The bad news: nothing big happens in this chapter. Just some character-building.

The good news: while waiting for the ffn servers to come back online, I finished the next chapter where the last arc of this story begins and things actually happen. It just needs to be proofread so expect it up in an hour or two.

Chapter 36

Your majesty. I'm not sure at what point I decided to bow, but I did. My wings spread, bumping the nose of the dragon next to me. Toothless was next to dip his head, turning his so that there was no way he could be mistaken for looking directly at the king. Group by group, the dragons around us bowed as well.

The king sighed a cloud of icy fog. There is no need for that. This is your kingdom, not mine.

I was the only one who listened to him. Straightening up, I asked, It's not that I'm unhappy to see you, but what are you doing here?

Valka was concerned by your friend's words about the Berserk Vikings. I agreed to check up on your Nest on her behalf.

Oh. Thank you. She was right: they did attack, but we took care of it. I side-eyed the forest I had ravaged. I don't think they'll be coming back any time soon. Did . . . did she come with you?

No. She feared your cousin would have revealed her true nature. Another circle of waves – probably ripples to the king's eye – radiated outward as the king began to turn. I will give her your regards. It was good to see you.

Wait! I whined both in my mind and physically. Are you going already?

Your Nest is safe. There is no need for my presence.

But you just got here! I knew I didn't sound much like a chief's heir right now, but he just got here! You have to meet our Chief – err, Alpha – at least. Think of it as a diplomatic visit. Your Nest isn't going to self-destruct anytime soon, right?

. . . Valka has agreed to avoid getting herself into precarious situations until my return. However, I must doubt her ability to keep that promise.

I felt an odd, bitter pride at that. Looks like I took after my mom.

Hiccup, the king said, are you sure that they would wish to meet me?

Why wouldn't they? They all bowed when they saw you . . . And we're not talking about the dragons right now.

Truth be told, I'd forgotten about the Berkians. They . . . hmm . . . it was hard to figure out what they thought of the king when every single face was divided into 100% shock. This had come out of nowhere, after all.

They will, I said confidently. Give them time. The last alpha dragon we met tried to kill us, so they're probably a little nervous.

The king tilted his head a little in surprise. From what I've seen of your kin, I would not believe your clan capable of provoking such a response from my kind.

Wasn't you guys, I told him. This one could breathe fire. And fly. It wasn't a fun time.

Was it one of these dragons?

An image flashed in my mind. A colossal dragon equipped with thick scales, and spear-like thorns; a bony plate on its nose and jaws big enough to snap a boat in half. Yep. That was a Red Death, all right. From the king's memories, six cruel eyes locked straight on me, and a spray of fire spurted from the depths of her throat. It made me think of another time I had faced that fire. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more these two pictures seemed the same. . .

That's her, I said, stunned. That's not just her kind, I think that's actually her! When did you meet her?

For a brief second, the king growled low in his throat. She was the monarch of my Nest before I arrived. I ousted her from her throne. I was not aware she had survived her injuries.

He fought that thing? I could only imagine what it had been like. Toothless and I had defeated her through evasion and cunning, and while I'm sure the king could be cunning, I had to question how fast that huge body could move. If the picture he had shown me was anything to go by, the clash between those two giants had been up close and personal.

I caught a bitter scent. Right. Not just me and dragons. There was also a village of frightened Vikings to deal with. The king's growl, although not directed at them, had spooked them. They had backpedalled so they were up against the village wall, or else had ducked behind it. Most of them had weapons drawn, though none aimed them at the king; wild guess here, but they probably knew that antagonizing a dragon this gigantic was a terrible idea – especially in light of how last time had gone. The king, his own nostrils flaring, retreated deeper into the water. He sucked in air, and blew.

The icy stream was more concentrated than usual. The king aimed directly at the water, creating ice floes that popped above the surface like cork. The display met with mixed awe and fear from the crowd, and many dragons moved away, not enjoying the drop in temperature. Toothless didn't seem to mind, but I jumped into the sky, taking flight –

Oh.

Up here, I could see it. This wasn't a mere demonstration of strength. The ice floes had a pattern to them, a meaning. In blocky, but unmistakeable letters, they spelled out: Hello.

"Wow. Wow! Toothless, did you . . . what I am saying? You wouldn't understand. Skullcrusher! Hey, Skullcrusher! Get my dad up here!"

I squawked at the Rumblehorn, and flicked my ears at Berk's chief. Skullcrusher lumbered over, and nosed his rider's side. Dad, still keeping his eyes on the king, climbed aboard his dragon who swiftly joined me.

"Hiccup, what is . . .?" He trailed off. His mouth opened in a perfect 'O' of astonishment as he beheld the king's work. "It speaks our language."

I took Dad and Skullcrusher to one of the piers, growling at the other dragons gathered there. Toothless caught on and charged them, arching his wings as he ordered them to vacate. The king drifted closer, waiting patiently at the pier's very end. We landed in the middle, and Dad slung his leg from over his dragon, and dropped onto the hollow-sounding wood.

Your majesty, I said as Dad took a few cautious steps. This is Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk.

He is your sire. That remark needed no confirmation.

"I take it he's friendly," Dad whispered to me.

I nodded. I pointed at him. I pointed at Chief Mogadon, still saddled on Grump. I pointed back at Dad, and then at the king.

Dad swallowed. He puffed his chest out, holding his chin high as he took those last steps to the edge of the pier, where the king lowered himself so that Berk's chief stood centered between his tusks. The two studied each other, reading each other as only chieftains could do. Dad's cape rippled in the wind of the king's exhales.

He held out his hand, palm facing the great dragon. The king sniffed, extracting from the offer what information he could. There was a moment's pause as he digested his newly found knowledge, and examined the Viking Chief with red-shadowed eyes.

The king leaned forward, and let his scales rest against Dad's palm.

He smiled. In a voice that seemed to carry through the entire region, Dad boomed, "Welcome, oh Great King of Dragons."

The king rumbled. It was higher-pitched than his previous growl and even the most paranoid Viking knew that this was not a threatening sound, but one of acknowledgement.

"Mogadon, come here!" Dad waved his rival chief over.

The Meathead Chief stalked up the pier. "Dragons don't have kings," he insisted, but his voice was weak and unsure.

"Explain that to them," Dad said, speaking of the observing dragons, many of which still had their heads bowed in reverence.

Chief Mogadon took one good look around, and surrendered. "Uh, hello, Dragon King."

He gave the king a short, uncertain wave. His majesty watched, and then lifted his own forepaw out of the water. His stubby, webbed toes waggled as he mimicked the Chief's wave. The two Viking Chiefs appeared torn between being impressed, and disturbed.

"I am Stoick, Chief of this island. Mogadon is Chief of the island to the east."

The king rumbled. He set his paw back into the water –

Only he did it too fast, and the wave it created threatened to topple the nearest ship. The king swung his tusks around, hooking the capsizing ship under the mast before it could fall. He tried to nudge it back up straight, but pushed too strong, and it tipped the other way. He caught it again, and when it looked like he had shoved it too hard a second time, quickly froze the water around it so that the ship stayed upright.

Silence.

I apologize, he said, and I swear it was a deadpan.

There was absolutely no way the king would ever be able to set foot in the village. But the pastures nearby were a perfectly viable option. The king climbed up Berk's cliffs – wrecking quite a few of them along the way – and collapsed in the grass. The big thump set off a round of bleating from the sheep nearby, but they settled down quickly. If living on Berk had taught them anything, it was how to adapt.

The alien noise caught the king's attention, however. For the first time, he noticed the small animals that shared his field. He crept closer to them, almost like a cat. The herd waddled away at first, but when it became clear the king didn't intend to give up (and he made no move to eat them), they stopped running. One of them even had the gall to wander closer, making the king take an alarmed step back. He sniffed that individual hard enough that I thought the poor thing might be sucked up into his lungs.

Those are sheep, I told him. They don't do much.

Sheep, the king repeated. Do they live here?

More or less. They're part of our village. We let them out in the morning so they can graze, and take them in at night so that predators don't get them.

Predators? The king stared at the herd in concern. Where do they come from?

The woods mostly . . . Uh, what . . .?

As I spoke, the king had lumbered over to the nearby trees. He breathed in, and then created an icy cloud that rapidly froze every tree it touched. When he finished, a wall of solid ice separated the fields from the forest.

There will be no predators tonight. He laid down with the exact same satisfaction as a sheepdog guarding its herd.

. . . Thanks.

The king's seemingly random actions had been seen by much of Berk. At least half the village crowded together on the top of the walls, gawking. Little kids peeked out from the sides of the wall entrance; a couple of bold children even crept to the edge of the pasture, before darting back to safety. The king ignored them all; he was long used to being the star of a mass audience.

Apart from me, the two he did pay attention to were the approaching Chiefs. They walked side-by-side, moving as a pack, already prepared on some unconscious level to defend each other against this giant. Toothless followed them, chuffing at his majesty.

After a thoughtful silence, Chief Mogadon spoke first. "Can you really understand us?"

I didn't need for the king to ask. I automatically translated the words and sent them into his mind. The king glanced at the ground. Hiccup, is there . . .?

One of our enemy's boats was wrecked on some rocks by shore. You should have seen it when you came here.

His majesty projected a general request then, and immediately, at least a dozen large dragons flew out of Berk and toward the stranded Berserk ship. The king watched then, redirecting the attention of the two chiefs. They didn't know what to make of the small flock ripping the mast off the shipwreck and giving it to the king.

At least until the king picked it up, and wrote: Yes.

"Oh. Well." Mogadon turned to Dad. "Did you know he was coming?"

"I knew as much as you did."

I warbled, and hopped onto the king's tusk, purring. I don't think the king was capable himself of purring, but he made a pleased sound. Toothless, never to be ignored, pounced on the tusk's tip. The king frosted his face in a light reprimand.

"This must be whom my son told me about," Dad said. "He said he was rescued by a dragon king after that mess at the Raiders' island."

"Then his kingdom isn't near here." When the king nodded in agreement, the deep lines of Mogadon's face sagged with relief. "I'm not sure if I should envy your tribe and all its exciting adventures, Stoick." He looked at his majesty. "May I ask why are you visiting?"

The king gestured at me with a foreclaw. I preened; guess who was the most well-connected person in Berk!

No, Toothless. It's not you. Stop prancing.

The three monarchs spoke for a long time. Quite a bit of that time was consumed by waiting for the king's slow writing. Yet the two Viking Chiefs were patient with him, and when they answered his questions or asked their own, gave no sign that there had been a lapse in the speaking. The three of them had connected deeply as only people of their status could.

"And you say there will be no dragons raids," Chief Mogadon said at the conclusion of a lengthy discussion about the Barbaric Archipelago's time under the Red Death's rein.

The king wrote, Not from us.

"Well, that's convincing enough for me." Mogadon admitted, "Guess there's no reason to keep fighting them. Least until another evil queen shows up."

I rode on Dad's shoulder as the two Chiefs returned to their kind. The king turned back to the flock of sheep, blowing snow onto the back of the closest one. Said sheep shivered, and moved away. The king appeared saddened by that.

I spoke to him. When you return to your Nest, Stoick's going to want to come along. He wants to ask Valka about Drago Bludvist. I . . . I told him the truth about her. Will that be okay?

Yes, the king said. Despite what she might think, I believe this would be good for her.

I just had cut off conversation with the king, when Mogadon mumbled to Dad. "So . . . that dragon king can talk."

"It would appear so."

"He's sentient, then." Mogadon took off his helmet. He stared directly at his own reflection in the metal, and tilted it so he could study the horns. "That means the things he rules over . . . they must be, as well."

Dad took a moment. "I wouldn't say their minds are the same as you and me –"

"But they are at least a little sentient. There's something going on in those brains of theirs."

". . . Yes."

Mogadon stared even harder at the horns before hastily making an excuse to leave.

I didn't see Chief Mogadon outside after that. He had almost immediately retreated to his guest home. The one time I checked on him, I peered through the window and saw him talking to his heir. Both of them looked pale.

" . . . What happened here?"

Gobber's question echoed. There seemed to be no life in this charred wasteland to answer him. Nothing green remained on the trees anymore – what was left of the trees, that is. Mostly, it was only the lower halves of tree trunks, as if a Timberjack had come by and levelled the entire area. Debris in the form of black branches lay in haphazard patterns, dusted with a grey coat of soot. It almost felt like we were in a winter wonderland.

"Fire. Big one." Dad's boots were covered in the same grey soot. "Hiccup scared away the Berserkers with it. Going to take a few years before the trees recover."

"Well, that's going to hurt production. We should think about building some quarries."

They kept walking. I don't know what, or if they were looking for anything. Maybe they were just stunned. With its healthy dragon population, Berk always had its fair share of forest fires, but I think they could tell something was different. Might have been the vibe I was giving off.

Above us, Terrors played. They tumbled wildly in the air, spiralling toward the ground like falling leaves, just to open their wings and ascend so they could do it again. It looked fun, but I wasn't sure I was ready for that. I didn't have time to join them anyway, because one of them spotted something, and dove toward it with a shriek.

The others followed. They surrounded something on the ground, climbing over it and refusing to budge even when Dad nudged them with his foot. When he reached down and picked the shiny object up, it came attached to one Terror.

"This . . ." He rubbed his thumb over the helmet's center, revealing a silver image of a Skrill. "This is a Berserker helmet."

Gobber's lips parted in surprise. "So you weren't joking."

"Hiccup," Dad said sharply. "Go back to Berk."

"Why?" I asked, landing on his shoulder. It was just a helmet –

No. It wasn't.

"You don't need to see this." Dad dropped the helmet so that it covered the broken skull. "Go home."

After a few stunned beats, I did.

I forced myself to think only about the flight. But once I had landed on my front step, nothing else existed to distract me. I knew Toothless was curled up inside, taking a nap. I didn't want to wake him. I still wasn't sure where me and Astrid stood. And after seeing that . . . I didn't want to face any of my others friends.

I licked my dry lips. It was necessary. I knew it. Yet the world was spinning around me. How many . . . ? Had I managed to rack up a larger killcount than the entire village? It was necessary, my brain reminded me. I remembered Toothless knocking a female Viking unconscious; she wouldn't have been able to run. Was that her helmet Dad had handled?

I felt sick.

Fire-breathing helped settle down my stomach. I breathed a soft, white flame that vanished into thin air before it hit anything. Little wisps clung to life for as long as possible before the wind put them out. Their tails curled skyward, directing my gaze away from my house. Over the village, the king was easily visible.

He'd understand, wouldn't he? He must.

Somehow, the king had corralled the sheep so that they grazed in the pasture directly in front of him. He watched them with a lazy satisfaction, reaching a paw out to catch a straggler. Even the curious, admiring dragons hovering around him didn't draw as much attention as those sheep.

You majesty, may I ask you something personal.

You may, the king said.

Have you ever killed someone?

Many times. The king turned a knowing eye on me. Haven't you?

I have. There was the Red Death, and . . . I guess it's just the scale of it bothering me. When Berk was attacked by the Berserkers, I lit the woods on fire and . . . I let them burn. I have no idea how many got away, or didn't. I couldn't let them get into the village. Before he could respond, I answered what I thought would be his point. A life's a life, isn't it?

The king shifted. Not for us, Hiccup. Our duty is to our kin foremost. It is our responsibility to strive for their protection and welfare, even at the cost of others. That is why our burden cannot be borne by everybody. We must do what is best for our people, not what is right.

I was silent for a while, digesting that. I . . . I don't think I can agree.

I will not try to convince you. The king turned back to his adoptive herd. Human ways are different than ours. But if I may ask you a question, where is your cousin? I thought that he would have come to see me.

My body tensed. I told him everything that had happened. Then, when he didn't say anything, I asked, What do you think?

It is not my place to judge, although I see you are displeased with the outcome.

She shouldn't have told, I said. It wasn't –

Hiccup, the king interrupted, I must ask: is it for Berk's sake that you disapprove of your friend's actions, or your own?

All I could do was stare.

Review Responses:

Noctus Fury: HEY! Isn't it fun when the ffn servers crash? I wanted to update a few days ago XD

Well as long as you don't tell Hiccup I guess it's okay.

That's Hiccup for you. His character is basically a doubled-edged sword. I mean his willingness to forgive and trust people is one of his greatest strengths, but it's also one of his biggest flaws as Ranvir warned him. Same goes with his drive to spearhead and be part of the solution to everything.

Hiccup wasn't trying to be scary. Non-Berkians just find it weird to see a dragon acting like a human.

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Jazz: That's what Amazon's for silly!

Even just basic understanding between him and dragons would be a step up for poor Hiccup, eh?

Oh boy, Romantic Flight. What got my attention in that scene was that Hiccup had absolutely no problems working the tailfin during Toothless's Extreme Ride(tm). Like dang, either he's a super-fast learner, or the writers overlooked that XD

Smothering Smokebreaths, for one. But it's true that the Louts have a smaller variety than most places.

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Guest (who is not asking for more): Nope. Drago's Bewilderbeast has not been seen.