A/N- Well, I'm guessing at this point I've made you guys suffer long enough. Hey, I've got a couple excuses though: preparing for both graduation and grad school is a lot of work, and it's exhausting, and also everyone knows suspense is good for you, right?

Kidding aside, yeah, you'll get a few answers here, and I'm quite happy to say the last chapter had the largest number of views and visitors that any has had in quite some time so a good return for that is due. I will say though: we've got some time yet before this book is to end, and we're already reaching 400 pages, so thanks for sticking around and hope you keep with me!

Chapter 37

Winter's Will

The broken soul makes footsteps that one can barely hear

In arctic drifts of loss they can't explain

Their path, wandering in wilderness

The imprints in the snow the only sign

That life had ever passed

Crystal hearts are fragile

At but a bare caress they crack

Frozen shards cannot be mended

As once in whole they were

Time and God alone may turn

The will of a love in winter's hands

/

"If there is another pain like that, I can't imagine it. We could not breathe, we could not think, only stand there rooted frozen as a part of our lives was ripped away, and a piece of us died inside. Holly was screaming, Hiccup and I lost our voices, Astrid was crying as she held Holly still, and the Descendants…all of the above. I've heard people said you don't know how much you care for someone until you think you've lost them, and…well, they're right. For that moment, the world could have come crashing down as it had been ready to only hours before, and we would have never noticed."

~Toothless

-0-

The waiting room was graveyard silent, filled with myriad forms that stood or sat with barely the energy to blink. Some of them had been there for the entire ordeal, others showed up later like Hawken's parents had (in their own rush, upon the dragons still around that hadn't already had passengers to carry), but they all felt the same. They were all dried out of tears, all choked out of emotion, and barely able to carry solace for one another with how worn they had become.

Hawken had died.

For nearly ten minutes, he had died, laid out on a table with no breath, no heartbeat, nothing that claimed he was still in the world of the living. Freyja had shown up with Ember, Orha, Twintail, Teshra, Zipeau, Sam, Denise, and Stoick and Valka with their dragons all in tow, just as the doctors were readying to proclaim him lost, and even after nearly completely exhausting herself with the effort she had given, Hawken had barely regained a pulse that was detectable, breathing only with the help of a respirator, and he remained trapped within a deep coma, barely on the edge of existence. He remained, too, with his burns, cuts, and bruises displayed for all to see.

A good three dozen people did not get a sliver of sleep the night that followed, sick with worry over the young man who had ended up becoming a link between two very different, and yet nearly identical worlds.

Amethyst was at least healed easily enough, when she and Embron arrived from up north, despite her barely even being able to stay in place for the time necessary to set her broken bones and mend them under Freyja's touch before bounding over and planting herself resolutely against Hawken's bed. It had taken a shot of dragon nip and three dragons to convince her to leave so the doctors could proceed as they needed.

Indeed, the new year was starting off with a very dark, somber mood, matching the plummeting temperatures that had returned to the state outside, a record-setting freeze sweeping in as part of the world's attempt to reset its natural forces. The hospital waiting room near where Hawken was being kept was packed full of colorful characters that at any other time would have drawn huge crowds just to gawk, especially when the rest of the Berkian post-teens had shown up throughout the evening. Now, however, it was only silent, all of them remaining unbothered by the hospital staff and pensive as they ticked off the minutes that passed, waiting still for a more official prognosis.

Valka stood next to Denise, holding her shoulders as they both worried as only mothers could; both of them knew they shared cares for everyone who was now around them in the hospital, despite having come from separate earths, and took small comforts in each other. Similarly, Sam and Stoick stood a short way off to the side of the room, watching everyone and waiting as their means to stave off breakdowns of their own. Touchy-feely they were not, but gained comforts in protecting their kin.

"He's developed quite the extended family these past few years, hasn't he?" Same eventually mused quietly. "A rather…unorthodox one, but everyone here holds him as a brother, son, or close friend, don't they?"

Stoick chuckled softly, as if hoping not to break the delicate ambience that settled around them, and laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Oh aye," he agreed. "When word spread through the village when Zipeau came for Freyja of what had happened, it was all I could do to get Spitelout and Gobber to keep everyone at home rather than swarm here te show their support as we left. Only a few years…and such a rocky first meetin'."

The chief gave a ragged sigh. "Yes, I remember that day still like it was yesterday, skinny teen that looked like he could be Hiccup's brother showed up out of nowhere, dragged us into a chaos not even the twins could compete with…anyway. Everything he's done fer us, the village will break for a week now even if we don't lose him. And Hiccup and Toothless…I don't think there's anyone closer to each other in that way than those two, but the bond they both share with Hawken is somethin' else too. They're brothers, no other way to say it, and…I don't know what will happen to them either if Hawken doesn't make it after all this."

Stoick's gaze turned then over to another teen sitting curled up against Astrid, the two of them flanked on both sides by their dragons and the big cats. "And," he began again, "I pray for the sake of Holly alone we don't have that happen; she would never be the same. Things have to come back around."

"At least she's got all this support for her," Sam noted though. "Holly will have someone to hold on to."

The door to the large room opened then, and everyone tensed up as a man in a haggard looking white lab coat walked in, carrying a clipboard in his hand and a troubled expression on his face.

"I'm assuming you will all want to hear the news," he said, glancing at the board before looking around the room. At the unanimous nods, he sighed. "Hawken…is still not doing well, and he's on the brink, much as he was several hours ago. His body temperature is still low, though not at lethal levels anymore, and the wounds he sustained are sapping at whatever strength he might have left." He looked over to Freyja, who sat now with her two sons Thor and Loki in chairs near Hiccup. "But, whatever you did seems to have helped; his heart rate is low, but stable, and his body temperature is rising if slowly."

He sighed. "Hawken is basically suffering both from extreme exhaustion throughout his body and severe shock trauma. He will be in a coma, possibly for several weeks or more, but for now he still has a chance to survive. He will need to remain undisturbed for some time to ensure nothing else shocks his system, as even the smallest shake might set him off again, but if left still he could come around."

Giving a sympathetic nod, the doctor then stepped out, leaving everyone behind to let out a collective sigh of relief, several of them breaking into tears for a second time (and a few trying to hide it; Snotlout would attempt, and fail, to hold onto his lint-in-the-eye claim for months).

Hiccup walked over to Holly and Astrid, setting down in front of them, before the trio leaned forward into a hug.

"He's going to come around," Hiccup breathed. "We're going to get him back. One way or another, we'll get him back." Then he laughed quietly, drawing the other two into relieved giggles as well, before the lighter mood began to sweep contagiously through the room until half-crying laughter was the only thing that could be heard.

"Delta's being enlisted for further diplomatic relations alongside Embron," Feren reported as he walked into the oversized hospital room several days later, addressing Sam, Denise, Hiccup, and the Two Night Furies who were encircling Hawken's bed either in chairs or simply wrapped around the frame on the floor; the medical staff had finally permitted them to be in the same room again. Glancing at Amethyst as he came in, Feren also took a moment to wonder whether or not she'd even left Hawken's bedside at all since the announcement, but decided not to bring it up just yet; he still had to finish his first note.

"Those two will probably be hard to reach for a few days, but the other raptors have joined the snakes and some of the teens in guarding the building here," he continued. "Also, Hiccup, I hate to draw you away but Gobber has repeatedly requested your help at the forge today. Sends his apologies and everyone is sympathetic -they all want to be here too- but he and Ember aren't quite covering the repairs needed from both the battle and that last storm that came through."

Hiccup sighed, before glancing over at Toothless. "Mind helping me get there bud?" he asked reluctantly. Toothless, in response, glanced concernedly over at Amethyst.

"I'll be fine, Mr. Clingy," she quipped, though her irritated tone was betrayed by the smirk on her face. "Go help Hiccup."

Toothless snorted, smiling in return, before getting up and walking out of the room with his rider. Both Hiccup and Feren noticed the glances the two Night Furies were sharing too as Toothless left, and the Macawnivore hummed in amusement before turning his gaze to the female.

"And two questions for you, sister," he started lowly. "One: have you left at all in the past few days?"

At the guilty look the dragon wore, his question was more than answered. "As I thought. It doesn't do Hawken any good to starve yourself waiting for him to get better, you know, and he will reprimand you if he wakes to find out you're half the dragon you were. You need to get something to eat today; at least go with Same and Denise when they head home this evening at minimum." At Amethyst's worried glance toward the bed, the cat sighed. "I will be here, and there's everyone who's taken to guarding the hospital downstairs, so I promise that nothing is going to happen to him, alright?"

"Alright, fine, I'll go," Amethyst finally agreed with reluctance, grumbling unintelligibly as she lifted herself off the ground.

Feren nodded satisfactorily, before a more probing, knowing smirk replaced the pleased expression he wore. "And, my second question: how long is it going to be before you quit getting embarrassed about having affections for Toothless?"

"Oh, not you too!" the Night Fury whined, drawing laughter from everyone else in the room as she huffed in dismay.

The blinding snow whipped across the city, blanketing it slowly in a dreary white cover all too familiar with the residents of the area; weather was unpredictable in the region at all times of the year, and winter blizzards were par for the course.

Shen found the ambience rather endearing, oddly enough. The frozen curtain that hung from the clouds matched his color, the empty streets made by citizens avoiding the weather and the late hour were welcoming to his displeasured soul, and the temperatures that were dropping to nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit, while perhaps physically off-putting, worked perfectly to match the mood that he wanted to set.

Not to mention, it helped hide the approach of the peacock and the allies he'd gathered for this endeavor.

The hospital ahead was fairly quiet, none of the paramedics that were out dealing with accidents caused by the storm and careless drivers in tandem having returned to the building just yet, and everyone within was simply waiting, each for their own reasons. And, all of the guards that the bird expected to be watching out for Hawken were inside the building, half-blind to anything that moved around outdoors.

"Stevens, take your men to the front and side entrances," Shen ordered, eyeing the building as he flexed his feathers. "Cause a ruckus, make a distraction while Arrad does the same around back. I will take the entry via an upper window somewhere when Desmond blacks the cameras, and slip inside while the guards are all busy." He brought his wings to his beak, tapping on it thoughtfully. "They'll probably keep one or two in the boy's room, so I will need time to deal with them before we can call a victory; make sure I have that time."

The man he addressed nodded, he and those around him hoisting their weapons up onto their shoulders again and splitting off into the groups previously arranged. Then, they set off into the snow toward the hospital, while Shen smirked and took to the air, using the whipping wind and whiteout conditions to his advantage as he glided toward the eastern face of the building. To anyone who might have seen him, he would have appeared as little more than a loose plastic bag taken by the storm, fluttering through the air.

Dyllon Stevens wasn't stupid; he knew that even if they succeeded in this assassination attempt that there was at least an 80% chance that they would all end up either caught, or killed by the guards in the process. But, he hadn't signed on with Malin's original endeavor because he was a terribly rational or moral soul either; something about that boy and his compatriots disgusted him.

He tromped through the parking lot, covering his gun under the thick coat he bore (he didn't know how Shen could deal with the storm wearing only that silk robe he seemed to covet; weren't peacocks tropical birds?), and led his entourage up to the front entrance. Nobody really expected a frontal attack, so no alarms went off as they stepped through the doors, tracking snow and drawing just a nonchalant attention and raising of eyebrows from both the receptionist at the desk and the two skinny blond Vikings standing in the lobby space.

The moment Dyllon whipped out his Uzi, however, all hell broke loose.

The apparent twins yelled in shock, before dropping to the ground to avoid bullets (Stevens didn't miss the flashes of reddish-orange than been seen on the warfront however, telling him that any serious attacks would have to be made close in) and rolling a short way before they both leapt up again, the silvery spears in their hands whirling viciously as they came at the group.

The distraction force stumbled out of the way of their swings, but kept up fire, just enough force to hold the Vikings back. It did not, however, take long for the noise to attract reinforcements.

An animalistic screech sounded through the building, echoing in an almost metal-on-metal style sound coming from three different directions. Stevens, who was near the edge of his group, suddenly found himself flattened to the ground by a powerful force. It flipped him over, and suddenly he was staring straight up into the almost chartreuse, narrowed eyes of a Metaraptor, gray-green with charcoal-like black stripes and markings across his face and body. The curled lips bearing dozens of sharp, serrated teeth coupled with a threateningly swaying tail told Dyllon that his next move would likely decide his life.

"Drop your weapon," Shadow snarled, "and I won't kill or otherwise seriously cripple you."

It was no-nonsense, and direct, leaving little room for argument, and Stevens knew the raptor meant every word. Even as gunfire still raged around them, Dyllon reluctantly obliged, letting go of the gun still clutched in his grip and leaving his hands wide open.

Shadow relaxed slightly at the response. "Good," he growled. "Now…" he twisted around, tail slamming into the side of Dyllon's head and knocking him out with one smooth blow.

A stray bullet then zipped past the raptor, drawing his attention to the next dissident as Rachel brought down a third with a powerful (and no doubt painful) kick.

"Can't get any real rest here, can we?" Shadow hissed, and leaped.

Shen, meanwhile, scaled the bricks outside the building, the razor edges of his metal-encased claws and wing feathers digging into the wall and allowing him to haul himself upward with ease. About three floors off the ground, he craned his head and peeked carefully through a dark window.

The room was empty, the bed unoccupied. The peacock grinned and reached over, carving around the edge of the pane to release the frame and pushing the window open before crawling in. Standing up, he slid the glass down again so as not to attract any further attention from outside (he knew the city police would be on their way soon enough, if they hadn't already been called) and walked over to the door that led out into the hospital, waiting.

As soon as the band on his wrist flashed, Shen opened the door and strutted into the hall, confident no one would see him moving through the security cameras. The sounds of gunfire and people yelling echoed through the halls, mixed with roars and screeches Shen quickly recognized; not only were some of the Vikings posted as guards, but clearly also several of the raptors, a dragon or two somewhere, and he definitely recognized the bone-quaking roar of a tiger from the back of the building.

Clearly, however, they were all down on the first floor; the peacock could detect nothing at all higher up, save some hospital personnel rushing away from the area. Had there been lookouts scattered throughout the building prior, the distraction teams had done their jobs in drawing them away. Shen nodded in satisfaction and turned to trot down the hallway, heading for the nearest stairwell.

In the four weeks that had passed since news of Hawken's incident and his being confined to hospital care, Shen had spent most of his time traveling from the east coast to the young man's home state, staying off the radar of all those except the men who had been allied to Malin and gathering up at least enough of a force, he believed, to at least finish this job. When he wasn't busy recruiting and traveling, he had pored over the layout of the hospital, figuring out how best to get in and then through to Hawken's room undetected, as well as, of course, where the room was currently located as patients were so often moved around as the staff needed.

An unfortunate older nurse happened to be traveling down the same stairwell that Shen had chosen to use, but he hadn't bothered with the woman long; one well-aimed kick and she fell unconscious against the wall, slowly bleeding from the gashes the bird's claws had left across her cheek and forehead.

Shen frowned in disgust, wiping his claws off on her apron before continuing upward. At his intended floor he pushed open the door and slipped out again, glancing around to ensure no one was coming his way. When no personnel or armed Vikings materialized, he swept rapidly down the hallway, passing the open center of the building as he headed for the other side of the structure.

Hawken's current room was the largest on the floor, an accommodation made for the fact that full-grown dragons and a Macawnivore were some of the regular visitors the hospital was forced to now admit with their current patient. This, in turn, made it easy for Shen to locate it, opening out toward the building center.

The peacock used one of his blades to push open the door, expecting someone or something to come leaping out after him with the disturbance. When nothing happened, his brow arched, and he cautiously stuck his head into the room.

Other than the young man in a coma on the hospital bed, the space seemed basically empty. Shen frowned; surely they wouldn't all leave Hawken completely unattended? He glanced back out into the hospital commons area, now expecting a guard to rush him from behind.

Nothing.

"Ah very well, now or never take the chance," Shen muttered, rolling his shoulders and pulling from his robe a miniature version of his original glaive (frustratingly lost in the retreat from Malin's war front). One, two steps and he was above Hawken's bed, weapon raised. He paused for a moment, contemplating how easy it had just become to finish this, before swinging down, aiming for the young man's neck.

The blade collided not with flesh and cloth, but with the glinting edge of a slightly stronger metal, eliciting a painful squeal of chipped blade. Shen yelped in surprise as the axe twisted, throwing him well away from the bed, before he focused up toward the wielder.

"How did I know you'd eventually show up again?" Astrid snarled, side-stepping around Hawken's bed and advancing toward the peacock. "You couldn't have just made it easy and gotten blown up with the rest of the fleet, could you?"

"Someone had to stick around in case Malin himself failed," Shen snapped back, twirling his own weapon and jabbing it at Astrid, who parried the thrust more than easily. "And since he did, so spectacularly too, it was then only a matter of waiting for the right moment. What better time to end all this than when the nuisance is entirely unable to fight back, hmm?"

He swung the glaive again, using the attack as a cover to slide out a feather blade in the grip of his other wing and slashing it at Astrid from two directions, which she again danced around and bowed out of the way with practiced precision.

"You are a coward then, attacking when your opponent can't defend himself," Astrid spat. "You're a disgrace of a warrior."

"I cannot fault what I was made to be," Shen scoffed dismissively. "I was rather hoping I would have at least someone to fight, so that it wasn't all simply a casual shot for the victory. Other than that old nurse in the stairway, of course, it's been a month since I've properly killed anyone."

The peacock arched his talons and spun on the tips expertly, coming in low under Astrid's guard even as she redirected her swing, and brought the glaive up. With the slow undercut it bypassed Astrid's field, but it didn't quite manage to pierce the Viking's suit. The blow did, however, knock Astrid off balance, enough for Shen to spin forward and land a kick to her midsection, slamming the warrioress against the far wall.

"You, however, seem to have lost a bit of your touch," he mused, tutting condescendingly. "How disappointing."

Astrid grunted, gaining her breath back as she moved to stand up; field or not, flying that far was going to impact her somehow. "Yeah, well," she wheezed, "I'm not the only one you have to worry about either, you clueless birdbrain."

A rhythmic metallic clinking send a chilling shiver down Shen's spine, doubling as a guttural hiss followed the sound; the bird knew all about the capabilities of the snake that had betrayed Malin's trust.

"Yer fast, Shen, but there ain't much that can outrun a bullet, or a rattler's strike," Jake growled, leveling the Gatling gun on his tail with the bird's head. "Nobody told you the Descendants can basically hide in plain sight, did they?"

Shen couldn't deny it; he was stuck now. If he twitched, the rattlesnake would not hesitate to put six holes through his head in a split second, and Astrid was walking back toward him.

"You really have lived up to your name, haven't you Jacob?" he said softly, drawing another angered hiss from the snake as he tried to think of an out. Not much to work with, unless…

His tail feathers were still lined with metal as well, and Jake's underside was really, really close to them, completely unsuspecting.

Shen barely twitched within Jake's line of vision, but it was enough to whip his long feathers up and rake them deep into Jake's belly scales. The rattlesnake yelled in pain and fired on reflex, but his gun had moved in his spasm and the resulting blast only peppered a handful of holes into the wall beyond.

Shen spun, now with his opening, and drove a feather blade into Jake's tail as he parried Astrid with his glaive once more, slowing them both and leaving an open path straight to Hawken again. The peacock took it without hesitation, grabbing a second feather blade and leaping toward the prone young man.

Halfway through his jump, a new pain pierced Shen's lower leg, and Shen found his body rapidly losing feeling from that point outward, all of his muscles locking in place and disregarding every command he sent to move them.

Unable to correct himself, Shen fell to the ground just short of the bed frame, his head clanging off of a support bar underneath the mattress and blurring his vision for a moment. As it cleared, he spotted what had tagged him and ruined one last chance at finishing off the dragon boy: the long, twisting coils of a king cobra looped around the bed's support bars, the head and hood rising spread above him and glowering down dangerously.

"You know, Speed Stinger venom is a truly marvelous toxin," Kingsley mused, uncoiling and rising higher over Shen, before bending his head down level with the paralyzed bird's. "Your opponent stays alive and fully aware of what's going on, but in mere seconds can't move at all." He shook his head and leaned closer. "See, here was your mistake, Shen: you might have been able to fight off two or three of us together whilst in the heat of a battle, when we had to watch our backs for threats other than a crazed white avian, but when it's just you we have to worry about, you're well outmatched. You also never came against me or Jake, and here, you're alone, and we can call on hundreds of close friends if we had needed to. Did you really expect this to play out in your favor?"

Astrid walked forward, now far less guarded about her approach, and grabbed the weapons from Shen's frozen grip, looking them over with interest.

"I have to say, these are some very finely crafted weapons," she admired. "The feather design…it's quite beautiful." A smirk flashed across her expression. "Well, you won't be needing them anymore, so I'm sure Holly will appreciate them." Reaching down a second time, she pulled the others out from where they were hidden away in Shen's sleeves, taking his inability to resist to full advantage. "My, tables turned, didn't they? What was it you said, 'end it all when the nuisance is entirely unable to fight back'?" she chuckled dryly. "Yeah, these guys can probably take it from here. You won't be moving for another six hours or so, so they should have a breeze locking you away."

Astrid stepped aside as several policemen came marching in, hoisting up the statuesque Shen and hauling him out of the room. The peacock's eyes were the only thing that could still shift, giving off enough of his emotions to let the others know exactly what he was thinking: underneath the fury of having failed, again, he knew the best he could hope for was a padded container in a personally fitted straightjacket.

"Have the other delinquents been taken care of downstairs?" Jake asked flatly, spitting out the knife he pulled from his tail and watching passively as the holed sealed up in seconds.

One of the officers nodded. "Yeah, your friends got them tied down pretty quickly, so we're just hauling them out now too."

"Good. And, on your way out, get the staff here to check the stairwells; the warbird said he ran into a nurse in one of them, and I don't want him to claim any more lives to his record."

"Yes…uh, yes sir."

Formalities finished, the officers vacated the room, leaving Astrid and the two Descendants on their own again.

"So," Jake spoke up first again, coiling up on a chair as he shrank back down to a more manageable size, "who wants te be the one to let the others know Shen showed up? We all know how Holly, the two Furies, and company will not be complacent upon hearing that little news clip."

Astrid sighed, and slumped into a chair of her own as she rubbed her temples. "Ugh, I don't even want to think about that; we only just got Amethyst to take time away from the hospital, with Toothless' encouragement," she groaned. After a moment of silence, she leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. "I'll let them know, but not just yet."

Quiet returned, and they all looked over at Hawken, still fully undisturbed throughout the scuffle that had just taken place.

"I just pray that was the last thing we deal with here," Astrid spoke again. "It's worrying enough that he's still not anywhere near waking up after all this time, without having to fret over additional threats on his life. Not to mention the effect this has been having on everyone."

"We'll get through it," Kingsley reassured, coiling once again around Hawken's bedframe. "There's a lot more strength between us than you might think. It's just that Hawken's always been the one there holding us up; now, we do the same for him, until he comes back to us."

A/N -Yep, he's still alive. For now, at least. But things must go on without him for now, and when you rack up a reputation like this group has, that's never an easy task.

Stay tuned, make sure you leave your opinions/predictions etc. in your reviews! I promise I read every one, and I am appreciative of them all.

HawkTooth out!