The king was sitting on his throne, conversing with someone. Hiccup, Astrid, and Omegas, who had let Astrid in, were waiting for their conversation to end. Alphas had yet to return from replacing whatever materials he'd picked up.

"If you truly believe that there is no more opportunity to build on this same land, then I will allow for raising the ocean once more," the king said. "But before that, I want a comprehensive report on the state of our population. If your results show that there is truly no room for expansion, then I shall give the word for the process to begin. Is that acceptable?"

The slight man before him, with a large, rolled up piece of parchment in his hand and a brown hood on his head, gave a swift bow.

"Yes, your majesty," he said, the words slurring slightly.

He turned to walk out, and Hiccup almost gasped at that face. He managed to get his features under control within an instant, and stood stone-faced as the man walked by. Astrid was the same beside him.

The man nodded to Omegas as he passed, then pulled the doors open, just enough to slip through. They clicked quietly shut behind him.

Hiccup's heart was absolutely pounding at that sight. It was like half of the face had begun to melt off, then solidified. One stark blue eye drooped in its socket, one ear hung limply off the side of his head. The cheek just flapped at his neck.

"It's fine," Omegas whispered to him. "That's almost everyone's first reaction."

He walked forward to the king, who watched patiently and amusedly as Omegas approached.

"Space problems, Uncle?" he asked.

"Yes," the king sighed in the tones of an avalanche. "Kleon recommends raising the seabed."

"I heard," Omegas nodded.

The doors swung open as Alphas walked in, dusting his hands. He noticed Hiccup and Astrid, then his eyes fell upon Omegas.

"How's Buzzard?" he grinned.

Omegas shrugged nonchalantly. "Traumatized, probably."

"What? What did you do?" the king questioned immediately.

Omegas smiled innocently. "Nothing."

The king sighed. "Don't. Just don't. Not when he's involved. Just tell me what happened."

Omegas waved a hand nonchalantly, still smiling mischievously. "Oh, it's nothing."

"I'll just call him, shall I?" Alphas grinned vindictively back at Omegas.

"Oh no," he immediately replied, "don't trouble yourself."

Alphas made to walk outside, and Omegas was there in a flash, holding onto his wrist.

"Oh no," he said again, his face delightfully cheerful, "you mustn't bother."

Alphas stared back in calm amusement, and delivered a smile that Hiccup immediately understood.

I'm going to do exactly what you don't want me to, it said.

It was probably for the best that at that moment, the doors banged open with enough force to shatter any normal wood, and Leonidas stalked in, radiating all the manic fury of a Singetail. Astrid frowned at the sight of his newly acquired eyepatch.

"Philander," he growled, paying no heed to anyone else in the room.

"Yes?" the king said wearily.

"Your nephew," Leonidas said in the whispering tones of ash, "is a terror upon my life. Never before have I so completely wanted to beat someone to kingdom come."

"What did he do," the king asked flatly. It was more of a statement than a question.

"The little shit chased me all the way from your castle to goddamn Ypsos," Leonidas said gruffly.

The king frowned and sat forward with an almost unbelieving smile.

"Sorry, he chased you?"

"Shut up," Leonidas said immediately. "The drugs only just wore off. And I have to take them again. This crap's going to keep happening for a while."

"Well," the king said with a smile, "it's just quite interesting to hear of Lionfist himself getting run around the city like a mouse."

"Again," Leonidas said, "shut up."

The king snorted, then looked away. For a moment, the room was quiet.

Omegas cleared his throat.

The king looked up at Hiccup and Astrid again.

"And how is Berk?" he asked. "Has Myre left it, that you have come here?"

Astrid nodded. "Yeah. It's all fine now. Myre said something strange, though."

"Oh?"

All eyes in the room turned to Astrid.

"He said that he thought he needed you - sorcerers, I mean - and us for what he wanted," Astrid told them, "but then he found a way to get what he wanted without that."

"Ah," the king said quietly. "And did he mention what he was after?"

Astrid frowned. "The Heart of the World, I think. I think that's what he said."

=0=

"Alright," Leonidas clapped his hands together. Alphas and Omegas stood to perfect attention in front of him.

"I'm assigning you two a new mission," he told them. "The scrolls we got from under Berk lead to special locations. His majesticness has impressed upon me the importance of getting to the end of it before Myre, so you get to drag yourselves across the world to solve riddles."

He waved a hand.

"There's going to be a team with you. I'm choosing the skillset but you can choose who you want to take with you, because 'you're princes', like that makes you special somehow."

He sighed. Alphas and Omegas remained completely immobile.

"There's seven other teams," Leonidas continued wearily. "It'll take about two weeks to get everything ready for you all to set off on your own thing, so you have until then to choose. I'll give you all your options by tomorrow. Go wild in the meantime. Dismissed."

The twins immediately slunk into more natural positions and looked at Leonidas with a tired humour that felt like they had stayed up at night and were now finding everything, in a hallucinating sort of manner, so intensely hilarious that it managed to leak through the exhaustion.

Of course, Hiccup knew they hadn't, although Alphas at least had had to stay awake in that frozen world with him, and then continue with the rest of the day.

Oh, wow. Now that Hiccup had a moment to think about it, he was feeling kind of sleepy as well.

A yawn which hadn't been there before tugged on his jaw. It took all of Hiccup's strength to keep his mouth shut.

"You don't have to bother," Astrid said quietly out of the corner of her mouth beside him. "No one's going to say anything."

Of course she noticed.

Well, it really was so sweetly flattering that she was still paying that much attention to him. He looked at her, smiling gratefully. She smiled back at him.

"No," Leonidas was saying, "you can't have him. He's already been selected for another team. That's final."

Before either Alphas or Omegas could say anything else, he turned on his heel and walked off, leaving them staring after him with their next words hanging unspoken. After a moment, they sighed and stepped back.

"Well," Alphas said, cracking his knuckles, "we know what we're going to do next. Are you going back to your island?"

"Yeah," Hiccup told him. "It's been too much time, and I've been a little bit stressed about it, to be honest. As long as Myre's gone, we should be fine."

"Right," Alphas nodded, then turned to his brother. "Do you have the pager?"

Omegas waved a wooden circle in response.

"Good," Alphas said, and reached out for it.

Quite deliberately, Omegas pulled it out of reach. Both stared into each other's eyes for a moment before Alphas relented and stepped back.

"Fine. You do it," he said. Omegas immediately perked up and, with a flourish, handed Hiccup something that looked like a bit of an elaborate paperweight. A thin circle of dark, polished wood, upon which sat another, thicker circle, which tapered up to a flat top. Between the two were thin pieces of wood, upon which the thicker piece seemed to be propped up. Thin, spiralling metal framed every one of those pillars, connecting to both the pieces of wood. Now that Hiccup looked a little closer, inside the ring of little sticks was a slightly raised platform. He couldn't make out what was carved on it.

Hiccup turned it over in his hand, examining it.

"Uh, thanks," he said unsurely. "What is it?"

"It's a pager," Omegas said, flashing him a brilliant smile. "It sends us a signal if you ever need help. You just have to press the wood together. Like this."

He took it from him and, in a one-handed grip, squeezed it, forcing both the pieces together. There was a wooden click and it flared momentarily with pinkish-white light. A loud, piercing noise resounded from Alphas' pocket before he slapped it, and the high-pitched sound stopped. Omegas handed the pager back to Hiccup.

"Oh, wow," Hiccup said, unable to stop the smile creeping onto his face. "This could be really useful! Thanks!"

"No problem," the twins said in unison.

"You two are really in sync," Astrid interjected with a laugh.

Alphas shrugged. "Anyone who's in sync with him, I say, is cursed."

"Do you always have to make me the butt of the joke?" Omegas said with an exaggerated sigh. Alphas slapped him lightly on the back.

"Sorry," he said. "Come with me for a moment."

His arm went around Omegas' neck, and with immense force, he turned him away. Omegas' feet skidded, locked, against the ground, but Alphas dragged him off around a corner, leaving a trail of kicked up dust behind them.

After a moment, Astrid snorted. Hiccup joined in, laughing quietly along with her.

"They're definitely twins, alright, if Ruff and Tuff are anything to go by," she remarked.

"Those two aren't really a good standard," Hiccup giggled.

Astrid shrugged. "They've set it for me anyway."

"Probably… not good for… any other twins," Hiccup replied slowly.

Astrid just shrugged again, this time with a small laugh.

"So," Hiccup said, "we'll be going to Berk after this, huh?"

Astrid looked at him. "What's the 'huh' for? We always go back to Berk, no matter what."

"It's just been a while for me," Hiccup replied. "It feels nice."

"Oh," Astrid said, looking away. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "That's what you mean."

"Yeah," Hiccup said quietly. "Everything's alright though, right? I didn't miss anything big while I was gone?"

"Hmm?" Astrid looked up. "No, nothing like that. Carvid was nothing special. Everyone misses you though."

Hiccup frowned. "Carvid?"

"I didn't tell you about Carvid?" Astrid said. "Oh, right. I didn't."

She snapped her fingers. "How do I say this? He's insane, basically. He's insane, he's such a good fighter that I don't know how you could use a hooked rod for some of the things he did, and he works for Myre. I don't think he respects him that much though."

"Huh. How good would you say he is, on a scale of Fishlegs to Alphas?" Hiccup asked, then added, "No offence to Fishlegs."

Astrid snorted. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. On a scale of Fishlegs to Alphas… I honestly don't know. I feel like he didn't show us everything. What he did show though, was probably an Omegas level of skill."

"An Omegas level of skill… and you're saying he didn't even show you everything." Hiccup pinched his nose and shook his head. "What have we stepped into?"

Astrid shrugged. "Magic, apparently."

=0=

"You want someone to accompany you to Berk?" Omegas asked, helping Hiccup get the saddle buckled onto Toothless.

"Ah, no. Thanks for the offer, but I think we should be good now," he replied.

Omegas shrugged. "Alright. Safe travels."

Hiccup looked up at that. "What, just like that? Where's Alphas? Isn't he going to see us off?"

"He's with Buz- he's with Leonidas. Sorry about that."

Hiccup wondered what was important enough to hold Alphas up like that. It was a little disappointing that he wasn't going to come to say goodbye to them.

"Hey, hey," Omegas said with a smile, throwing an arm around Hiccup's shoulder. "Don't let it get you down. We'll visit you every now and then, don't worry."

"I'm not that attached," Hiccup said, annoyed by that provokingly wide smile. "Stuff happens, I get it. I'm a chief too, I hope you remember."

"Oops, sorry to do that to you there, chiefster," Omegas exclaimed, backing away with his hands up in mock surrender. "How can I ever earn your forgiveness for my extremely rude, ever so rash comment, that offended you so? Must I grovel? Beg? Am I sentenced to licking your boots for a thousand years? Pray tell me how I may become something more than simply a maggot in your eyes, sir, I beg of you!"

Hiccup held his gaze, stone-faced, for as long as he could before breaking down into laughter. Toothless sat up on his hind legs behind Hiccup to watch him with something that felt almost judgemental. Omegas looked at Toothless and began giggling at that hunched over pose .

Toothless warbled in concern for his rider, who was bent over from laughing. That just sent Omegas into hysterics, cackling. And that set Hiccup off into even more laughter.

So when Astrid came upon them, leading Stormfly by the grip of her saddle, Hiccup was on the floor, curled inwards and gasping hysterically, tears streaming from his eyes, while Omegas was something close, hands on his knees and absolutely screaming in laughter at Toothless frantically nosing his rider, sending him rolling across the wooden floor.

Astrid just eyed the two of them for a full second, then shook her head and went into the corner, adjusting Stormfly's saddle, ignoring two of them.

It felt like a long time later that they said their goodbyes, and left Nisi.

Back home.

To Berk.