Alphas turned in his seat to face them, and waved jauntily. He grinned to himself. He was finally out. He could finally get the eggs, given that the Hunters hadn't got to them in the time he'd been taken.
Then a white star blasted him out of his seat.
Alphas fell, too surprised to react. Wreckage followed him downwards, catching him just as the ocean came up to swallow him. He swung him back into his seat. Alphas looked back at them, and saw the old woman with white glowing around her staff. He huffed. Of course things wouldn't be that easy. They never were.
"Arcanum!" she yelled, her voice grating. "Listen to m-" her voice cut off, and in the distance, he saw her bent over, trembling, clutching her staff as though her life depended on it.
He really shouldn't have stayed to protect those sheep, if only for his own good. The old woman started up again.
"Please! Hear what I have to say!"
Alphas decided to ignore her, and turned around to head back just in time for a dark wing in the face. He catapulted backwards and landed on his back. He leapt to his feet, teeth bared and sword drawn. He appeared to be on a large sea stack. It even had little patches of green growing on the surface. How charming.
Wreckage swooped down again, only to be blasted in the face by a streak of purple. He looked to the side and sent a stream of blue fire the Night Fury's way. Alphas whistled to him, and he looked back, hovering. Upon seeing the hand waving him upwards, he immediately abandoned all attempts to rescue his rider and turned his full attention to the Night Fury. The rider leaned over the side, and fell.
And then he spread his wings.
Alphas could only stare, dumbfounded, as the Night Fury rider whooshed over his head and landed right beside him. Other dragons landed on the sea stack, their riders disembarking with weapons in their hands. A double-headed axe for the blonde woman who had attacked him earlier. Matching short swords for the long-haired twins. A clubbed staff for the tall woman. And of course, a flaming sword for the Night Fury rider.
So this would be their battleground.
"You really cannot let go, can you?" Alphas sighed, shaking his head. "You're like a dog with a bone, the moment you have it you're not willing to give it up."
"Look, all we want is peace," the skinny Viking said. Alphas looked at him with the most bland look he could muster. The Viking's defiant expression faltered for a moment, then he stood straight again.
"Please, just come with us. Don't make this any difficult than it has to be."
Alphas scoffed. "You've got another thing coming if you think this is my fault," he said, and then immediately waved his arms as he saw the Viking's mouth open.
"No no no. Shush. I did nothing to you except try to mind my own business. You on the other hand, took my dragon's protective instinct as an excuse to kidnap me. So think about it for a moment, and tell me. Who's in the wrong here?"
"What were you even doing on that island?" the Viking pried, ignoring the accusation.
"Changing the subject I see. But since you asked, I was sent to retrieve some extremely rare dragon eggs that, grown up, would be nearly indomitable." He felt the jaws drop around him, saw the looks of guilt, and he knew it was his chance to press on. "We are fighting a war that's lasted years. Those eggs, in the hands of the adversary, would spell disaster for everyone and everything, if they were trained."
There was an extremely uncomfortable silence.
"Can we go back and discuss this peacefully?" the Viking asked meekly. Alphas shrugged.
"If you behave."
"… Deal."
=0=
Alphas sat on the chair given to him, polishing his sword. He was aware of the uneasy glances he was getting, as well as a glare from a certain someone. He looked up into angry brown eyes.
"What's the matter?" he chided. "Still upset about how scared you were back then?"
"Just so you know," the Viking explained in a very matter-of-fact tone, "I was only pretending to be scared so that this would happen."
Alphas planted the blade under the stocky man's chin, and listened to the shrieks for a moment before retracting his hand and pushing him into an adjacent chair with his foot. He sat down with a thud and almost toppled over.
Forget that. He toppled over.
"Before we start," Alphas said, leaning back, "tell me your names, if you please."
"Well, I'm Hiccup," the thin Viking said, "that's Astrid, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Gobber, Gothi, Eret, and my mother, Valka," pointing to everyone in turn.
"I'm sorry," Alphas sat forward, "but Hiccup?"
"Yes?"
"No."
"What are you-"
"I'm asking," Alphas interrupted, "what kind of name is Hiccup?"
Hiccup waved him away. "Long story."
"Give me a summary."
He sighed. "Names like these scare off trolls and things."
Alphas nodded. "Of course. Because a troll would be frightened of someone named after a bodily disfunction."
"It's better than being named-" Tuffnut began, but got knocked out of his chair by the girl sitting next to him. She appeared to be his twin.
"Uh, thank you? for that? Ruffnut?" Hiccup said.
"You're welcome!" she said proudly, holding the mace over her shoulder. Tuffnut bawled something about a mace betrayal from the floor.
"If this is how your meetings go I think I'll leave," Alphas shook his head.
"Nononono! It's fine. Just a one-off thing," Hiccup said hurriedly.
"I'll take your word for it."
"So, uh, who are you, exactly?" Hiccup inquired.
"Me," Alphas replied simply.
"Who or what are you a part of, I mean?"
Alphas sat forward, grinning. "If you're ready to hear the entire history of our civilization then you can tell me."
"In your own words, give me a summary."
Alphas snorted. "Well, since you put it that way, breakoff from the regular people because we have the ability to channel innate magic through runes and sigils."
"Oh. Could you expand a bit on the magic part?"
"It's an innate force which certain people have, and it can be passed down genetically. It can be channeled in different ways. Each way means a different kind of magic user. Sorcerers, wizards, witches, warlocks, and mages are all part of the overarching system."
"What's the difference?"
"As much as I love having a talk with you, I'm not ready to allow the intrusion of normal people on the world of magic. We have rules."
Hiccup held his hands up in surrender. "Sure, sure."
He turned to Gothi, frowning. "Actually, Gothi, how do you know about sorcerers?"
Gothi smiled at him. "Would you like the full story, or a summary? The whole thing is not particularly long, but the summary would be much shorter."
"Summary," Alphas said.
"The whole story, if you're okay with it," Hiccup said, at exactly the same time. They both looked at each other, and Alphas raised an eyebrow.
"Your island, your rules."
Hiccup shook his head. "You're nicer than I first thought."
"I tend to be more amiable when I'm not tied up, fighting, or otherwise occupied."
"Well, that's… definitely understandable," Hiccup turned to Gothi, and gestured for her to start talking. She took a deep breath.
"When I was younger, and I was in training to become a healer, I was sent to an island where many other young girls like me were instructed by a priestess. This priestess was renowned for her ability to cure anything, and to be able to learn under her was a great honour. I worked hard to learn of every medicine, I did my best to memorize where every root and herb and substance would be found, and what it could be used to cure. I quickly became better than the rest for my dedication.
"One day, the priestess took me aside, and told me that I could make a deal with her. She said that I was her best and brightest, and she saw in me her successor. She told me I had two options. The first was that I could stay on this island with her, and learn her every secret, learn the ways of medicines and potions, and teach those that came to learn in her place after she passed. The other choice was to continue learning with everyone else, and when I had completed my training and was to leave, she would tell me only two of her secrets, and would give me a parting gift."
Gothi smiled. "You can see which one I chose."
"When I was getting ready to return to Berk, she summoned me to her quarters. She had a book with her, and she said that this was to be my gift. Then she told me two things about this world. The first thing was that there existed a strange force that could bend this world to the will of the wielder. It was called magic. The second thing she told me was that the secret to wielding this force lay in that book, but I would be taught by no one. I would have to learn on my own."
Gothi's grip tightened on her staff.
"For years, that book was nothing but confusion to me. It is full of drawings and writing that I did not understand. But one day, I decided to try drawing those symbols. I did, and nothing happened. But then I accidentally touched the parchment that I had written it on. It evaporated to nothing in an instant.
"I then realized that these symbols were activated by touching them. So I experimented, and I drew all the symbols, finding out what each one did. I found that there was one central symbol which all the others had to touch in order to activate. One day I wondered if they worked for everyone. So when someone came in requesting help with a broken bone, I had them touch one of the symbols while they were unconscious. It may have been the fact that they were unconscious at the time, but the symbols did not activate. I then had them touch it when they were awake, but I got the same result.
"From this I concluded what Alphas had told us. Some people have magic, and others do not. So from then on, I continued learning these sigils, and I decided to carve some of them onto my staff."
"I saw," Alphas snorted. Gothi smiled at him.
"Yes, I believe it was made obvious."
He got up, slapping his clothes. "I don't know what compelled me to stay here. This conversation was useless."
"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked, surprised. "I'm pretty interested."
"In case you haven't noticed," Alphas said, looking at him over his shoulder, "I already know all this. All the runes, all the combinations, what each and every one of them does and in tandem with each other. This is not exactly divine knowledge being bestowed upon me. I am a sorcerer by nature. I know more about magic than your enigma here."
"I agree completely," Gothi said before Hiccup could respond. "You are a sorcerer by nature. You have been brought up in a community of magic. You know more about magic than I do. But I believe there is one thing you would like to know."
"And what would that be?"
"How I know about sorcerers, and about the Arcanums in particular."
Alphas paused. "You're right," he said slowly. "You never did mention that."
She gave him a look. "If you tell me how to link 'runes', as you call them, I will tell you," She smiled kindly at him, then realized that he had gone stone-faced. He turned to her very slowly.
"I had decided to overlook the fact that you can use sigils, if only for the good of your community here, but now that you're trying to bribe me with knowledge that is of little to no use to me only to further your own skills, I cannot ignore it any further."
He walked over to her, and took out a book, flipping through the pages. Everyone watched rooted, to the spot, unable to move as he perused it.
"W-what are you going to do?" Valka asked, in fear of the potential damage to be done.
"Nothing much," Alphas replied without looking up. "I'm just going to extract the knowledge of runes from her memories and from her head, and then I'll burn everything with sigils in and on it."
Hiccup immediately stood up to protest, but then Alphas turned his head.
Fear shot through Hiccup's body and he felt extremely heavy. He slowly sat back down in his seat, pushed and held down by an invisible force. Alphas turned back to the book, and hummed as he found the page he was looking for. He pressed his thumb to the corner, and it was as though the page was peeled out of the book while leaving itself behind. He took the brush from the front of the book and began to draw.
Quick strokes painted strange symbols onto the yellow canvas, a flowering mess of ink that couldn't be made head or tail of. He turned the page around, then drew something on the back as well. Then he peeled an exact copy of the page from itself again, and stuck one of them to Gothi's head, the other to his own. He closed his eyes, and pressed his palm to the page on his face.
The symbols glowed purple, and the same with the other page. Gothi's eyes rolled back, and she began to tremble. Everyone watched, horrified, as little streams of white smoke crept from every orifice in her face, dissipating into nothing.
Alphas opened his eyes and put the brush back. He took her staff and threw it into the fireplace, where it immediately burned blinding white as the runes caught fire. The fire crackled with white lightning and sparks of the same colour flew. Everyone leapt out of their chairs to escape the sparks. Some landed on them and they cried out as searing pain jolted through their bodies. Alphas seemed unaffected. The white sparks that landed on him turned pink and fell away, landing on the floor and sinking into the wood. It didn't burn, but there was the faint sense that it had turned into something else entirely.
The roaring fire ate up the staff until there was nothing left. It was burning pure white, but as the flames died down it turned back to the normal orange-red.
Alphas turned to walk away, snatching the papers from his and Gothi's heads and throwing them into the fire as well. Now the fire burned deep purple.
=0=
Alphas searched the various compartments in the old woman's hut at the top of the hill. Wreckage hovered outside. The Berkians didn't seem to have taken notice. It must have something to do with the fact that their healer was in a state where her mind was adjusting to the absence of knowledge. He smiled to himself. That had served as a splendid distraction from his activities. He could tell them she would be alright when he was done.
He kept looking, and then he found loose papers strewn about in a little cupboard, with a book under it all. He took it all out, threw it off the edge, and whistled.
Wreckage shot it midair, and then there was nothing except little scraps of parchment, burning white all the way down.
Alphas walked to the edge, and put his foot on the rails that ran around the structure. Aside, he wondered why the healer's hut was all the way up on the top of a hill. Surely it would be much easier for people to access if it was down on the ground with the rest of them.
Wreckage positioned himself right up close to the platform, and Alphas walked over the black dragon's body to the saddle and sat down.
They flew.
As he neared the hut where he had been held, and where they had later held a fruitless conversation, he got ready to lean out of his seat and yell. For some reason though, there was no one around. He scanned the ground for a moment, looking to see if they had gone anywhere, but saw no one. He shrugged, and patted the right side of Wreckage's neck. They turned around, and he felt the wind on his face as they ascended to greater heights, making their way home.
He failed to notice his shadows.