."

The witch Excellinor stood just behind her son, but she'd blended in so well with the shadows that at first, I hadn't seen her. When she became visible, her words became audible, spoken in a kind of furious hiss, like she was reciting a spell. "It's that Hiccup boy," she repeated, over and over, like some kind of mantra. "He's done it, he's done it, I know he's done it."

Alvin spun around sharply, looking away from the two prisoners, to glare sharply at her. "Mother," he hissed, "do you mind? I'm trying to reason with them!"

"They're of no use!" Excellinor slammed her hand down on the table now, yelling almost as loudly as Alvin. "We need the Hiccup boy, Alvin! But you let him slip through our fingers, I can't believe you did that, letting him get away on that island like that—

"That was entirely your fault!" Alvin raged, clearly stung at being reminded of something that was still obviously an open wound. "It was you who couldn't perform your magic on that island, otherwise—

"That man-eating garden was too powerful, it would have overridden any spells I tried to perform!" Excellinor yelled. For the first time since I'd ever seen her, on my birthday of last year, when she had forced me to dig up the Dragon Jewel, she was not bone white. Her color was high, her cheeks flushed as she hollered at her son. "I told you we'd have to find him manually, but you let him slip away! And you brought me back another, with no worth whatsoever, no value to me—

"He has valuable knowledge of the King of the Wilderwest!" Alvin looked abashed, but angry. "He's still hiding those pages from us, I know it!"

"Then why don't you go and find them, instead of making a big stink and threatening him with death every week or so?" The witch jeered.

While all this was going on, Dad and Gobber were struggling to find a way to break out of their chains, subtly. I wanted to tell them it was no use. Outcast chains were made to be impossible to get out of. But of course, it was a dream, so they wouldn't have been able to hear me even if I had shouted. I watched them struggle, and then Gobber accidentally knocked over the candle in his haste. The wooden table blazed suddenly with bright flames, licking everything in sight. The arguing mother and son were snapped out of their disagreement by the sight of the fire, and I expected them to panic, but…

"Gurglelap, flick-a-flame," Excellinor said coolly, pointing her hand at the flames. They died at once, and something in my memory stirred when she spoke the words. Gobber was beginning to look a little creeped out by now, considering this woman had just banished the flames with her hand.

"They're not talking," Alvin growled impatiently at his mother, as though nothing had happened.

"That's because they're not the ones who stole it," she snapped. "It's that Hiccup boy, I know it is!"

"It's not possible! His leg, it would have set off the alarms," Alvin snapped. "I know what kind of protection that thing was equipped with, and I know that Hiccup would never have been able to sneak in and out of there without being seen! He's never even landed on this island, and not to mention Humongous! Odin help us if he ever managed to steal anything from us, he's the worst Burglar in the uncivilized world."

Excellinor frowned, staring off into space with those pale eyes. "It doesn't make any sense," she said thoughtfully, and her eyes narrowed even farther, like she was calculating possibilities in her head, moving through each thought quicker than most could blink.

But just as her mind was whirling, mine was, too. Never landed on this island? What did that part mean? I had landed on Outcast Island tons of times, way more than I could count and frankly, way more than I wanted to, anyway.

"Take them to one of the prisons, I suppose," Excellinor waved a careless hand in the direction of Dad and Gobber. "If they don't talk by the dawn, we can always execute them."

"I thought you said we weren't allowed to kill everyone," Alvin muttered sourly, as the dream began to fade to black.

"I didn't say we couldn't kill anyone…"

I opened my eyes and sat up, gasping for air and my mind still whirling with that dream. The only thing I could really seem to make sense of right now was that Dad and Gobber had been captured, they were on Outcast Island, and they'd be dead by tomorrow morning. It was night. It was pitch black outside the windows, and Tuffnut, his sister, and Fishlegs were all still sleeping, the dragons snoozing lightly. Toothless opened his green eyes the instant I opened mine, and for a moment, we both sat there in the darkness, him asking me silently what was wrong, and me finding myself unable to answer.

The silence was broken by voices outside, and I realized that Astrid's watch had ended, but their conversation didn't sound like that. It sounded…angry. At least Astrid did. I crawled closer to the closed front door, pressing my ear against it. I heard footsteps on the porch.

"You're being unfair, Snotlout," Astrid said coolly, "Hiccup hates this just as much as the rest of us, you know that."

"No, I don't," the other replied stubbornly. "You certainly wouldn't know from looking at him, anyway."

"He's scared," Astrid interrupted hotly. "He doesn't know what's going on, he's worried about his father—

"A father he can't even remember!"

"That's not fair, that's not his fault! Stop accusing him of things he has no control over!"

"If this hadn't happened, if he hadn't wandered off into the forest that night with Humongous—

I heard a sudden, sharp blow being dealt, and Astrid dropped her voice, yet every word carried. "Don't you dare blame Hiccup for what Alvin's done to him. Don't. You. Dare."

"It is partly his fault, Astrid! He's just being stupid, and he won't do anything except sit around on his ass, and Stoick expects us to do the same, just drops off the face of the earth with a quick little, 'oh, by the way, keep my son safe in case a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians attack while I'm away'! That's all he said to us, all he cares about! I just wish Hiccup didn't have to…to be…to be such a burden."

Maybe because the day had passed in such a blur of unfeeling numbness, but I was feeling every emotion tenfold right now, and the fear for Dad and Gobber was suddenly forgotten in the hurt and anger I felt over what was being said. I heard Astrid dealing him more blows, and for a second, I sat there seething. But I wasn't the stewing type. I wasn't going to let anger sidetrack me. I jumped to my feet and motioned for Toothless to follow me. He tilted his head questioningly, but I shook mine.

Don't ask questions, just go with it, I mouthed at him. To my surprise, he nodded in agreement and I opened the back door, letting it swing open silently. We made it off the porch and onto the wet grass where I slowly hiked myself up onto his back, but just as we were getting ready to rise up…

"Ow! Astrid, wait, wait! Did you hear something?"

The sound of blows paused, and then Astrid, "Through here."

I realized what she meant a second too late, and by that time, she and Snotlout were already behind the house, both of them glaring at me now instead of arguing with each other.

"What, exactly, are you doing?" Astrid put her hands on her hips. "You do know that Stoick put us on dragon lockdown, right? And, uh, last I checked, he said no one was to leave the island while he was gone."

"His orders are void," I replied, trying to keep my response short. "I'm leaving."

This was all it took. Snotlout started yelling again, although this time, it was at me. "Why do you have be so goddamn selfish? Here we are, trying to keep you safe, and you're going to flying out on a joyride—

"LOOK!" I never even knew I could raise my voice as loud as I did that day, but both Snotlout and Astrid looked surprised. "Dad and Gobber have been captured, Alvin has them, they're on Outcast Island, and Excellinor wants to execute them in the morning. I'm leaving to get them back, and Eret, too. Any questions?"

"Just one," Astrid leaned her elbow on Toothless' saddle. "Why in Hel are you going alone?"

"I didn't think you'd want to be invited," I said angrily, though I kept my gaze fixed on Snotlout. "Sorry to have been such a burden on you."

To his credit, Snotlout did not flinch; he stared at me rather coolly before replying. "Well, whatever you were thinking, you can get off Toothless right now because you are not going anywhere on one of your effing lone wolf trips again!"

"Leave me alone! Just leave me alone! This has nothing to do with you!"

"Nothing to do with me? That's my chief—

"He's my father!"

"Fine, then! Have fun going to Outcast Island, all by yourself, where you'll most likely get captured by Alvin the Treacherous, right alongside the other two. You'll be doing them a world of help, Hiccup."

I heard a sudden noise to my left, something between a snarl and a sneeze, the Nadder's signature noise, and when I looked over, Astrid was seated on Stormfly's back. "Uh, boys? You're still arguing about this? C'mon, let's go."

"You guys aren't invited," I replied.

"Hiccup, invited?" She laughed, a little sarcastically. "It's not a party to me! Thor, will you just shut up and fly?"

I frowned at her. "You guys will be in danger."

"You know, we have been planning to be your last line of defense for the last three days now," Snotlout pointed out. "We're all kind of used to risking our lives by this point. Hookfang, c'mon!" He pushed open the back door and called for his dragon, effectively waking up the others.

And, of course, when they found out where we were going, all they wanted was to come, too.

Well, except for Fishlegs, mainly.

"Do we have to go?" he squeaked uncertainly. "Can't we just tell one of the adults, or something?"

"They could be dead by the morning! The ride to Outcast Island is much quicker by dragon than by boat, you know the adults won't ride dragons anyway, and besides that, Dad wanted everything kept private as possible. I'm not telling anyone who doesn't already know where he went, or why he went there."

Astrid looked, for just a second, a little confused. "Why did he go there, Hiccup? To cut off Alvin's forces at the base?"

I swallowed, my mind filling with images of my hands, digging in the dirt, pulling out that beautiful, pulsing red jewel. King. "Yeah, let's go with that."

Fishlegs reluctantly mounted his Gronckle, the twins got settled on their Zippleback, and Snotlout and Hookfang gave me a thumbs-up to let me know everyone was ready to go. I glanced around at them all, biting my lip.

Astrid read my mind. "We're going with you, whether you like it or not."

Trying to stop Astrid, I thought to myself, must be kind of like trying to stop the clouds from moving in the sky. Speaking of the sky…I glanced up at it, all dark, no stars or moon to light the way.

"Alright then," I grumbled, seeing no way to ditch them as of yet, "let's get going, then."