The moon was full, and it was a beautiful night, the sea green and gently rocked with swells; convex wave crests burbling against the deep bow of a viking ship, glittering even in the boat's shadow, for the water glowed when disturbed by the clinkered hull of a vessel heading home.
Beneath the surface slipped the vague shadow of a restful behemoth. An oar twirled in the water above it, was grasped and dragged back by the current, then twirled again. Hiccup Haddock watched the sea dragon flutter about beneath the boat. It opened and closed its mouth like a fish would, then snuffled at the oar. For a moment it held his gaze. Hiccup's father would have characterized it as an unthinking brute, but the younger Haddock saw something more, something intelligent. It was gaining his measure as he weighed its nature, and it possessed the awareness to know he was doing so.
A portly step resounded on deck and the dragon whisked away and melted into a shrinking shadow, and when he blinked that too was gone. Another of their kind had inserted itself into his life and was gone before their friendship could begin.
"Hear anything?" asked Phlegma.
"Nothing dangerous," said Hiccup, and that was true, but it was also false.
The sea dragon could've been dangerous, if he'd been threatening to it. It might've rammed the hull and given them trouble. His father would've prodded it with the oar, showed iron, tried to kill it. Dragons did not like the glint of iron; each reacted unpredictably when they first saw it. The result was usually violent.
The shield-maiden passed on, leaned on the rims of the bucklers that lined the outside of the longship, looking north over the starboard side as he focused inward in thought.
Would he ever see those Nadders again, the dragons who'd kindled the tender half of his heart and refuted a life's worth of prejudice?
Hiccup thought not. Still, it was always the chance that set him dreaming, and on a night like this there was plenty of time to dream.
He wanted to see all the world had to offer, and if the world didn't have it, he would make it. Life was gritty and dark: this he knew. But he had what it took; he had been on dragon-back, and that alone set him apart from everyone on this ship save Astrid. She knew what it was like, seeing everything from above. Suddenly the troubles of day-to-day living seemed tolerable, and the insurmountable obstacles in the way of his goals became inconveniences. He was a smart boy, and together with Astrid he could forge a path through thick and thin, now that he was not stranded.
I had no idea what else to put here, so I just did this... if you've got a better idea for a future epilogue I'd love to hear it, because I'm written out and there's a trip coming up and I am simultaneously crunched for time and wasting it when I should be working... blegh.
At any rate, do enjoy! Stranded II (which I have named These Clouded Horizons) should be up when this is, and you can check out my profile for that and more stuff I've done, as well as a section where I post synopses of my upcoming work.