Jiod's head whirled, and he felt his feet holding in a rigid position. He felt the urge to vomit, but after everything he'd gone through with Toothless, it had no choice but to quickly pass. Jiod waited, concentrating on anything his senses could pick it. It was nauseating, but paid off. His hearing cleared itself first…

"—then I will have wasted two very valuable rings, and you will help held accountable for..." Gothi's voice trailed off.

Jiod opened his eyes. Things were extremely blurry and colourless again. He could see Freva standing beside him, and turned to let out a loud cheer—they deserved it, after all. She looked confused, and faintly… see through?

"F-Freva?" Jiod tried, faintly surprised he'd been able to get even her name out. His throat felt scratchy and weird, and a pounding headache lurked in his skull, ready to leap out and claim him the moment he paid too much attention to it. Jiod reached out, and felt he must have missed. To his blurry, unfocused vision, it looked almost like his hand went straight through her. Freva moved her mouth in response, but the words were a mystery to Jiod. Then her form wavered like an image of the moon on a rippling lake, and disappeared. Jiod stopped moving, stunned. Gothi maintained her shocked silence as well. The house was almost perfectly quiet, only the clattering sound of a bracelet whirling on the floor as it tried to settle and the faint buzzing of playing Terrible Terrors interrupting it.

The bracelet eventually stopped spinning, and Gothi broke the silence. "I take it you were successful?"

"W-where did… what… we won!" Jiod said, gazing at the spot where Freva had been. A beam of light from a window shone through the place where her head had been, revealing motes of dust that, no matter how long Jiod stared at them, failed to turn into Freva. "How…"

"You're wounded," Gothi said, and grabbed Jiod's arm. She peered at it for some time, clucking under her tongue and viewing it from different angles. "Is it life threatening?" Jiod said.

"I don't think—" Gothi began.

"Then I don't care," Jiod said duly. Gothi sharply rapped his head with her staff. "Stop! You're alive. Live." Jiod didn't know how to respond. "There are… scales… on you," Gothi abruptly changed tack.

Jiod blinked. "Uh… what?" Gothi tapped his arm. Strangely, Jiod barely felt it.

"They're spreading. Fast. You have… some time. It may actually kill you after all," Gothi said, then shoved him out the door. "Go. There's nothing I can do. Mention I can talk and I eviscerate you." With that, Gothi slammed the door on his face.

"So, how'd it go?" Hiccup said. Toothless bounded up to Jiod and rubbed against his side, purring. Jiod petted him, but Toothless could tell his heart wasn't in it and stared up at him with those wide green eyes… A tear fell from Jiod's face and went unnoticed by the other Viking, though Toothless had noticed and was now crouching down, frills dropping.

"Freva have the Grimora then? I guess it makes sense, they do get sorta dormant when they attach to a human…" Hiccup looked at Jiod, who still hadn't responded. "Hey, you okay mister trader?"

"Trader?" Jiod said blankly.

"Yeah, you know, you trade…" Hiccup said, obviously waiting for Jiod to realise something. Jiod just stood there, not waiting, for that would imply an expectation of something happening. No, the word for it was… dormant.

"Those… those weren't Grimora, were they?" Hiccup said softly.

"She's dead," Jiod said, and then the tears showed themselves, rolling down his cheeks in large tracts. "She's dead, Nero's dead, the invasion force is dead, everyone's dead. We were going to save… we were going to save them. And now I'm probably dead." Jiod walked away, leaving Hiccup to stare after him. Toothless whimpered in sympathy. "It's okay bud, it's just… it's okay," Hiccup said.

§

Jiod felt he was drifting aimlessly. Couldn't go to his tribe, they hated him for some reason. Couldn't hunt silarions, Nero was dead. Couldn't lose himself in an adventure, his skiff was gone. Holly… Holly was gone. He'd lost her so long ago, and yet he'd held out hope that someday…

Jiod learned to lose himself in the rhythms of Berk. Rise early, train, find a silarion (he refused to think of them as dragons, not after Nero), wait for it to refuse him, help fish every once in a while. His emotions never faded. Instead, they curled up inside him, dried and shrivelled up without anything to direct them at, yet needing only the barest hint of water to spring back to life, fresh as if they'd only just settled. Jiod took to setting his face in an inscrutable mask whenever someone might see him. The denizens of Berk who took an interest in him warned him that it wasn't healthy, that he needed to find some release, but he ignored them until one fateful day when he stumbled into a cove in the forest. An invisible catch released himself in his mind. He remembered being in Toothless's mind, Hiccup finding them…

Tears he'd kept long buried in himself for all those months since that day they'd killed the Red Death and Freva had died finally evacuated. A river dripped form his face, silently and steadily, marching on for hours until the sun faded into glimmering twilight, then into a blanket of stars. An indeterminable time later, Jiod stood up, feeling tired and drained, but… accepting, somehow. He turned a watery smile on the stars. At that moment, the scales that had been creeping up his arm jolted into motion. They covered him head to toe before he could shout, then he was out like a light. No one would find him before he woke up, most assuming he'd either made himself a boat or taken his own life. As more months passed, a silver lump grew in a forgotten haven.

§

Jiod stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking Berk where he and Freva had started their quest to save the future by subverting the past. It worked, he finally realised. It might have had more consequences than we'd thought, but… it worked. With that, he spread his wings. No one noticed him. Only a cursory attempt at a watch existed. After all, if something didn't need doing, Vikings didn't consider it their place to do it. But even if they had, all the other silarions sprawled over the rooftops would probably attract their attention more. Moonlight glinted off his silver scales as he surveyed the world before him. There was so much good he could do, but first he needed to find the problems that needed fixing. Jiod catapulted himself into the night sky, looking forwards to finding distant lands. After all, anything could happen…

And here it ends! Thank you so much to those who reviewed, favorited, followed, or even just took the time to read this. It took me more time and effort than I thought it would, but it was worth it just to have this finished. If enough people want an epilogue, or even a sequel, I might consider it, but I think my first fic's finished! Thank you and good night! *bows*