Through the slowing bleeding in my hands I felt the pulse of a heartbeat. The shard clutched tight against my chest as it melded with my own. My chest heaved, my breath lost.
"I can't believe that worked." I shuddered, halfway to crying. "I can't believe that worked." As I sat kneeling on the floor, the team of dragons slackening similarly. B.B. padded over to me, an arm extended to help me up. I took it wordlessly, a wave of dizziness sending me falling forwards. The zippleback caught me, pulling me into a reassuring embrace.
"Pepper, take it easy..." He mumbled, gently swaying just enough to betray how dead he felt as well. I pushed off, head swimming. I felt like keeling over right there and then.
The world had other plans.
"That was... Horrible..." Stormfly muttered, hugging herself. Hookfang was kneeling next to Meatlug, still holding her arm. Toothless standing over her shoulder and examining.
"Is this what we're going to have to deal with every time?" Hookfang groaned, holding his head in his claws. Toothless swore under his breath.
"How is she?" I asked him quietly, tottering over once the room elected to stop moving.
"Dislocated, nothing more." He whispered back. The 'but we have no idea how to make it not be dislocated' went unsaid.
"I grabbed this thing." I spoke, holding the shatter of magic up for him to see. I blinked. It was stained in places with blood, my blood, but...
The slashes on my hands were gone.
"What the fuck." I asked noone. "Did this thing just magic away cuts that would make a knife jealous, or..." I trailed off.
"What are you talking about?" Hookfang asked, pushing himself off the floor.
"When I was digging through the shards from Tiger's attacks, my paws were totally cut up, but look!" I exclaimed, showing off my pristine paw pads. "Like nothing happened!"
"I don't follow." He moved my hand out of his face with a claw.
"She's saying she's going to try magicking me better." Meatlug spoke from the ground. I joined her.
"You okay with me trying at least?" I questioned softly. She winced as she moved, facing me.
"Better than nothing."
"Wait wait wait." Stormfly cut in, "You don't even know how that thing works. For all we know, that crazy destructive light thing that cat did was all it does. What if something goes wrong?" I worried at my lip. She was right, this was stupid, i'm not trained medically. None of us were, especially not in humanoid-adjacent skeletal placement.
"What if something goes right?" Meatlug shot back, interrupting my inner thoughts of doom. "Try it, Pepper." She smiled softly at me. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"You don't want me answerin' that." I chuckled, trying to calm myself. I held the crystal to the light, swallowing my spit and giving a little prayer to whichever cruel god was watching. "Here goes..." I reached out, gem outstretched towards Meatlug's arm. A soft glow enveloping the rock as I steeled myself, evening out my breathing by matching hers. In and out. The gentle light, much softer than the harsh neons of Tiger's fight, poured out of the crystal and over her arm like syrup. She shivered. My breath caught and the gentle trickle stopped. Meatlug grabbed my wrist with her good hand before I could pull away.
"...Cold. Keep going."
"Ok..." I closed my eyes, blocking out everything. No distractions. I couldn't worry if it was going to work, I just needed it to. I needed it to just fix things. I heard gasping. Did it work? I pried open my eyes to see a dark fog emanating from the dragons, lifting up and off of them before vanishing into the crystal shard. The glow got brighter, harder to look at, and just as suddenly as it started, the fog cut off from everyone and was sucked into the crystal like a vacuum and the light blinked into nothing. I choked on air as the stars stopped swimming in my eyes.
"What did you just do?!" Hookfang shouted, checking himself over in a panic.
"I don't know!" I shouted back. "What was all that dark nasty stuff on you guys?!"
"Put that thing away!"
"But-"
"It worked." Meatlug spoke, interrupting the shouting match with wonder in her voice.
"It did?" B.B. asked, stepping forth to grab her officially now unfucked arm. "It did!"
"Yes! Yes yes yes, Pepper you did it!" Stormfly squealed, tackling me into a hug.
"Wait one at a time what was that creepy stuff-" I squeaked as I was twirled and set down.
"I don't care right now that was brilliant!" Stormfly continued, swinging her arms out and sending spikes flying into the wall.
Wait.
Spikes?
The room fell dead silent.
"... I thought we couldn't do that anymore." Hookfang spoke as a spike clattered to the floor.
"I thought you couldn't either." I returned, taking a few steps away from Stormfly before I experienced surprise freestyle acupuncture.
"That cat mentioned a dampening spell..." Toothless murmured, staring at his hands. "Did you just remove it?"
"Did I?!" I questioned, holding out the magic mineral like it was about to combust. And just like that, Hookfang did combust. And he looked ecstatic about it too.
"You did!" He crowed, watching the flames dance about his body. "Now we're talkin'!" I was speechless.
"I did?! I, we, you guys have to get outside, we gotta see if you can fly again too!" I stammered, pulling Meatlug to her feet and herding everyone out the doorframe, barely taking the time to kick away the last splinters of the door. "Come on!" We raced down the stairs, and I was tempted to just vault over the railing in all the excitement. Fortunately for my ankles the trip down the tower wasn't nearly as emotionally taxing as the trip up, and the chilled night air was in my nose and blowing about the dying old courtyard before I could even blink.
"This is almost too good to be true!" B.B. cheered, an exhausted relief twinkling in the corners of his eyes.
"Don't jinx it, just fly already!" I said, somewhere between a chuckle and begging for them to even be able to. I slapped his back, trying to be reassuring. "Go, go!" He grinned, both heads curled down to look at me.
"Alright! Let's do it!" He got into a squatted stance, wings outstretched. Stormfly and hookfang stretched their arms outwards, Meatlug bringing up the rear simply buzzing her wings in stonefaced excitement. My mouth split open, grinning.
"Count of three!" I shouted, psyching everyone up. The energy was palpaple, the cold biting at our skin hardly noticeable. "One!"
The dragons getting ready for flight were practically in the sky already.
"Two!"
Toothless put his hands on my shoulders from behind. I turned my head back to see him smiling.
"Three! "
Something was wrong. I could see it in their eyes. When they leaped, they didn't even come close to taking off, everyone falling into an awful coughing fit, black flecks of ichor falling to the ground with each cough. A step up from the pools of it they were hurling up earlier. Barely. B.B. had to take a knee from how hard it was hitting both heads. I felt Toothless' grip tighten, before breaking away and sprinting to the zippleback's side.
"Shit, shit, no, this was supposed to work!" I breathed, tears pricking at my eyes only worsened by the suddenly worse chill. I rubbed circles between B.B.'s wingblades until the coughing subsided, trying hard not to cry. I was supposed to have fixed this. I fixed the rest of it, didn't I?
Didn't I?!
Oh no.
"T-tooth-thless...!" I squeezed out, breathing worsening. "Can you... Can you shoot a plasma blast?" I asked, desperate. "Just one." I saw his auricles raise, before lowering as he blinked at me, concern written across his face. He sighed.
He turned around, facing the tower where it all happened. He loosed a burst of echolocation first, the sharp shriek ringing in my ears. Whatever that told him, I don't know, but he adjusted his trajectory accordingly, and...
He managed to build it up to the point of whistling, but no more. It died in his mouth, a small amount of smoke billowing out with each cough, staining the ichor with purple-gray. I gripped the rock in my hands tighter. Stupid thing. I felt B.B. move away for a moment, before his arms and wings wrapped around me.
"It's okay, Pepper." He soothed, voice a little rough. "The fact you managed to lift that dampening spell at all, even if just a little, is so impressive." He squeezed my back to his torso, moving his heads to sandwich mine. I felt a sob shake my body, tears coming down in thin streaks.
"I gotta fix it... S'my fault..." I whimpered, suddenly becoming really interested in my knees. He gently nuzzled me, making my ears flick with his breath. Being interested in my knees quickly became being interested in the ground as B.B. picked me up, legs dangling.
"C'mon. You can't give up now, we still got kids to save. Speaking of..." He trailed off, moving his heads away. I looked up, having to strain my eyes to avoid turning my head, to see just what he was getting at. He was staring at Hookfang, who had his brows raised. The nightmare loosed one last wet cough before his energy refilled like a battery in an electrical storm.
"Finally! Let's get back to that gross dungeon!" He crowed, jumping up a little. He jogged over to a broken window, punching the glass in a little bit more and jumping onto the sill, dropping through and motioning for everyone to follow. The rest of the dragons did, Stormfly only pausing to gently clap B.B.'s shoulder, before joining Toothless and Meatlug inside the fort's dusty halls.
"You ready?" B.B. asked, adjusting me in his arms. I sighed, the tears already starting to dry as it left my system.
"Yeah, you can put-!" I yipped softly, interrupted by B.B. simply running while carrying me like a ragdoll. He set me through the window, placing me on the windowsill so I stood just under eye-level.
"Hey. Look at me?" He asked, wiping at the tearstains on my muzzle. I picked a head and tried focusing on his brows so it would at least look like I could mantain eye contact. "It isn't your fault you couldn't remove the rest of the curse, okay? We got blasted with that magic thingamajig when it was full sized, and we only got a single piece of it." I sniffed.
"So you think we gotta put it all together again to fix things?" I mumbled, exposing the damned thing in my hand. I had been subconciously rubbing my paws raw over the rough edges.
"That's the plan so far."
"...Alright, You're right. You're right." I shuddered, wiping my face with the back of my hand. "Just gotta... Keep going." I turned around, walking off the sill while being cautious of the broken glass as I thumped to the floor. I'd never been so thankful for hardwood. I heard a bit more glass shatter on the floor as B.B. climbed in after me, knocking a head into the taller panes. I sighed, silently extending a hand. He took it, letting me guide him around the pile of tiny knives. When he dropped down, he released my hand and ruffled my ears. I leaned into the touch.
"We're gonna be okay." He whispered, just about the same time Stormfly shouted "Wrong way!" from a branch in the hall.
"We better go help." I spoke, stepping forward to rejoin the group. He jogged ahead, waving us along.
"C'mon, I remember which way we came from!" He yelled, speedwalking in the opposite direction Stormfly went. I caught up with Meatlug, who was perfectly content ambling behind the others.
"How's your arm holding up?" I asked her. Any more silence would've killed me.
"Can't get better than like brand new." She hummed, asynchronously waving her fingers. "You did an amazing job."
"Mee." I scoffed. "It wasn't me, it was this thing!" I held up the shard, dull and colorless without the yellow light bleeding through.
"Just looks like a normal quartz to me." She huffed, unimpressed.
"You're the expert."
"I am, aren't I?"
"Oh hey, we're back!" Stormfly spoke, snapping us back to attention. "That's the wall we climbed up!"
"Almost there!" Hookfang yelled, pumping his fists. My eyes moved back towards the closed door across from it, the room filled only a little while ago with cats. It was like they had all vanished into thin air. Probably taken by Whittney when Tiger lost to us. I walked over to it, putting my ear against the wood just to make sure before cracking the door open. Hookfang groaned, having to backtrack from where he had sprinted to the other end of the hallway. "What's the holdup? Let's go."
"Yeah, Pepper? Dungeons are this way." Stormfly questioned as I peered in.
"I know, I know, i'm just checking for something..." I waved her off, pushing the door open completely to catch the full light of the setting moon. Inside it was like the great hall back home on Berk, long canteen tables filling the room, but instead of food, scraps of paper were nailed down with rusted knives. I moved further in, investigating the room cautiously. The papers had scribbles of some kind on them, some script I couldn't read. There was a large splotch in the center of the paper, like someone had dropped food and sketched out the result. I tried yanking one of the knives out of the wooden table, but the hilt broke off in my hand, sending me falling on my ass to the floor. "Tearing it out it is." I grumbled, tossing the broken knife over my shoulder and pulling myself up.
"Is that... A map?" Toothless asked, standing over the other side of the table with his hands resting on it.
"Is that what it is? Looks like someone's just bad at drawing to me." I huffed.
"No, look closer," he pointed to a spot with a crudely drawn square within another square with more script next to it. "That's the same shape as most of this fort, and it has the mountains on that side of it, see?" If we were being honest, I couldn't, but I nodded anyway.
"Where did Tiger say the other deputies were? Maybe we can find them!" Stormfly hovered over the parchment, turning her head to get a closer look.
"He said something about a mineshaft, that castle Whittney's hiding in, something about a houseboat?" I droned, pitch rising at the end as I questioned my hearing.
"A house and a boat." Hookfang corrected, foot tapping against the floor impatiently. "But he said that the house was large..." I groaned, resisting the urge to drop my head on the table.
"Where are they getting these things?"
"From the looks of it..." Toothless pointed out three spots on the map, a square on the mountains, a square farther north of them, and a triangle at the most northeastern portion of the island, tucked on a penninsula of some sort. "Here, Here, and here. But that boat could be anywhere, they had it flying better than us." Stormfly wrinkled her snout at that, saying nothing.
"Guess we're taking this, then..." I shuffled the corners out from under the knives, carefully keeping the tearing to a minimum. "If I keep needing to carry shit i'm gonna need pockets. Or a bag." I groaned.
"We can hold some stuff too, here." Hookfang reached a hand out, intending to hold the crystal shard. I opened my palm to let him take it, but when his claws made contact he shot backwards. "OW! What was that for?!" He hissed at me.
"Me?! What'd I do?" I growled back.
"That... Thing just shocked me!" He accused, pointing with admittedly singed fingers. I squinted, dangling the crystal from my fingers.
"Ok really, I know we really oughta get Snotlout outta those dungeons but could you not fuck around? There could be stuff we could use in here." I rolled my eyes, tossing it up in the air and catching it with one hand repeatedly.
"What- why would I lie about this of all things?!" Before things could escalate, B.B. snatched the shard at the top of its arch, instantly yelping and fumbling with it. It bounced onto the floor, rolling to a stop at Stormfly's feet. She backed up, hitting a wall in an attempt to avoid getting zapped, only to knock a dusty moth-eaten tapestry down over her head.
"Ew, ew, ew, get it off." She squeaked, uncovering herself and shoving the fabric onto the closest table. Toothless facepalmed, watching everything happen with an unimpressed stare.
"...My bad on that one." B.B. apologised, ducking his heads. "But at least we know it's definately the crystal?" I knelt to grab the shard, clocking my head on the table as I rose.
"Ow." I rubbed my head. Another bruise. Yee haw. Hookfang snorted.
"Ok, we're even now." He held back a smirk as I rubbed the dirt off my pelt.
"Yeah yeah laugh it up. Doesn't change that this thing has magic finders-keepers juice on it."
"Right, sorry, but can we go now?" He snorted, small waves of heat radiating from his body and distorting the air around him.
"Hookfang is right." Toothless sighed, rubbing his temples and rolling up the map, tucking it under a strap in his saddle. "We're running out of time as is, spending more time here than we have to won't get us anywhere."
"Besides, everything here's totally gross." Stormfly gagged, carefully picking at her spines.
"Yes! Let's go! Now!" Hookfang huffed, excitedly turning tail and busting out of the room. As the rest filed out behind him, I snatched up the 'totally gross' tapestry Stormfly had quickly discarded, rolling it up into a tube by the splintery wooden handle. I had a feeling we'd need whatever we could grab.
I scrambled to catch up with the group, already all the way down the hall and decending the stairs to the dungeon where it all began. Hookfang still in front of the pack, only pausing to shove aside the doors we'd left swung open in our haste. Without the smell of bad magic, I could tell exactly how dusty and mouldy this place was. It had to have been abandoned decades ago, maybe even a century. All the more reason to get ourselves and Snotlout out of here.
"Is the door handle still cursed?" I asked as we stopped at the last end of the hall, clustered around the door still unlocked but unopened.
"Yep." Meatlug spoke, not taking her eyes off of it. "There must still be magic running through it."
"You mean like an electrical current?" At her nod, I circled my thumb over the cleaved edges of the crystal. "Maybe I can siphon it out then. Hold this." I shoved the rolled up tapestry into B.B.'s arms, pushing my way to the front. I held the rock up to the handle, hesitating as I prayed I wouldn't get blasted all the way back to the stairs. As soon as I pressed it up to make contact however, it began glowing rich yellow, and I couldn't pull it away. I yelped in shock, trying to yank my hand back but finding myself just as stuck. A hot red color began blooming out of the door handle, spreading to the door of the cell and from there the walls, until we were completely surrounded by the faint glow. I didn't have to assume it spread out to the rest of the fort as well, I could feel it and its weight behind the shard.
"What did you do?!" B.B. shouted, hugging the roll of fabric to his chest.
"I... Don't... I don't know!" I strained, having to widen my stance under the strain of the sheer power I felt.
Then it stopped. For the briefest of moments I felt the energy come to a complete halt, before it and the red tint to the walls all came rushing at me, or rather the crystal, like liquid being sucked up by the worlds strongest shop-vac. My fur stood on end as I felt the crystal contain it all, growing hotter by the milisecond. It was almost hot enough to burn me, but just before it reached that mug-full-of-too-hot-coffee point the last sliver of red light was swallowed, the yellow in the crystal now a pale orange. As it faded I nearly fell over from the abrupt change, like I was pushing against a wall that had instantaneously vanished. As I was left stubling I leaned against the actual wall that was there, eyes widening when it began buckling at my touch. And then one of the other cell doors fell of its hinges, metal rusting away before our eyes.
Oh shit.
"Fuck fuck fuck what did I do?!" I panicked, pushing myself away from the walls until I backed into Toothless.
"All that magic must've been the only thing holding this place together!" Stormfly yelped, throwing her arms over her head as the ceiling started flaking off above us.
"Forget this!" Hookfang shouted, grabbing the now really un-cursed door handle and pulling the door open so hard it broke off in his hand. He chucked the rapidly deteriorating metal aside as he rushed to his rider, thankfully unconcious. I so didn't want to have to explain everything in an environment that was collapsing around us. "How do we get him down?!" He growled, gently grabbing Snotlout's forearm just under where it was shackled to the wall. I jumped up, dangling off of a chain until it snapped off, leaving the cuff attached to the boy. Meatlug followed my lead just breaking it in her hands as Snotlout slumped forward into Hookfang's waiting arms. It'd be a touching sight if we weren't about to be crushed to death.
"You've got him! Run for it!" Toothless barked out as an order ushering everyone back up the crumbling stairs. The cobblestones gave out under our feet but we kept climbing until we were back in the open hall, moonlight just barely beginning to recede as daylight approached, all the while obstructed by the overwhelming amount of floating debris in the air.
"Where's The exit?!" B.B. coughed through the dust.
"We only went through the windows!" Stormfly shot back, frantically looking back and forth.
"Then we'll do it again!" I yelled, snatching the tapestry back from B.B. and wrapping my whole body in it, charging towards a window and jumping through with the last of my strength, blacking out briefly at the resounding shatter.
I came to again on the grass outside, just in time to watch the roof collapse, taking the rest of the fort with it. I had a pounding headache. Someone took the tapestry off of me. Probably for the best considering it was now covered in shattered glass. I groaned as my shoulder was grabbed, the ringing in my ears stopping at the sound of someone calling my name.
"...per? Pepper! Pepper wake up!" I opened my eyes in a daze. Next to me kneeling on the ground was Toothless, tapestry in a pile next to him. I turned my head, seeing B.B. let go of my shoulder. I moaned in pain, letting the boys help me sit up as I reached for my head.
"That has to be the stupidest thing i've ever seen someone do." Toothless grabbed my arm and pulled it away from my face, inspecting my head for injuries himself.
"Hhah. You care 'bout me." I slurred groggily.
"Never do that again Pepper!" B.B. pulled me into a hug once Toothless let go of me. I struggled in his grasp aimlessly.
"Worked though didn't it lemme go!" I managed to eke out, muffled by his body. "Where's the shard?!"
"It's over here. You dropped it after you hit the ground." Toothless explained, pointing it out to me. I squirmed out of B.B.'s grip, snatching it up. I laid myself back down in the grass, suddenly very tired.
"...We did it?" I asked, keeping my eyes open by watching the sky shift from near-pitch to a dark morning blue.
"We did it." Toothless confirmed, standing up. B.B. stood as well, helping me to my feet and letting me lean on him.
"Let's catch up with the others. They made camp." B.B. spoke quietly, stroking my ears. I grabbed the tapestry that saved me from becoming a canine cactus, dragging it along the ground by the hanger. I let them lead me further away from the wreckage, to a small clearing secluded in the trees. A flimsy lean-to had been set up for Snotlout's still-limp body close to a fire, undoubtedly Hookfang's work. A few fallen logs surrounded the perimiter, clear markings for where camp ended and forest began. I broke away from B.B., reaching out to the gentle warmth of the fire barely contained by a few rocks. I sat, letting the warm comfort wash over me.
"Good thing you woke up." Meatlug yawned, lying in a pile of pebbles on the ground.
"Can't kill me off that easy, Mee." I yawned back, finding myself digging a small shallow hole. Nobody spoke for a while after that, letting me occupy myself with the cooled loam. I managed to make a hole big enough for myself, crawling in and curling up as small as possible.
Toothless had climbed a tree, watching over the camp from above. Hookfang was flamed up, lying just barely far away from Snotlout to not set the flimsy shelter on fire. Stormfly cooped up next to Meatlug's rock pile. B.B. Settled down over me, covering me with his wing protectively with one head laid down and the other at full attention.
And in my hole they let me sleep.
Author's Note; Eve of Eve Edition
I took a little extra time to give you a little more chapter for the holiday season! Yeah I know that ain't really an excuse but given the circumstance I think you'll live.
Besides, I couldn't find a satisfactory way to split this chapter into two. Shut up stop looking at me like that.
Because of the Thanksgiving boost in cases thanks to the dear morons that simply couldn't bear one year away from their disease-addled kin, school's been double cancelled. It was already online but now the entire building is banned from being entered by the teachers that, you know, need things in their classrooms in order to teach. And also the sped kids. And the janitorial staff.
I love idiots. Anyways.
Happy Holidays everyone, no matter what or how you celebrate so long as it is away! From! Eachother!
-Carly
P.S. You know almost all of the nordic countries have next to no cases anymore. Funny how the richest countries haven't got their shit together. Very funny.
