Chapter 14

Once Hiccup and Toothless get back to Berk, they gather their group of friends outside Hiccup's house and Hiccup explains. "Gang, I've gathered you all here because I have good news and bad news. The good news is…" He puts his wing around Toothless. "Toothless and I have decided to perform a dragon ritual that will seal our love forever."

Toothless adds. "I think you humans basically call it getting married."

Everyone's faces, except for Astrid who had a look of shock, lit up with joy and happiness. Well, everyone but Snotlout and the twins who both had looks of confusion. "Oh that's so exciting. I'm so happy for you two!" Fishlegs says in his high pitched excited voice.

"Wait, a dragon doing the ritual with a human?" Hookfang asks. "How does that even work?"

"Hey, when the heart is strong enough, it always finds a way." Meatlug answers. She looks back to Hiccup and Toothless and says, "Anyway, congratulations. I'm so happy for you guys and I think Artruthium will accept this bond full force, despite the unusual nature of it all."

"Artuwhat?" Snotlout asks.

"Artruthium." Stormfly says, slightly annoyed that Snotlout hadn't heard of him by this point. "Said to be the father of all dragons, basically the dragon's version of Thor."

"Oh right, I uh totally knew that." Snotlout says, trying to pass off his ignorance.

"Yes well anyway, that brings us to the bad news." Hiccup says. "So, we went to the island where the ritual is performed, Union Island."

"Wait wait, slow down there." Tuffnut interrupts. "There's a Union Island? Well then how come all union ceremonies I've ever seen have taken place here?"

Toothless gives him a blank stare. "The island is only for dragon unions, muttonhead. Any human that goes there gets sucked up by whirlpools before they even reach it."

Tuffnut takes a moment to process what was just said, then gets a look of realization/confusion. "Oooooooh. So, since I'm a dragon now…"

"Tuffnut!" Hiccup nearly shouts. "Focus." Tuffnut shuts up and Hiccup sighs. "Anyway, we went to the temple on the island where the ritual is performed and we found that it was…well...destroyed." Now everyone had a look of shock, although for some reason Toothless swore he could see the faintest smile pop on Astrid's face for a quick second, but he decided to brush it off.

"Wait, the Union Temple is destroyed?" Barf asks.

"H-how can that be?" Belch adds.

"Who could've done such a thing?" Stormfly adds.

Hiccup explains. "Well, that brings us even more bad news. The person, or should I say the dragon that destroyed the temple was…Dagur." He takes a moment to let that sink in.

"Dagur?" Fishlegs asks. "He destroyed the temple?"

"That psychopath." Hookfang says. "Even I know how much that temple means to dragons and- wait. Did you just say that he's a dragon?" Hiccup slowly nods and Hookfang's head lowers. "That explains it. A psychotic dragon that was once a just as psychotic human, makes sense that he would go so far as to destroy one of the most sacred dragon temples."

"Hold on," Stormfly says. "How did Dagur even know where the island was? From what you all have told me, they don't keep records of anything on Berserker Island, not after Dagur burned all books once he became chief, so how could they even find it?"

Hiccup pauses for a moment before saying, "I was suspicious too. Then I realized something I hoped I hadn't and that I also hope I'm wrong about. Someone tipped him off. Someone…from Berk."

This got an even more shocked look from everyone.

"What, you think one of us told Dagur where the island is?" Snotlout accuses.

Tuffnut thinks for a moment then gets his 'I've got it' face. "That's it, it was Ruffnut wasn't it? She must've snuck out in the middle of the night to tell him everything. Oh I knew she was a she-beast but this…this is just a new low." Everyone else's expressions went from shock to dumbfounded.

"We're attached to the same body, shithead." Ruffnut says. "If I 'snuck out' then you would've been dragged along with me."

The rusty gears turned in Tuffnut's head for a moment. "Oh. Right. Got it."

Toothless rolls his eyes. "And there's 10 seconds of my life I will never get back."

Hiccup smirks a bit at the comment.

Meatlug asks, "Hang on, how do you even know it's someone on Berk? Pretty sure there are other islands that have books on dragons as well."

"But most of them only have books on how to kill dragons, not where they go when they want to become official mates, and even if they did, they would all be dead trying to get to the island." Hiccup replies leaving Meatlug speechless.

"Here's what I know, as far as I'm concerned, Berk is the only village anywhere near Union Island that befriends dragons rather than killing them, and since we don't kill them we instead research them and write books about them ourselves, and I'm sure that at least someone on Berk has come across a book, document, or at least a tale of Union Island and therefore wrote it down somewhere, which means either Dagur somehow snuck into Berk one night or someone found a book talking about Union Island and for whatever reason decided to tell him about it.

Like I said, it's just a theory and I didn't say it was one of us. I suggest you all keep your eyes and ears open the next couple of days for anything suspicious. Got it? Good. Now, it's getting late, we should all start getting ready for bed."

Hiccup and Toothless walk into Hiccup's house while everyone else goes back to their own homes. On the way back, Astrid says to the others, "Uh, I'm gonna go on quick flight before bed, I need some time to think." Before anyone else could respond, she flies off, away from Berk.

(1 hour later)

Astrid sits on the cliff's edge overlooking the ocean, on an island just a few miles from Berk, keeping a sharp ear out for anything or anyone that might be coming to look for her. So far, not much except a few deer here and there.

She hears his wings coming closer, looks up and sees Dagur coming in and landing right next to her. She stands up and greets him by saying, "I assume the dead has been done."

Dagur nods. "The temple is now a pile of rocks, just like you asked."

"Perfect. Well, you held up your end of the bargain so, here you go, the chief's axe." She hands him Stoick's axe which she stole from him while Hiccup and Toothless were going to Union Island and Stoick was performing chief duties, replacing it with a blunt replica that she made herself so he hopefully wouldn't notice.

Dagur twirls the axe in his claw, enjoying how it felt. "This will come in very handy very soon."

"You mind me asking what you want with Hiccup's father's axe?"

"You mind me asking why you wanted the temple destroyed?"

Astrid smirks. "I asked first."

Dagur rolls his eyes. "I've got plans, grand plans, plans that will surely bring joy to some and trouble to others."

Astrid shrugs. "I suppose that's good enough. I wanted the temple destroyed because without the temple, there can't be a union, and without a union, Hiccup will be so upset that he'll come right back to me where he belongs, and not with that son of a bitch of a dragon that he has."

Dagur slowly nods. He wanted to say more but didn't want to risk blowing his cover so he just says, "Well Astrid, I wish you the best of luck." With that, he flies off back to Berserker Island.

Astrid waves him goodbye. She says to herself, "I should head back before Stormfly gets too worried." With that, she flies off back to Berk.

On the way back to Berserker Island, Dagur looks at the axe and thinks to himself, "That poor girl. I want to feel bad for her but at the same time this will be the only way to make things right."

End of chapter 14.

This chapter was a bit shorter but I hope you enjoyed it and have enjoyed the story so far, if you did please let me know.

Take care, and I'll see you soon.