CHAPTER 26: Uncertainty
With everything that had occurred in the short number of days on Pacifist Island since Hawkon's appointment as Chieftan, it'd have been easy to forget that those very events were being carefully observed from the other tribes on the archipelago, who at this point had a clear idea of Grugg Hawkon both politically and as an individual based on his past speeches when they sent delegations to the island prior to his appointment.
Of course, with the implementation of Hawkon's decree, the Pacifists had initiated Hawkon's pledge in it to expel all the vikings who were there in delegations from either the Outcasts or Berserkers, many of whom were sent to monitor events from a genuine anxiety over Hawkon himself.
With the Pacifist tribe having banned all outsiders officially from the island, Dagur, Heather, Alvin, Mala, Atali and one of the top vikings of the old Dragon Hunter tribe as well as numerous other tribe members, were left without eyes on the island. It wasn't good. Not only did the Pacifists expel all outside tribes from their island, but as Hawkon also pledged, they had put an end to one of their finest traditions that the 'Old Pacifists' had become known for - taking in lost vikings and stranded vikings on abandoned islands.
That was put to an end strictly under Grugg Hawkon.
And the events on Pacifist Island over the past days had culminated in Dagur once again hosting a summit of all his fellow Chieftans from across the archipelago. It was the first time since the dreaded appointment of Grugg Hawkon as Chieftan of the Pacifist tribe that they all gathered together on Berserker Island.
"What a complete and utter disaster," Dagur the Deranged claimed, referring to Grugg Hawkon's appointment as Chieftan.
The summit of Chieftans was taking place once again on Berserker Island in the cold depths of the night as the ocean waves roared past the island's shores and rocky structures.
"So I'm probably going to get some slack here lads...and lasses. Why are we concerned about an island we know nothing about nor is it of our business?" the head viking of what used to be the Dragon Hunters asked.
"I know you guys never got on with Hiccup Haddock back in the day so I wouldn't expect you to understand the situation at hand, alright?" Dagur replied, his tone almost on the verge of a scolding manner.
"Neither did you old boy. For the record, nowadays, I respect Hiccup and his lot and wouldn't mind seeing him again. We hunters had an explicit goal and it just so happened the Hooligans at the time got in the way. But you had countless rivals with Hiccup I'd need a list about as long as your island here to count em," the former hunter replied.
"Guys, GUYS, for all of our sakes can we just stay on topic? tensions are high but the last thing any of us need right now is to be falling out," Heather said, acting as the broker in the summit.
"My sister's right. I don't care about the past anymore, not least because I'm aspiring to be like my late father, Oswald the Agreeable. I don't care that I, as a kid, used to think of my dad as a coward for being a peaceful viking but you grow up with age, I've grown up now, and growing up means I couldn't care less about what younger me, more immature me, did back in the day. I see Hiccup and his tribe in a different light and I'd have expected you to be a tad more respectable...look, I'm sorry, ignore me. Whatever hostile tongue-in-cheek comment I made or may unintentionally make, ignore it. I'm just so stressed out right now by the situation we have on our hands."
Mala placed a hand on her husband's armoured up shoulder to comfort him. Mala, as the leader of the Defenders of the Wing tribe and Dagur's wife, had plenty of reasons to involve herself in what was going on right now. In the past she often shrugged her shoulders at the Pacifist situation but her husband's reaction just now, and also the rapid ascent of Grugg Hawkon in the Pacifist tribe mainly after his appointment, had made her quickly change her mind.
The leader of the Wingmaiden tribe, Atali, was also quite alarmed at the rapid ascent of Grugg Hawkon, a man who in normal times would've been considered the direct opposite of a Pacifist viking. These weren't normal times, and like Mala, she quickly went from a 'eh' type of reaction to the events on Pacifist Island to a desire to keep a close eye on it all. Hawkon's words in the past didn't go unnoticed in her mind, even more so now that he was the Chieftan.
"How about we all take a step back and rewind ourselves...not literally ah' course because it's impossible to reverse ourselves physically...I'm talkin' figuratively if you all understand ol' Alvin here?" Alvin the Treacherous said, as the Chieftan of the Outcasts dipped his voice into the conversation around the table with his fellow leaders/Chieftans.
"You're all right," Dagur said, "it's just that the stress is getting to me."
Wiping his eyes and taking a deep gulp of air after calming down with Mala sat directly next to him, Dagur looked to the former Dragon Hunter who was sent to this summit on behalf of his tribe, and tried to reset the tone by answering his initial question.
"To answer your question, we should...we should be concerned about this because we share the same archipelago as the Pacifists. It's a tribe only fully known by the Hooligans and Stoick in particular when he lived. And from the little stuff we do know, it's historically been amongst the biggest tribes on the archipelago but one that stayed by its name, literal Pacifists. But now that they've got what is clearly a tyrannical Chieftan in position, not only has it turned around their history and taken them on a path that would've been unthinkable for the Pacifists to take, it also has potential implications for all of us. Nine years of peace on this archipelago following the defeat of Grimmel the Grisly in thanks to Hiccup, and now one of the biggest tribes in the archipelago, only fully known by the Hooligans, has a brutal Chief dictator as its top guy. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
Alvin and co nodded.
"On top of that, we're no longer able to send our men onto the island to oversee events as Hawkon's banned all outsiders from the island. The men reported to me that the ban came about from an emergency decree proposed by Hawkon himself, which means it must've been approved by the top guys in the tribe. From the copy of the decree we managed to sneak out before the men were ordered to leave, one of the pledges was to...pull out of the Docile Dragon Alliance."
"Aye, that much I recall my men saying too," Alvin said.
"How much has the alliance worked? they continued to have wild dragon attacks over their island and we don't get enough of them to be able to attempt remotely what the Hooligans did to domesticate them as friends," Atali said.
"The point was supposed to be that in light of the increasing dragon attacks over the archipelago, all the tribes would unite as one to try and replicate what Hiccup did, his genius methods to make friends with them which I stupidly should've recognized all those years ago when I was younger rivaling with him, to which I hold my hands up by the way," Dagur said, looking towards the Dragon Hunter viking in response to his comment earlier.
"I understand, it was a very ambitious program old lad, this Docile Dragon Alliance. Safe to say back in the day it wouldn't have gone down well with my lot when Hiccup was a teenager and he was flying around with that Night Fury which at the time infuriated us," the former hunter said.
"But anyways, the fact that they've now pulled out of the program...remember, these dragons attacking us quite clearly are the ones who were hiding out throughout the Drago and Grimmel years and who never followed the Night Fury into the Hidden World nine years ago. They've returned now precisely because of their hiding out has made them aggressive and wild and there's backdated hunger in them no doubt, but the potential to bond with them I believe, in thanks to Hiccup as my inspiration to do it, was there. But now that the Pacifists have pulled out of the program...it says to me that Hawkon's got plans. Very ugly plans indeed."
"For what it's worth Dagur," a Berserker viking guarding the door to the hut said, "another thing the lads reported, the ones you sent to the island before the ban, to listen to his first speech as Chieftan, was that in his first speech he made it clear that one of his grievances was the dragon attacks. This is my personal take, but from hearing about his speeches in the past from the men, he never had any intention of dealing with the attacks with this treaty we began. With Emme Rald and the predecessors of the Pacifists before Hawkon it had potential...but Hawkon to me sounds revengeful for something and that's where I've landed in terms of my opinion."
"This is where I'm coming to," Mala said, "didn't somebody in the past mention that Hawkon used to be a former Hooligan?"
"Aye, that'd be me, in that sense me and him have something in common at the very least. We were banished," Alvin said.
"Right. That makes sense. Do we know why he was banished as a Hooligan in the first place?" Mala asked.
"Not that I know of or what the men know of. But we do know that he was abandoned on their old island shortly before they evacuated with their dragons to find the Hidden World to escape Grimmel. That's all we could gather from the numerous speeches we've heard from him over the past months," Dagur said.
"Like I said in the past lads and lasses, the men back at the island seem to like Hawkon. Not because they wanna revisit the past in terms of battles but because they see him as a representation of their old views. From the little information we got they genuinely liked him," the hunter viking said.
"Well we need to drop that view of him as do your guys. Obviously nothing has happened yet and everything Hawkon's said has precisely been just words. But after nine years of peace on the archipelago, a tribe with amongst the biggest numbers on these islands, now with a Chieftan who has a tyranical agenda...there's reason for us to be concerned. Not least because he's pulled out of our treaty and has so far established no communication with us unlike Emme Rald and the last Chieftan of their tribe," Dagur said.
"We're gonna have to scrap the entire Docile Dragon Alliance treaty and end it. That's what I'm going to do after them pulling out of it. And depending on the situation I'm not gonna rule out sending the men out to seas to try and track down Hiccup's new island so we can get contact with the Hooligans again. He'll be the only Chieftan alive nowadays who knows enough about the Pacifists to ease our nerves. I don't want a war ten times the danger as those suffered because of Drago and Grimmel to break out in this archipelago...we've been at peace for nine years since the end of Grimmel now, and I want to genuinely redeem myself and live in my father's image. That means standing up to immoral agendas, dangerous leaders and keeping the peace."
"I feel like I agree with you there Dag," Heather said, "but do you really think, if it came down to it, we'd ever be able to find the new island of the Hooligans?"
"We'll have to try if need be. We're all Chieftans here, we can work together to find them. And whatever hostilities any of us had in the past with Hiccup, we're all older men and women now and for the common good we ought to unite together."
"Aye," the Northern Market viking said, "it'd be good to see Hiccup again after these years. The kid, as much as some of the lads in my tribe used to hate him and Stoick, it'd be like seeing an old friend again if we ever find him. At what point would you consider looking for his new island to talk with him, Berserker Chieftan?"
"If there comes a point where we face unprecedented aggression by what Hawkon now supposedly calls the 'New Pacifists'. We need the guy with the most knowledge to help us at that point, it's as simple as that," Dagur replied, being bluntly honest about the criteria that'd need to be met before sending out boats to find New Berk.
"For the time being we can only wait until Hawkon makes contact with the tribes across the archipelago, so that's all of us," Alvin said, "I'd be happy to give him a lesson or two in manners for leaving it so long!"
"Manners is the least of our concerns. If I fear what'll happen actually becomes reality it'll be more than manners, and I don't want to do that truth be told," Dagur said, coming to the conclusion of the summit between the various Chieftans of the Barbaric Archipelago.
Dagur continued to host the summit for another half hour following the above exchange. Now with Grugg Hawkon as Chieftan and the Pacifists pulling out of the Docile Dragon Alliance, Dagur's nerves grew to a higher level than ever before. Dagur was scrapping the Docile Dragon Alliance because at this point it was just a pointless exercise in light of the Pacifists withdrawing from it and also in light of Hawkon's emergence as Chieftan, a much bigger matter at this point.
The prospect of peace being broken after nine flawless years of it on the archipelago following the defeat of Grimmel was a chilling prospect. Knowing the type of agenda Hawkon was embarking on made Dagur fearful of it happening.
Any prospect of it would be the moment in which he'd send his men out to find New Berk to find Hiccup.