Gathering up the rider to take him away and back to Berk had proved more difficult than they had previously anticipated. There was no place for him to sit, and having their dragons carry him with their claws would probably dislocate his bones from whichever point he was to be carried. Eventually they decided to just carry him on dragonback. They could take turns. The difficult part would be making sure he didn't fall over the side in his unconscious state…
Hiccup had taken the rider's sword, admiring the fine workmanship and the quality of the metal from which it had been forged. He couldn't really identify it, which was strange in itself, as Hiccup had found out early on while working under Gobber that he could easily figure out which metal was which simply by smelling it. A bizarre skill in itself, but when compared to some of the things the twins could do, it really wasn't all that strange. This sword however… it was foreign to him, a metal he couldn't recognize. On Toothless now, he took the sword from where he had put it away and sniffed it.
Nope, completely unrecognizable.
"Hey Fishlegs," he called.
"Yeah?" came the quick response.
"Is Meatlug getting tired yet or what?" he asked.
"Nope!" Fishlegs chuckled. "She's really strong, aren't you, girl?" he added, the last part directed to Meatlug, whose turn it was to carry the rider as well as Fishlegs. She simply gronked at him, as you would expect a Gronckle to do.
Where had his mind gone over the course of the last few years.
Deep in thought, he absently began stroking the rider's sword with his finger, running the tip up and down the edge of the blade.
Up. And down.
Up. And down.
Up. And do-
"Hiccup!" someone yelled, right into his ear.
"Gahh!" Hiccup jerked away from Fishlegs, hovering right next to him on Meatlug. "Wha-what? What?"
"We've almost gotten to Berk and it's your turn! Did you forget?" Fishlegs asked.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, guess I… zoned out for a moment."
"Really, Hiccup," Valka admonished him. "You're flying on dragonback with family and friends, and you can afford to get distracted? I didn't raise you this way."
"Yeah, you didn't raise me at all, Mom," Hiccup replied. Valka looked surprised that he would play that card, but turned away, chuckling.
"Just like his father," she murmured, smiling.
Meatlug and Fishlegs flew above Hiccup and Toothless, hovering just above them. Fishlegs reached behind him and heaved the rider onto Toothless' back. The rider thumped as he collided with Toothless, and rolled off backwards, off the tail, and fell down towards the ocean.
Hiccup, not having fully processed what just happened, just stared at the rider as he fell into the azure blue depths.
There was a quiet splash.
"Come on!" Hiccup yelled, turning Toothless into a steep vertical dive. Like the rider, they fell, but they fell with precision. Big difference.
They dove into the ocean with a huge, spraying eruption of water and mist. Hiccup remembered to take in a deep breath before he breached the surface. Then he remembered that the rider also had lungs. All the more reason to rescue him. He didn't want another death on his conscience.
Toothless swam towards the sinking rider quickly, and grabbed him by the collar with his teeth. He dragged him upwards, Hiccup clinging on tightly. They ascended rapidly, Toothless' strong wings beating against the water. The two, no, three of them broke the surface of the water, Hiccup spluttering as he got all the water out of his mouth, Toothless indifferent, and the rider still very much unconscious.
"Well, that was almost a bit of a disaster," Hiccup remarked. Toothless warbled in agreement. They rose back into the clouds to join the other two, where they were waiting
"I'm glad to see that you two were perfectly content to let me handle that," Hiccup said sarcastically. Valka chuckled.
"I thought you had it handled. Now, let's pick up where we left off, shall we?" she said, with an air of carelessness. She and Cloudjumper flew away. After giving Hiccup a bit of an awkward look, Fishlegs followed. Shaking his head in amusement, Hiccup patted Toothless on the shoulder, or whatever a dragon would call it, spurring him on to race after them.
=0=
"You what?" Astrid asked, frowning at him.
"We brought him here," Hiccup said nervously. He didn't want to face Astrid's wrath so early in the morning.
"You brought him here. A dragon rider we don't know about, someone who we've never seen before, someone who, according to you, Fishlegs, and your mother, is really good with a sword, and knows more about dragons than anyone we've ever known, you brought him here. On dragonback," Astrid said.
"Uhh, yeah?" Hiccup tried.
"Hiccup, that was really dangerous!" she exclaimed. "What if he'd woken up? What if he'd gotten to you?"
"Well, he didn't," Hiccup said. "And what's done is done, we gotta move past that. It's over now, it's done, and now we have something else to do," Hiccup added, walking past her briskly and into his house. They'd converted it into a makeshift interrogation room for the time being. The rider was sitting in a chair, his hands dangling loosely at his sides. He was still unconscious, somehow, and Hiccup noticed his hair. It was remarkably black. The bent-over shape of Gothi was standing in front of him, a small vial of something clutched tightly in her old, gnarled hand. The one that wasn't holding a staff. Gobber was right beside her.
"Well, laddie, you want teh wake him up now or noot?" Gobber asked, his foot-long moustaches jumping with every word.
"Ah, in a moment. Who-who put him in the chair?" Hiccup asked.
"It were those twins," Gobber said. "They sat him doon here and lehft. Said they had some things teh do."
"Can't trust those two with anything," Hiccup muttered to himself. He gestured to the rider.
"Could you…?" he said, making a looping motion around his wrist. Astrid nodded and made to go outside.
"Do me one more favour and get the rest of the gang here as well. And get Mom and Eret too, wherever they are."
The door shut before he even finished his sentence. Hiccup sighed and pulled out a chair for himself, setting it down opposite the rider. He sat down, and let the time pass by.
Not long after, Astrid came back, a rope wrapped tightly around her hand and his mother and the rest of his friends following close behind. She set to work immediately, taking the rider's hands behind the chair and tying his wrists to the back of the legs.
Hiccup sighed wearily. The day hadn't even begun and he was already in the mood to sleep. Although, to be fair, he had spent a rather long time awake for Phantom Island. His eyes widened, and he groaned inwardly. He'd left Soul back on the island, guarding the Bewilderbeast faithfully. He pictured the giant red dragon sitting patiently on the sandy beach, waiting for his friends to return.
He felt a pang of guilt, and promised himself that when this whole interrogation was over, Soul would get a visit and a day's worth of fish.
"Hiccup," Astrid said. Her quiet voice snapped him out of the momentary daze he'd been possessed by. He looked up to see her beckoning him over with a single finger. He got up and went to her.
"Look at this," she whispered. On the rider's left palm, there was a strange symbol inked into his flesh. A large dot, surrounded by a circle, encompassed by a bigger circle, encompassed by an even bigger circle, and all that inside yet another circle, and this last ring had curving flares shooting out of it in a spiraling design. It reminded Hiccup of the way they drew the sun.
He squinted at it. There seemed to be nothing special about the ink used, other than the fact that it was black.
"Huh," he murmured.
"What do you think it is?" Astrid asked him, speaking quietly.
"I don't know," he said in the same, low tone. "Maybe some kind of tribal symbol."
"Instead of theorizing about it, why don't you ask him?" Astrid suggested, speaking normally again, a smile on her face as she spoke to him. "He should know, right?"
"Yeah, yeah," Hiccup said smiling right back her, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
They stared at each other, his eyes on hers, her eyes on his.
"Hey lovebirds!" Snotlout yelled at them. The two of them started away from each other, then laughed.
"Come on," Astrid said.
"Gothi, if you could do the honours," Hiccup said.
Gothi uncorked the vial. A strong, pungent odour wafted out. Everyone wrinkled their noses, trying not to breathe. Gothi seemed unaffected, somehow.
Gothi held it under the rider's nose for a few seconds.
He jumped awake and the chair rocked on the floor, almost reaching the verge of tipping over. He sat there for a few seconds, breathing hard. Then he looked up, and saw them all, sitting or standing there, and groaned.
"Great, there's even more of you idiots," he said sarcastically. He looked around him. "And I appear to be tied to a chair. How fun."
"Hi again," Hiccup said, unsure of what else to say. His words were accompanied by an unconscious wave, and he almost kicked himself once he realized he'd waved. Well, this was getting awkward again.
"Um, if you're up for it, we'd like to ask you a few questions," he tried.
"Ha! Up for it! Up for it! You have me tied to a chair, you want to interrogate me, I'm being held against my will, and you just politely ask me if I'm up for it!" He threw his head back and laughed. Hiccup sighed.
"Well, while this isn't an ideal situation for a polite conversation, it's the best we can do with your attitude towards us right now," he persisted.
"My attitude towards you, he says," the rider grinned. "I had a mission assigned to me, I was on my way to complete it, I run into you fools, you try to get me to come with you when I don't want to, then when that fails you knock me and Wreckage out, you bring me here and I wake up tied to a chair. And then it's my fault, is it? Perfect logic!"
"Okay, when you put it like that it sounds worse than it is," Fishlegs piped up. The rider shook his head.
"Oh no, it sounds exactly as bad as it is. Now, let me go and I won't throw you into the ocean."
"You're tied to a chair. You can't move. There's nine of us, and one of you. You really think you can escape all of that?" Astrid asked incredulously.
"Oh, definitely," the rider said, smirking.
"I dare you to get past us all."
"Accepted."
"Wait, wait," Hiccup said. "You said we knocked you and Wreckage out. But isn't Wreckage, you know, uh…"
"Are you trying to say dead?" the rider said seriously. "Because no, he's not."
"He took an entire shot limit's worth of charged plasma blasts and a Gronckle to the head!"
"He's Wreckage. His species is tougher than a mountain."
"Really?" Fishlegs asked excitedly.
"No. It's a metaphor."
"Then is he alive or not?" Hiccup pressed.
"Definitely alive," the rider confirmed. Then something seemed to click, and his face changed to become a peculiar mixture of smug and excited. "And you won't want to be here when he is."
"What does that mean?" Hiccup asked, confused.
"He'll be coming all the way over here in a couple minutes," the rider said.
"How long?" Hiccup demanded.
The rider shrugged. "Twenty or so."
Hiccup whirled around. "Okay gang, get your dragons, and get ready. His dragon is nothing like we've ever seen before."
"Why though?" Tuffnut said, bored by all the stuff that didn't involve things blowing up.
"Because, Tuff. We have a village to protect."
"What, is it going to destroy everything?" Tuffnut asked, an animated expression entering his eyes.
"'He'," the rider corrected. "Wreckage is a 'he', not an 'it'."
"I actually agree with you on that one," Hiccup said.
"Lovely. All I've ever wanted my entire life. I aspired all my childhood to have you agree with me," The rider snarked.
"Ignoring that, yes Tuff, he'll destroy everything if we don't stop him," Hiccup said.
"Well, I say we let him do it!" Tuffnut yelled, throwing his hands in the air and accidentally smacking Snotlout in the face.
"Do you really want your house to be destroyed, with all the stuff in it?" Hiccup challenged.
"Uh… no?"
"Then you'll stop that dragon from doing any damage." Hiccup frowned, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And that'll be easier said than done."
"Why?" Snotlout asked arrogantly. "It's just another dragon. We can take it down no problem."
"'He', and 'him'," the rider said.
"I say whatever I want," Snotlout said, waving away the rider's protests with one hand.
The rider looked at him coldly. "I see."
"Snotlout, this dragon can breathe fire and it has a shockwave attack," Hiccup said with a tone of finality.
"Oh."
Without protesting, Snotlout immediately went outside, followed by Fishlegs, the twins and Eret, who had just stood around, listening and not saying anything. Very uncharacteristic of him. Usually he had some sort of input.
"Before anything else," Hiccup began, turning back to the rider, "could you tell us your name?"
"Finally," the rider said. "A question that's actually worth answering. I'll tell you this, and nothing more."
"Ah, well, alright. If that's what you think."
"Don't give me that nonsense. It's what's going to happen, and you're going to deal with it."
Hiccup put his hands up. "Okay, okay. Point taken. But we will still be trying, I can assure you of that."
"Hmph. Anyway, my name is Alphas. Alphas Arcanum."
To the side, Gothi started, an expression of shock on her face. She came forward, and put her stick to the ground, but instead of scratching, she leaned on it and for the first time in what must have been decades, she opened her mouth.
"Arcanum?" she said in a grating, hoarse voice. It was cracked and old, unused to being used after being neglected for so long in favour of hieroglyphics in the sand.
Everyone had shock written all over their faces. In all the time that they had been alive, they had never heard Gothi use her voice. There had, of course, been discussion on why Gothi didn't speak, but never before had anyone raised the opinion that it was voluntary. The rider, or rather, Alphas, as he had said, was out of the loop, so he just raised an eyebrow at all the gaping mouths around him.
"Yes, Arcanum," he said to Gothi. "Anything I should know? What's with you all?"
Gothi smiled. "I've just had a vow of silence for the last fifty-three years. Today was the day I broke it."
Alphas did a double take. "That is a long time."
"It is. Could everyone please come with me? There's something I need to tell you all in private." And without another word, Gothi took her stick and trudged upstairs, leaving everyone to stare after her.
Joining her in Stoick's old room, everyone waited expectantly. At last, Gothi opened her mouth.
"This person you have down there, Alphas Arcanum, is not an ordinary human being."
"In woot way?" Gobber asked.
"I had my suspicions when you brought me here to wake him up. I sensed the faintest traces of what makes him special in the room."
"Gothi! Who or what is he?" Hiccup asked impatiently.
Gothi looked at him for the longest time, and Hiccup immediately felt like his bones were being taken out without opening his flesh. Then Gothi spoke.
"A sorcerer."