Hello all!
Well, here it is.
As always, here's my apology for the absurd amount of time it took to get here. If you read the A/N in the last chapter, though, you'll already know that this time, it's gonna be a little different.
I'm going to be going on another hiatus to revise some past chapters, as well as get the rest of the story's details settled. Most will be grammatical fixes and touching-up to some of my older, more pedantic writing (not that that's changed a whole lot). But there will be some large-scale changes to ensure continuity with the rest of the story. So be sure to stay tuned for updates as time goes on, even if they're not new chapters!
Another note: Since I'll be gone for a while, I may consider doing a sort of "Q&A" or "FAQ" chapter after this just to answer questions regarding the story, or any other questions you may have in the meantime. So feel free to leave them in the comments if you have any!
And one last thing! The FFN User Dragon Crusader is going to be helping me as a beta for this story for the foreseeable future! Again, it's going to be a little while before you see any new chapters past this one. But he's already been helping me work out some past issues with the story that we'll be revising and updating soon! So if he's reading this, thanks again!
I think that's it! Hope you enjoy this one!
I don't own How to Train Your Dragon.
Hiccup wanted to kick something.
He wasn't sure what. But definitely something — a door frame, maybe, or a tree stump.
It was the sort of thing Astrid used to do when she got frustrated. That, or throw her axe at trees with such accuracy and force that you could peer straight through the trunks after she'd finished.
Hiccup would dive into his work. He'd find a solution, an answer to the question the problem was asking him. Couldn't lift weapons high enough to place the blade on the grindstone? He built a new one with shorter legs, with a ramp he could push them up on. Couldn't take down a dragon himself? He made a bola-launcher to pull one out of the sky for him. He befriended a Night Fury he'd somehow managed to take down, and he couldn't fly? Hiccup made a tail for him.
Said Night Fury disappeared into the woods after revealing that he had turned his girlfriend into a dragon?
Well… For once, this seemed more like a kick-something problem. Because it had been a full day and a half since Toothless ran away, and they still had no idea where he was.
There were no tracks to follow. Berk had already grown far too cold for those, anyway. Anything less than a ship-sized boulder falling from the top of a mountain could hardly make a dent in the earth.
No scattered brush, snapped tree limbs or stomped saplings to provide any sign of a path, either. Toothless had grown accustomed to the ground, after all. He had gotten more dexterous than most other dragons living on Berk already. Being grounded whenever your rider wasn't around would do that, it seemed. Not to mention the way his onyx scales blended into almost any shadow outside of direct sunlight.
Catching him, as Hiccup had guessed, would be next to impossible. He did know his dragon — enough to know that they'd find him only when he wanted to be found. This sort of thing had happened once or twice, of course, but this time… This time was different.
Everything was different, now. Though he was starting to get sick of saying that.
He sighed, and chose an oblivious pebble on the path in front of him as a target. As his boot collided with its surface, the stone slipped underneath his toe. He almost tripped, before catching himself.
Of course. Because nothing could work out, ever. No matter how close he got, no matter how many damned books they stole or people they disguised or missions he took. His friends got hurt, or ran away… Or…
His gaze drifted down through the village. Past the disheartened and weary of the Clouded Valley Tribe, as they milled about at Berk's center. Past the docks, where the ships rested, to the vast, dark, and consuming waves of the sea.
… Or died.
Pausing to take a long, shaky breath, he shivered, and once again set up the trail toward his house.
He figured his father was still out. He wasn't ever home at all, anymore. He spent most of his time in the great hall, planning their course of action for the coming battle. Otherwise he was at the docks, or in the villages, welcoming the island's newest guests. Two more tribes had arrived last night, travelling together. Stoick was upset that he hadn't been there to meet them at the docks, but all Hiccup could give was an empty apology before collapsing into his bed. It brought him little comfort. His room had seemed much colder the last two nights — and much emptier, too.
But there was someone outside his house, Hiccup realized, as he trudged up the path. He squinted at the figure for a moment, before grimacing.
"Hey... Astrid," he said.
She rolled her eyes.
"There's no one else around, Hiccup" —she kicked the door frame with her heel— "No one inside, either. I checked."
Hiccup exhaled. "Ah… Right, okay."
A beat of silence.
Syl raised an eyebrow. "So…?"
She didn't need to continue. Hiccup just shook his head.
His decision to fill her in had been easier than he expected. Astrid hadn't wanted to, of course. Even she wasn't willing to tell him much about Toothless when he pressed her, which only frustrated him more. If this whole thing had really become a web of secrets, then the strings had wrapped him up, and they were starting to strangle him.
But Syl's lack of surprise when he told her was, itself, surprising to him, but then it also wasn't. He had expected an "I-told-you-so," or her characteristic smugness, at least. But she didn't bat an eye as he'd explained everything to her.
"Sucks," she'd said to him. And that was that.
He frowned.
"Syl… He doesn't… He hasn't—" The words escaped him.
He looked up, expecting to see her rolling her eyes. She raised a brow instead. "Hasn't what?"
"He hasn't been… The same…" He felt stupid as soon as he said it.
Syl did roll her eyes this time.
"So what tipped you off? The turning-Astrid-into-a-dragon part? The betrayal of trust? The lying and manipul—"
"That's not what I meant," he found himself growling at her. He wasn't mad at Syl, though. How could he be? Everything she had said appeared to be true, after all. But how was he supposed to be anything but angry, anyway?
"It's just…" He sighed. "Besides just… That. I guess you didn't really know him, know us before, but… We were close. We are close. Toothless and I, we were… Friends. We were friends, and now we're… He's…"
Hiccup felt his throat tighten up all of a sudden, and swallowed hard. "It's like I don't even know him anymore. I look at him, and… When he looks back, it seems… Sometimes i-it… It seems like he doesn't even recognize me…"
"Well…" She frowned. "He… Was hiding things from you, wasn't he? At least now you know what it was…"
He gritted his teeth. "That's not what I meant… I mean that… He doesn't… He's not missing but it's like he's not always… There? Gods, why is this so hard to…"
"No, no," she waved her hand. "I get it. Or I think I do, anyway… Let's walk and talk, alright? There's somewhere I've been meaning to go, anyway. It isn't that far."
A stone's throw away, Astrid stalked through the forest.
Her eyes flickered, not for movement, but from exhaustion. She hadn't slept in two nights, now. The moment she'd regained her faculties the morning before, she had jumped up and run straight in the direction he had fled in until her legs couldn't carry her any further. When those failed, she took to flying. She didn't dare rise more than a hundred feet from the ground, though — she couldn't sustain herself in the air very long without being forced to glide back down into the forest, anyway.
She only returned to the clearing the next morning to give Hiccup a rough overview of what she'd learned. After both searched the perimeter together, and much argument, he'd grudgingly agreed to head back to the village for a day while Astrid searched for him by herself. He gave her a few brief words of advice on tracking him, before leaving for the village.
Then she was back on the trail. Or lack thereof, really. Other than a general direction, the damned dragon had proven impossible to find. And she knew her weariness wasn't helping, either. Though she wasn't quite on the verge of collapse yet, even she knew her new physical limits well enough. She couldn't push herself much further without rest.
But she needed to find him. She needed to talk to him.
Then she'd find some way to punch him in the face. Because even if he could somehow justify everything he had put her through, it still seemed only fair.
A twig snapped somewhere off to her left, and she flinched. Slinking over, she stuck her nose through a bush near where she heard it. A bird flew out of it, startling her. She watched as it flew away, then sighed. It'd been the closest thing she'd had to a lead all day.
There was something she had yet to try, of course, but…
The events of that night had yet to leave her thoughts in any way. To let Toothless speak with her through the link they shared was uncomfortable in its own right, even with the weeks they'd already done it for. But to lose herself, to lose her own mind to whatever it was she had been subjected to…
For a while she had never wanted to speak with Toothless again.
But then she realized that that was what Toothless had been going through. That that was what he had been experiencing more and more over the past few weeks… And now she needed to find him. Still, until then, she couldn't bring herself to reach out to him.
But… She had searched everywhere… And she had nothing else to go on…
She frowned and closed her eyes, focusing.
"Toothless…"
Directing the message outward was harder than she expected. When he was close by, it was easy enough; it felt just like talking, in a way. But spreading the message out like this, in every direction…
It felt like shouting her deepest secrets at the top of her lungs while standing in the middle of the great hall during a Snoggletog feast. Nothing about it was natural, or safe.
She received no response. Grimacing, she tried again.
She kept at it, even knowing she probably wasn't going to get a response. This wasn't even tracking by this point — more of a desperate plea, if anything. But she had run out of options.
Then she caught something. Not a word or even a sound, really — more of a feeling in her mind. The notion of speech. As though someone had opened their mouth to say something for a moment, and hesitated. Narrowing her eyes, she tried to gauge the source, fleeting as the sensation was. She had never quite felt anything like it before. It was unnerving, almost repulsive in its foreign nature.
The "trail" pushed her forward, further into the woods, away from the village. Recalling the island's landscape, she realized she was walking toward Raven Point. She wasn't even that far from the ravine.
I swear to all the gods, Toothless, if that's where you've been hiding… She thought. Huffing, Astrid broke into a sprint, bee-lining for the ravine. It's exactly the kind of over-dramatic thing he would do, that damned dragon...
Soon, Astrid found herself standing in front of the edge. She peered down into the chasm, searching for his dark form among the shadows and beneath the trees. Seeing nothing, she unfurled her wings, gliding straight down to the small woods.
A few minutes of searching turned up nothing. Toothless may have lived down there as she did, once. But she had become far too familiar with it for him to be able to hide for long. He wasn't there.
Cursing, Astrid flew back up to the cliff's edge with a few quick wingbeats, disheartened. She paced for a moment, before trekking back into the woods. He was close. She knew it. It was just a matter of narrowing it down, now.
"Toothless…" She called out again. And, again, she felt that same feeling in her mind. The not-quite-speech. This time it felt close — really close — and she immediately set off toward it.
Pushing through some heavy underbrush, she found something unexpected. A half-uprooted tree, split only a few feet above her, as if struck by lightning. What made it odd was the way it had fallen.
The trunk laid on its side against the ground, as if some heavy strike of an axe or hammer had knocked it over. A thin strip of bark just barely connected it to the rest of the stump. Moss had begun to grow where the crack neared the ground, and much of the wood itself had begun to rot.
As her eyes followed the trunk down, she noticed the same was the case for several other trees around it. Most were cut or trimmed, but not cleanly, like someone had hacked away at them with a dull axe before giving up. Looking even closer, she noticed a deep trail sliced through the dirt, leading down the hill, as if a boulder or tree had been dragged down it. This, too, was mostly covered in grass and brush.
Stepping past the tree, she followed the trail down the hill, over a slight rise, and blinked.
There he was.
He was just… Sitting there, staring blankly at the ground in front of him. His wings were folded against his sides. She searched his pose for any tension, for some indication that he would bolt or attack her once he noticed her. But more than anything he just looked… Tired.
She still didn't move. She didn't have a clue why, but something had paralyzed her on that spot. It was like she'd just stumbled upon a ghost while on a light jaunt through the woods.
They each stood there for a few seconds, then a few more, until Astrid was sure Toothless had realized she was there. She still didn't move. He didn't either. Then,
"This… This is where it happened," He started.
Something about the way he said it was just… off, but she couldn't quite place why. She'd have to return to it later. There were more important things right now.
"... What?" She replied. She tried to make it sound angry, or at least frustrated, but it came out sounding as confused as she felt.
"This is where he freed me," He said, finally looking at her. "Sorry, that… That probably sounds pretty cheesy. But… It's true."
He stood up, and turned around, then started clawing at something in the dirt. After a moment, he unearthed something. It was small and shiny, and round. Sticking out of the side of it was the frayed end of a thin rope. Astrid swallowed. She could've recognized it anywhere — she'd spent hours training with them in the ring, after all. It was a bola, or the remains of one, anyway.
"Yeah, it hurt quite a bit," Toothless admitted with a soft, deep chuckle, seeming to sense Astrid's unease. "But I guess a lot of the important stuff tends to, anyway."
Astrid wasn't sure how to respond. She wanted to scream at him, to ask him why, why was he here, why did he run away, why he had done this to her? But… She couldn't.
"Sorry, I…" He frowned, and looked away, as though just having been woken up. "That's… Not why you're here, is it? I guess I just thought..."
He shook his head.
"Never mind that. You're the one who should be asking the questions, really. So… Ask away. No more secrets. It… Is what we agreed on, isn't it?"
Astrid did a double take. She'd completely forgotten.
"Okay then," she sat down, steeling herself. "Let's talk."
"It's just up ahead!" Syl yelled back to him.
Hiccup tried to hold back a groan. He wasn't used to walking this much, and he'd been tired enough to begin with. Whatever Syl wanted to show him, though, she seemed determined to reach. She'd kept a few feet ahead of him the whole way there, and had a spring in her step he didn't recognize. He couldn't really complain, either — more travel through the woods meant more chances of finding Toothless... However slim the odds were.
"What is this, anyway?" He asked. "Much further than this and we're gonna be treading water…"
It was true — although he wasn't that familiar with the terrain, the island wasn't that large. They had to be getting close to the sea.
"That's what we're looking for!" she replied, without turning around.
Hiccup's eyes widened. "Looking for? You mean—"
"It's around here somewhere," she cut him off. "Just give me a few more— Here!"
She pushed a branch out of a way, revealing a recessed cove with a small beach. Glancing down along the water's edge toward Berk, Hiccup's eyes widened.
"This is where we brought Astrid…" He muttered.
Syl raised a brow. "What?"
"When we found her…" Hiccup replied. "When we found her in the woods, we had to get her to shelter… We brought her here."
He pointed down along the coast, to where the shallow cave sat hidden behind a few boulders. "It's funny… We didn't know it was her, at the time. Toothless had tried to tell me, I guess, but…"
"Wait, so when you found her, you thought she was just a dragon…?" Syl asked, stifling a laugh.
"A dragon in the woods?" Hiccup finished for her. "Yeah… A night fury, at that. Can't believe I couldn't draw the connection, then, but…"
"It's not your fault," she shrugged. "How were you supposed to know?"
Hiccup stayed quiet for a moment, before asking, "So… What are we doing here?"
For the first time since they'd gotten there, Syl's smile fell back into a frown. "Well… It's strange, I guess. I didn't know you had any history with this beach, but… This is where I was exiled."
There was a beat of silence.
"Oh," Hiccup responded, quietly. "So…"
She gave a sad smile. "Weird to think you guys were here that night, too. Guess I missed you by just a few hours."
Another beat.
"Listen, Syl…" Hiccup started. "I'm sorry you got dragged into all of this. Honestly, most of the time I still wonder why you're doing this for us. It's not like you had any reason to in the first place, and I know how much of a pain it's probably been for you. I know I've tried to become your friend and all, but if you still saw me as more of a captor… Well, I'd understand."
"More like a little brother, really," she replied, smirking. "Anyway, it's nice to know I'm… Helping, somehow. With all this."
She gestured to her hair and clothes.
"Is it?" He asked. She frowned.
"Well, it's… Only a matter of time until Astrid's back to normal, and… I'll be gone."
"Where?" Hiccup asked.
She turned away. "I don't know."
He sighed. "I can get a boat for you after the… The battle, but beyond that… Listen, Syl, you don't have to—"
"I know what you're going to say, Hiccup," she cut him off. "I know you're so certain that my mother is going to lose. That the whole village and all the dragons are gonna dance in a circle and sing some victory ballad together or whatever. But even if you're right… What am I supposed to do, turn myself in here? 'Hey, it's me, the daughter of the leader of the army you just defeated. I'll be staying here now, thanks.' You really think the village would be receptive to that?"
"Well, you don't know—" Hiccup began.
"I do know," she snapped. "I've met them, lived with them for weeks now, in case you forgot. They're too stubborn to start trusting an outsider like me. Even if I could gain their trust, well… I already know where your dad would send me. I am still an heir, after all. I'm sure you understand what that means more than well enough."
"I…" Hiccup started again, before swallowing hard. "... Yeah."
They each sat in silence for a little while longer.
"I can't stay," she said. "And… I can't fight, either."
Hiccup grew confused. "What are you talking about? I've seen you fight. Your methods might be a little unorthodox but—"
"No, it's not that, I just… I can't."
Hiccup wanted to respond, but couldn't think of what to say.
"What would I be fighting for, anyway?" she muttered.
"I never thought about it as fighting for anything," Hiccup responded. "I only ever fight when I have to."
"Even then, you're still fighting for something," she retorted. "For your village, for your damned dragon, for Astrid… I…"
She sighed, and her whole body seemed to cave inward slightly. "... I don't have anything. So why should I?"
Hiccup thought for a moment.
"You… You could fight for you," he offered.
Syl looked away. "And what's that worth, anyway?"
"It's…" Hiccup sighed, and turned back to the ocean. "It's worth whatever you make it."
"I made a mistake," Toothless shook his head. "I made… A lot of mistakes."
She narrowed her eyes. "Well, that seems to go without saying."
A low growl stirred from out of his throat. "No, no, that's not what I meant. I… Listen, Astrid, what I said the other day — I meant it. I really, really never meant for this to happen, Astrid. When that bola wrapped around me, when I heard you screaming, I just… I just wanted to help you, Astrid."
He sat back down, his body seeming to collapse inward on itself as he did. Astrid thought she had never seen him look so tired as he did then.
"I had really never done this…" He frowned. "This... magic stuff, before. I… didn't even know it existed, honestly. I just wanted you to survive. I prayed to every god I could think of I thought would help that day."
He paused for a moment, and his frown deepened. "But I heard you screaming, still, and I knew it wouldn't work and so I… I called on something. I don't know what it was, Astrid, but it was… Something, inside of me. And somehow I knew that it would work. That you would be… Changed, but that you would survive, whatever was happening to you. But I didn't know what it would do to you, Astrid. I… I didn't know it would turn you into a Night Fury. Not then."
She raised a brow. "Not then?"
"Not…" He grimaced and scrunched his face, as if he'd just been physically struck by something. Astrid worried for a moment that she'd done something wrong, had triggered another attack for him, before she shook herself. No. Like it or not, the truth was coming out, there and then.
"Astrid, do you…" he stopped for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. "Do you remember the Queen?"
Of course she remembered the Queen. She remembered the time she had first laid eyes on her, as if it were yesterday. She remembered the behemoth rising from the flames deep within the pit of the hollow mountain. It had seemed as if she was emerging from some deeper realm beneath the earth. She remembered the way it snatched a gronckle out of the air like some tiny fish by a great sea-dragon. How she had spewed more flame into the clouded sky that fateful day than she'd ever seen in her life. Astrid swore she had breathed enough fire to create a second sun that burned away the clouds themselves. She remembered how she'd felt when she thought it had killed Hiccup...
And then she remembered what Toothless had said about her. How she had controlled all the dragons with her mind, manipulated their actions, their choices. It was something she had already guessed at before, for a long time, actually. Hearing it from him had only confirmed her fears. Suddenly, it felt like the pieces were falling into place, but she was still somehow blind to them.
"She controlled you," she stated. "She bent dragons to her will, forced you to do her bidding. You were powerless to her."
He winced at that last line, and Astrid sensed she'd struck the nerve which, until then, she had been doing her best to avoid.
"Toothless… If that's what this has all been about…. If— If you still feel guilty for anything you did then, we don't—"
He gnashed his teeth, but still shook his head. "No, that's not it. Well, I guess that is sort of it, but that's… That's not ONLY it. I did… Terrible things, Astrid. We all did terrible things when we were still at war with… One another. But… You're wrong, Astrid. Or… Partly wrong, at least."
He turned back to face her, eyes stern.
"The Queen was… Powerful. Very, very powerful. But not absolutely," he began. "She could control us, and would at times exert her... influence, on us, to do her bidding. To bring her food, usually. The power that you and I have, the way we're speaking right now… The power that you used on Stormfly, once?"
He looked up at her, and she swallowed hard. It was a memory she'd spent the past several days trying to forget.
Toothless only nodded. "... What the Queen had, I believe, was an extremely powerful, dominant form of that.
"But she couldn't control all of us, not all the time, and not everywhere, either. The further we got from the nest, the more her power dwindled, the more we were able to resist her call. Among all of us, her power was spread thin, too, I think. And lastly, although she never would've revealed it, I realized eventually that her grasp on our minds grew looser the longer we were in her service. Whether that was her own doing or just the limitations of her power… I still don't know.
"But she was smart. After all, even if she couldn't control us all the time, she couldn't let us run rogue, could she? After all, we might've resisted, tried to escape…" He sneered, then huffed.
"So she took… Other precautions. To ensure we could function on our own, without her direct control over our every action or thought, but never completely free of her grasp, either. Always serving her every whim, even… Even when we didn't realize it."
A beat passed. Then another.
"What…" Astrid started. "What did she…?"
He kept staring past her.
"She erased our memories."
One final pause, as Toothless clenched his eyes shut. Astrid might've noticed if her mind hadn't been reeling as well, trying to make sense of what this meant. She thought first to ask how, but then stopped herself. None of this made sense anyway, and it was clear that Toothless didn't understand any of this much better than she did. She would just have to take his word on it.
"What…" She swallowed again. "What did she erase?"
"Whatever she didn't need," he jeered. "Whatever we didn't need, I'm sure was her way of thinking of it. Memories of family, of our kin. Any connections that existed outside of the nest. Anything that would give us reason to leave. As if the torture she put us through wouldn't be enough to drive us away…"
"That's… That's terrible, Toothless," Astrid said, thinking. "But… But you're free now, right? I mean, you could have family out there, that we could find for you. I mean, with that many memories… We could try to figure out—"
"That's just it," he shook his head as he cut her off. "I don't— Astrid,"
He looked back at her. "You've… You've seen inside my mind, Astrid. I know you have. That one time, in the woods, when you tried to reach out to me, and… The other night,"
"Yes…" It was Astrid's turn to look away, this time.
"Tell me, Astrid… What did you see?"
"If you're looking for answers, I can't give you any," she snapped. "It was just… Darkness, chaos. Like being stuck in a thunderstorm a mile above the ocean..."
"You can only hope you'll make it out alive," Toothless finished for her. "It's the same for me, every time. It's like a fog starts to set in, and suddenly I'm… Lost. Sometimes I can ward the fog off, but other times…"
He didn't finish the thought.
"I'm… I'm sorry, Toothless," she said.
"I'm not looking for the answers from you, Astrid. Although if you happen to have any, they'd be much appreciated," he told her. "Really, the… Answers, are just the problem, I think.
"It all started after your transformation. Again, I'm not sure how any of this works, but I think doing that to you must have… Awoken something in me. Or… Unlocked, maybe. Like it was always there, inside. I just couldn't quite see it. Ever since then, since I started having these… Attacks, I started to remember things, too. From before."
Astrid's eyes widened. "Like what?"
"Well… It wasn't much, at first," he explained. "Just vague shapes and sounds, that sort of thing. I didn't even know what was happening to me. Figured it was just weird dreams at first, something like that. But after a while I could start to make out certain things. Trees, a night sky. Stuff like that. They only came in bursts, and even then were still blurry — like a fresh painting dipped in water, smudging the whole work. They… They still are."
"But you must remember some things, right? Some details, or… Memories of your life, before? I mean, Toothless, you could have a family out there! If you could remember enough, try hard enough…" Her enthusiasm died suddenly as she saw the look on his face.
"It's painful enough as it is," he replied, gritting his teeth. "But, I… I do. I remember some things… It's not just places or sights, after all — it's sounds, textures, tastes, emotions, even. Some were harder to understand than others, but…"
He paused for a moment, before continuing, "I remember… Pain. Not always of the physical kind, but sometimes that too. Mostly, though, the pain of… Confusion. And… of Loss. Of something important, lost. At the time I wondered what that meant, but…"
He seemed about to say something else, before looking up at her, and shaking his head. "I remember my life before the Queen. I was alone for… A long time, I think. I tried to seek help, to find anyone to… To help me. To help me with… With what I had lost. Sorry, this probably sounds stupid—"
"Are you kidding?" She asked him. Still, she hesitated before she said it — he was clearly still hiding something, though she couldn't figure out what.
"But… I couldn't," he continued. "Then someone found me instead. I think they… Wanted, to help. But they brought me to her… To the Queen. I don't know why, but… I don't feel like blaming them. I don't think they understood what they were doing…"
He began to trail off, and Astrid tried to think of a question quickly, before he could sidetrack again.
"This… Thing, you lost, Toothless," she began. "Was it… Was it your family?"
As she finished, Toothless squeezed his eyes shut, and growled low and deeply, as if the words had stung him. Astrid recoiled slightly, alarmed.
"No… Well. I… I don't… No," He struggled out.
"Then what aren't you telling me?" Astrid asked. She knew it, now — he was avoiding something. Something big. But she was done with the sidestepping. Way past done.
He stared at her, and as he did, Astrid suddenly felt the need to move, to run, even. But it wasn't anger, or even sadness she saw in his eyes just then. It was a hopeless desperation — the same desperation she had seen in his eyes only one night ago, just moments before he ran away.
"I had… Thought they weren't true, at first," He started, his thoughts sounding quick, and thin. "I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to. I thought it was just some nightmare, some diluted mix of my current memories and past… It… It didn't make sense. The village, the... Everything about it felt wrong, had to be wrong. But the more I remembered, the more I realized, my… Normal memories, only spanned a few weeks. But the rest… The rest must've been my whole life, and that—"
"Toothless," Astrid said, her own mind racing as she tried to make sense of his rambling. "What are you talking about?"
He stopped, and she noticed suddenly that he was breathing hard, eyes drilling daggers into the ground.
"At first… My memories were… Were from when I was alone, living in the woods… When I was a Night Fury," he said.
Astrid's eyes widened.
The world rocked beneath her feet.
No. No, he couldn't mean—
"But the rest were from before," he told her, casting his eyes back up at her. "... When I was human."
The two sat there silently for a time, staring out over the ocean, as the waves quietly lapped at the rough, beaten beach.
"You know… I did once," Syl started.
Hiccup turned to her. "Did what?"
"I did have something to fight for," she smiled. "I wasn't always, y'know… Like this."
"What does that mean?" Hiccup asked, cautiously.
"Oh, shut up, Hiccup, you know what I mean," she rolled her eyes. "I know I'm kind of an ass sometimes. A lot of the time. It's what you have to become, when you get yourself stuck in a situation like I did."
She frowned. "... Explains a lot about my mother, I guess…"
Hiccup wanted to say something, but stopped himself. He got the feeling he was seeing a side of Syl she rarely showed anyone — probably including herself. He couldn't mess this up, not again.
"Sometimes it feels like most of my life has just been a series of losses," she said, giving a hoarse chuckle. "Just one after the other. My village, my mother, my father, my…"
"Your…" Hiccup tried, softly. "Your brother?"
"Yeah, he, um," her voice grew quiet, and she looked away, scratching absently behind her ear. "He died, when I was little. Dragon raid. But you already knew that."
Hiccup nodded, squeezing his hands together on his lap. "My mom was the same."
Syl stared at him for a moment, then turned back out to the ocean.
"My brother and I were… Close. My Dad was… Cruel, and my mom was never around, so… We stuck pretty close together. He was a few years older than me. Quite a few, actually. He got second in our dragon training tournament, just a few weeks before we lost him."
"Sounds like a pretty cool guy," Hiccup replied.
"Yeah. He was a dork, though," she added, with a laugh that caught in her throat. "Kinda like you, I guess. Loved reading n' stuff. I don't think he really wanted to be a warrior, he just knew it was what he needed to do to help our village. He would've done whatever it took."
Hiccup smiled. "Yeah, I get that."
"Anyway, it's… It's been a long time since then, anyway," she finished, frowning.
"I never really had a sibling," Hiccup said. "I always kinda wondered what it would be like, growing up. If things might've been different."
"Like what?" Syl asked.
"Well, this might surprise you, but Vikings aren't the most receptive to sarcastic kids who keep burning down their village… Especially not those with the physique of a walking fishbone," he muttered.
"Oh, I'm not surprised at all, in fact," she said, rolling her eyes. "Though I forget sometimes the whole 'dragon conqueror' thing is still a recent title. I've only known you for as long as you've had it, after all."
"Yeah," he frowned. "I guess I'd… Never really thought of it that way. I suppose it was probably a little easier for our village to believe we could live with dragons. I mean, if someone like me could train them…"
He shook his head. "But… That's enough about me."
"I think you and he would've gotten along, if it's any consolation," she said.
"Your brother?"
"Yeah."
"Well, that's… Nice to know."
They each went back to watching the waves. After a few minutes, Hiccup turned back to Syl. "So… What was that thing?"
"What thing?" She asked.
"The thing you mentioned earlier," he said. "That you have to fight for? Or… Used to have, anyway?"
She gave a sad smile, and pulled one of her legs up to hug against her chest. "Well, I guess it wasn't a something so much as a… Hope, for something."
Hiccup shrugged. "A hope for something is still something."
"Well, the achievability of that something has a lot to do with it, in the end," she retorted, sighing.
"Well... Not to brag, but you are talking to a guy who befriended a Night Fury and ended a generations-long war between Vikings and dragons. For the time being, anyway," he replied, clearing his throat. "The whole 'anything is possible' thing might be a little overdone, but… Well, whatever it is might still be worth a shot."
"So what you're saying is," she smirked. "… Something is possible."
"Maybe something is possible," Hiccup said, rolling his eyes.
Still smiling, she turned back to the sea. A few more minutes passed. Hiccup frowned, and fingered his thumb.
"It was your brother, wasn't it?" He asked.
She didn't respond. Hiccup pursed his lips, afraid he had finally crossed the invisible line. Consciously, he knew he should shut up, shouldn't press the issue any further. But…
"What was his name?" He asked quickly.
Still, she didn't respond.
He cursed himself. Well, there went his chance. Gods, he was such an idiot. Was he really destined to keep losing people, too? Just another torment the gods had decided to bestow upon him? To keep failing in each of his friendships? To keep ruining every semblance of a chance of—
"Leif."
He turned back around just in time to see her swallow, hard. Tears lined the corners of her eyes.
"His name was Leif."
"Toothless… How do you—" Astrid managed.
"It was strange," he mumbled, as if speaking only to himself. "When I first spoke with my kin, after we were freed… They retrieved their memories almost instantly. That was when I knew for certain what the Queen had done to us… I asked them if they remembered me, if they knew of my family, where I had come from… None of them had an answer. I thought I was just an outsider… But it all makes sense now…"
"Toothless, you're being irrational," she admonished, her mind still reeling. "You don't know that you were—"
"I'm not delusional, Astrid," he growled. "I know how crazy this sounds. You think I haven't doubted it myself? Thought that maybe this is just some crazy nightmare, that it's all a lie? You think… You think I want this?"
He shook his head. "Astrid… I've been through a lot, okay? I've been beaten down, I've been enslaved, I've been captured, I've been shot out of the sky and had my tailfin ripped off my scales. I made friends with a human — humans. We ended a war together. I even live in a gods-damned house, now. But throughout all of that… I still knew who I was. What I was. And now…"
He growled — it was a strained, desperate growl, one tinged with a frustration for something that far exceeded his grasp.
"How did this even happen? Was this done to me on purpose, or was it a mistake, like you? Why did it happen? How many memories did the Queen erase? How… How much of me is me?! How much of it is from before, and… and…"
He clenched his eyes shut, spiraling. Starting to panic herself, Astrid scrambled to think of a response.
"Your past life… How much of it do you remember? If we could determine what it was, what… Village, you were from, maybe we could—"
"Nothing," he shook his head. "Or… Almost nothing, anyway. It's still mostly blurred. The shapes of people, running, eating, talking, fighting... One in particular… Houses, trees, boats going out to sea. But the details are all missing. Gods, it's… Astrid, who…" He hung his head low, eyes full of sorrow and confusion, like a child who'd just learned what death meant for the very first time.
"Who am I?"
She couldn't respond. She didn't have an answer.
She clenched her teeth, trying to make sense of his story. Everything added up. His attacks, the deceit, the way he'd seemed to change over the past few weeks. How distant he had become... It all made sense. There was no reason for him to lie about it, as far as she could tell. Yet everything about it seemed so unfathomable. Toothless. A human. Gods, each time she thought about it it seemed all the more insane. Yet who was she to doubt his memories?
Toothless looked away, his face hardening. She wished she had come up with something, anything to say to him in that moment. Because what came next was almost worse.
"You can't tell Hiccup about this. Any of it."
"What?!" She demanded.
"You knew I would ask that of you, Astrid," he muttered. "Before I even said it, you knew."
He was right. That didn't mean she had to be happy about it.
"How can you ask me that, Toothless?" she demanded. "I mean, gods, he's your best friend! I don't care if you're trying to protect him or not, he deserves to know — way more than I do, in fact."
"And that's exactly why he can't," Toothless countered. "It's not just about his protection, Astrid. With everything that's going on right now, the battle, your… Cure, my… Attacks, Hiccup already has far too much to deal with. Maybe that's all the more reason to tell him — it's not unthinkable, I guess, but… Well, I don't know how he'd react. It could… Hurt him. In a different way. So, for now I just need to keep being his best friend, not… Something else. Someone else."
Astrid thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No, that's not good enough. I'm sorry, Toothless, but you can't just expect me to lie to him about this forever—"
"Don't think I want it to be this way," he rejoined. "Any of this. I thought I'd made that clear, but… Fine. Once this is over, once this battle is finished and you're transformed back to normal… Then we can all talk about it. Just… Not yet."
"Okay…" she replied. "On one more condition. I won't tell him anything that you told me today… Yet. But… You stop hiding from him."
He narrowed his eyes, and looked away.
"And I don't just mean going back now," she added. "Permanently. I know you hate for him to see you looking weak, vulnerable. I… I understand how that feels. But Hiccup needs you, right now, and I can assure you that as much as both he and I hate to see you hurt, he worries ten times more whenever you run away."
Toothless hesitated, just staring at her. His face remained cold, but a sliver of light had returned to his eyes — a light she hadn't seen in days.
"Okay…" He stood up. "Okay. Let's… Let's go."
Astrid nodded, and started to follow him. But as she looked around, watched him plod forward ahead of her, like a wounded animal, she was suddenly struck with such fury she let out a growl. Not towards him, no. Anger at life, maybe — at the whims of fate that had decided to pull them all into this gods-forsaken mess. Her, a girl-turned-Night Fury transformed against her will. Syl, an expat stuck pretending to be her. Hiccup, a boy tugged far beyond his depth. Now Toothless, a Night Fury who was, apparently a human — and he didn't even know who he was. It was just so… Unfair. Every time they reached something resembling a solution, a whole new set of problems seemed to materialize before them. What she wouldn't give for the gods to just throw them a bone…
Toothless stopped, and turned around, seeming to sense her exasperation. He raised a brow.
"Toothless…" She started, grasping at something, anything else they could get out of this. "Do you… Do you really not remember anything… Any details, at all?"
He sighed, and shook his head. "No… I wish, but… It's mostly just shapes, blurred pictures, vague sounds, like trying to look at something beneath the water in a choppy ocean."
"But there has to be something," she growled again. "Something major, something you would've had—"
And then she thought of something.
"Your name," she said. "Toothless, what was your name? You would've had it practically from birth."
He frowned. "Astrid…"
"Please, Toothless," she pleaded, hoping with all she had that, just this once, they could get at least one tiny step forward. "Just… Just try."
Toothless closed his eyes and furrowed his brows for a moment, as if concentrating. Astrid started to panic, thinking she had accidentally sent him into another attack, before they snapped back open. He started straight ahead for a moment, then nodded, slowly at first, then faster. Then, for the first time in all too long, Toothless turned to her, and smiled. And though she questioned it later, she swore that day she had seen tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
"Leif. My name was Leif."