The hut shook violently as yet another fiery projectile crashed down beside it. The heat alone was almost enough to set the wooden structure on fire. Furniture fell over while priceless ornaments and painted pictures shook themselves loose as the ground trembled from the ferocious impact. Thankfully that was the only noticeable damage, on the inside of the house at least. Gods only knew what horrors waited outside.

He could still picture himself right there. A more innocent, much younger version of himself frozen right at the top of the stairs, holding onto the walls for dear life. Barely ten years old and here he was, left alone. Forced to listen to the torturous sounds of battle right outside his front door. Monstrous roars and bloodthirsty yells from both opposing sides filled the air as did on occasion the unpleasant noise of sharp metal digging itself into flesh. That sound alone had more volume than one would have expected, but it was enough to make it out through all the chaos.

He knew he couldn't stay here. What if one of them struck a direct hit on his home? He'd then be trapped in a burning building that could come down at any moment. Stepping outside of these four walls meant stepping into Hel on earth. But staying inside was just as bad. The longer he waited to choose the more he risked his life. But was it worth it? What if he ran into one of the monsters? At least out there his chances of survival were higher. Daring to risk it, he made his decision and went for the door. He carefully maneuvered himself down the stairs and opened the door with a loud thud.

And just like that, the loud terrifying noises that he had heard seconds ago vanished the moment he could see the outside world. It was eerily silent, as though he had just suddenly gone deaf. The only indication that he hadn't was the faint crackling of fire from all around him. To make matters worse, there wasn't even a single soul in sight. Where were all the Viking warriors? Were they all gone? Was it just him here, all alone?

In spite of this unfathomable knowledge, the young Viking boy managed to step forth. He took another step then another then another until he was a good ten feet from the door. Then, breaking the silence, he heard it shut behind him softly, but it was still enough to startle the boy. He turned and found his entire house gone. Vanished from his sight and replaced with the sight of several burning huts. Some which had already collapsed in on themselves while others remained standing as the fires ate away at their foundation. But even with this change of scenery, the boys attention was focused on something else. Something lying right in front of the huts. Something much more disturbing.

Bodies.

Dozens of bodies piled up on top of each other. Small and big. Young and old. Some with horrendous gashes painted across their bodies, some ripped apart and some so burnt that it was impossible to recognise them.

And yet despite being dead, every single eye stared into his own as though angry that he, a mere child had survived the devastating slaughter. The longer he did, the more he thought he could hear them speaking. Screaming even. Suffering. Reliving their last moments of mortality over and over again for all eternity.

The young Viking instinctually begun backing up. Despite his rapidly growing heartbeat, he found it impossible to break the connection between himself and... them. It was only by bumping into a wall behind him that he managed to tear his sight away from it all.

Then his attention was focused on something else. Another sound that right away snuffed out all other noises. A guttural growl. Low and dangerous. His heart dropped.

The boy soon realised that the thing he had backed into was not actually a wall at all, but a green scaly leg. Daring to look at the beast, he found himself dwarfed as the thing stood eighteen feet tall. It had long muscular legs, strong leathery wings for arms and an oval shaped head. Most of it was covered in shadow making it too tough to make out any distinct features. The only thing that the young Viking could make out was row after row of long, bloodstained teeth that sat in its maw.

The creature leaned back for a moment, as though indicting whether of not the tiny being before it was a threat or not. Then, out of nowhere it lunged forwards at an impossible speed. Its screams were painfully loud and endless as it engulfed the boy. The sounds increased more in volume as he was forced to watch himself slide down the beasts throat quicker and quicker, viewing endless rows of teeth until finally, the nightmare ended.

He didn't scream upon waking, but he did take in a gasp of air as his body convulsed, struggling against an imaginary threat until the hunters mind quickly caught up to him and he realised that he was safe. Even then, he became frozen. As stiff as a statue as though even the slightest amount of movement could trigger something just as mind breaking to flash before his eyes. Thankfully it did not. When he finally came to his senses he rubbed his face, finding a small amount of sweat sitting on top of his brow.

He managed to get himself settled in time to spot his torturer from yesterday appear from the gate. He grumbled something under his breath and watched as she grew closer with each step she took. Of course he would wake the moment she appeared. He couldn't escape the torment for even a minute. But looking closer, he noticed that there was something different about her this time. She seemed reluctant about approaching him and his cell, as though someone had managed to drain all the confidence out of her. Even as a prisoner it made him feel a little worried. Maybe she had had a bad day yesterday and she now planned to release her anger and frustration upon him?

On the bright side, at least Farran didn't have to worry about being woken up by the sound of banging bars this time round. It would most likely be the only positive outcome of today.

By the time the rider reached the gate, she unlocked it without even saying a word. Her dragon waited right there next to her, looking at him with its yellow eyes. The hunter tried his best to remain calm and barely conceal his emotions. The second round was about to begin now, and while it had been a horrific experience, h prided himself on knowing that he had already succeeded once and that he can do it again! He was ready!

"Come with me."

The request was unexpected and odd. It was all she said and before Farran had the chance to ask why, she walked away leaving the hunter confused for a moment before he decided to humour her and follow. Her nadder brought up the rear which felt problematic for the hunter. Its enormous heavy footsteps were enough for him to feel the vibrations in the floorboards. Every few moments he'd look back making sure that the dragon continued to keep a fair distance from him. Thankfully it didn't try anything and seemed to focus more on its rider than him. They stepped past the metal gate and the rider stopped, causing him to do the same lest he crash into her. She turned around to face him with both her arms crossed. At first she seemed unable to look Farran in the eyes. When she did though, she spoke in a calm hesitant tone.

"You're being handed over to Hiccup for the day while I deal with some personal errands." She informed him simply. "Consider this a short break. I'll be back for you tomorrow at first light so enjoy it while you can."

Farran blinked. "A break?" He asked slowly in disbelief, as though having never heard the word before. What was this rider playing at? Was this just some sort of trick she was playing?

"You have a problem with that?"

"I'm a prisoner. I don't get breaks." He informed her as though they were having the simplest of conversations.

"Maybe not where you come from. But here? We do things a little bit differently."

Farran scowled. She was lying and he knew it. NO warden would be dumb enough to simply let his prisoner out of their cell. Especially on the third day of him being imprisoned. Even if that wasn't the case, her tone and attitude alone was enough to give something away. "And the real reason?" He challenged.

Astrid looked down once more. Guess this guy wasn't as dumb as he looked. At his words, she couldn't help but quickly think back to yesterday, the moment she left the dragon pens and headed to Hiccups hut.

././././././././././././.

Hiccup and Toothless landed gracefully on the catwalk of their hut and relaxed after hours of tiring work. It had only been a few days since the invasion yet there still remained a ton of hunter equipment sitting on the beaches. It would probably take a few days more before they would get it all cleared up but the sooner it was done the better. It felt somewhat ironic to the rider that even though they had won the battle, they still had to clean up their opponents mess. Still, at least the dragon eye had been kept out of their clutches. For now at least. Now that he thought about it, maybe they should have that new prisoner help out. Seemed only right.

As Hiccup jumped off the night fury and landed on his foot, he exclaimed softly in pain. Something that didn't go unnoticed by his dragon who let out a worried gurgle.

"Don't worry about me bud. Just a flesh wound is all."

At some point during todays clean up, Hiccup had accidentally gone and stepped on one of the many buried dragon hunter arrows. Luckily the cut was small but was still sharp whenever he put pressure on it. To him the small wound was just a reminder of what could have happened if a wild dragon had stepped on it instead of him. Yet another big reason why the beach needed to be cleared as quickly as possible.

There was also the question of what to do with it all. Dragon root arrows could be burned of course, as could the wooden debris. But what about what couldn't be burned? All the metal weapons and equipment? There was far too much of it to just drop off in the forge. Maybe they could drop it off at Breakneck Bog? Or better yet, why not send it to Gobber back on Berk? If anyone could appreciate a large pile of scrap metal, it was him.

The one legged Viking was so caught up on deciding that he didn't even manage to hear the approaching footsteps of one Astrid Hofferson. Toothless on the other claw did and gently nudged his rider to bring him back into the real world. Hiccup softly chuckled as he realised this and thanked the dragon before turning his attention on the newcomer and letting Toothless head into the hut.

"Oh hey, back already?" He greeted with a smile. He then noticed the downed expression hanging from her face. It was a look he had rarely seen from her. "Astrid is everything okay?" He asked concerned.

"Yeah, I'm okay." She smiled as best she could. "Just got caught off-guard from our guest is all."

"Caught of guard? What do you mean? He didn't try anything did he?"

"No, not exactly. Just his... reaction that got me is all."

Hiccup took a step towards her and carefully placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you'd feel better talking about it?" He suggested.

Astrid took him up on his suggestion and unloaded everything on what had happened in the last hour. There was little really of mention up to the point where she noticed that the hunter became unresponsive and she returned back to the dragon stables.

"When Stormfly dropped him back in his cell, he just fell onto his hands and knees and started breathing in and out. Heavily and irregularly. For a moment I thought he was going to throw up. I think... I think that it had something to do with Stormfly flying him around. I hoped that scaring him a little would be enough to loosen his lips, like it usually does with his kind. But what I did to him? The way he reacted? Hiccup, I actually tortured him."

As a battle hardened warrior, Astrid was no stranger to understanding the code that she and other soldiers of Berk lived by. It was really more of a list of rules that highlighted the rights and wrongs of what one could and couldn't do in and out of the field of battle as to preserve their own honour. One of these rules focused on the one thing that Astrid was so certain she had come close to breaking. The torture of prisoners. While many other islands and tribes weren't as mindful of this, the rule for Berk clearly mentioned that the torture of prisoners in almost any circumstance was considered dishonourable. Unfortunatley extracting information did not offer as much of an excuse, and while Astrid had gone against this rule entirely on accident, the shame made her feel just as guilty.

Hiccup reacted to her choice of words right away.

"Whoa, Astrid hold on! You're being way to hard on yourself! There's no way you could have known that he would have reacted like that, okay? You have nothing to be ashamed of."

Of course Astrid didn't see it in the same light as he did. As caring as he was he wasn't exactly a warrior, or at least not as much as she was. In her mind, she puzzled for a brief moment on what she could do to redeem her actions. Not to mention that she now needed to change her tactics on how she would extract information from the hunter. She needed time to think about this.

"Hiccup? Do you think you could deal with him? Starting tomorrow? I need to do some serious thinking about how I'm going to deal with this hunter."

"Yes, of course. That's no problem. But Astrid? You do know that what you did wasn't your fault, right?"

Astrid blew some air out of her nose and smiled. "I know that up here." She pointed to the top of her head before her eyes looked down to the floor. "But knowing that I was the cause of it? It's not a good feeling Hiccup."

"Tell you what. I'll have a look at him later when he's calmed down. Remember what Heather said about him. He's not exactly one to give up easily."

"Yeah well neither am I. I'm not Snotlout." The joke was enough to break the seriousness of their talk and they chuckled. "I just need one day is all. I'll have come up with something by then."

"You got it."

Astrid smiled kindly. It wasn't so often that anyone got to witness such a smile from such a tough, stoic member of the team and when they did, Hiccup was almost always the one to receive it. She then walked away looking more lively than she had been walking up to him, though only barely. Hiccup waited until she turned the corner before he headed into his hut where Toothless could be seen up on the second floor lying down on his sleeping slab. For a moment his mind drifted back to the littered beach and an idea struck him. Hopefully that hunter would be up for some community service tomorrow.

./././././././././././././././.

Astrid hadn't answered Farrans question but instead continued to have him follow until they reached Hiccups hut. Other than their short chat back at the stables, the two had not said a word to each other since and Farran decided it wise not to push her.

Farran looked up at the wooden structure. The building was bigger than all the others he had seen so far on his way over. Its roof had a painted red pattern and supported two large windmills that stuck out the top of it. The door looked like it was designed to work like a drawbridge, only instead of swinging down it would swing up. It was a unique building, he would admit that.

They did not have long to wait until the lead rider himself opened his hut door and appeared. Upon realising and remembering that this 'Hiccup' character was in fact the rider that led this small group he frowned harder. He could already feel his temper rise from hearing his obvious jokey tone and was actually considering a second ride with the nadder. At least there things were more professional.

"You call this a break?" Farran grumbled. He didn't even bother to hide his disgust, causing Astrid to glare at him. "Handing me over to.. him of all people?"

"And good morning to you too." He smiled before turning to the female rider. "Thank you Astrid, I'll take it from here."

Astrid smiled, thanked him and left. Other than the night fury hanging in the doorway, the two humans were left alone to talk.

The hunter waited for a bit, expecting his newest caretaker to give him the rundown on the newest forms of torture he would endure today. Instead, the rider clapped his hands together with enthusiasm.

"Okay, well I hope you don't mind doing a little manual labour this morning." He smiled. "Cause we've got a lot of work to catch up on."

The hunter didn't have long to wait as once again he found himself walking towards a new location as his captor marched him down the walkways that conjoined each and every hut, through the woods and down to the very beach he had spent most of the invasion a few days ago. He could still see plenty of left over tools and weapons spread all across the sand. Though it was highly unlikely that it contained any working weapons otherwise he wouldn't have been dragged down here.

He allowed himself to be marched over to a single spot on the beach while the night fury, which had been tailing them from a distance this entire time waited by the edge of the forest and kept its green eyes on the hunter with a less than friendly stare.

The rider was quick to explain the reason why they were back here of all places. For once he sounded serious as he went over the matters of cleaning the beach as soon as possible since it was a potential hazard for his scaly flying dragons. He'd be helping to clear as much of the hunter equipment as possible with the hunter so it wasn't just some slave labour Farran had assumed he was trying to exploit.

The immediate thought that came to the hunters head was to try and smuggle something from the beach. A remaining weapon they had yet to find or even something sharp. Something that he could use against them when he had the chance. However this was also considered by the rider as he also mentioned that if he tried, his black demon would notice and blast him unconscious before being dragged back to his cell. For now Farran decided that it would be best to, for once be cooperative. As far as he knew his salvation for escaping this foul place could be lying in wait just beneath the sandy dunes. Even with the night fury watching him it was not a chance he could waste.

./././././././././././././././././.

Thanks for reading everyone. So as I mentioned last time I said that I had something I was hoping to share. Unfortunatley that may have to wait since I haven't had much time to myself this week. But for now hope you enjoyed reading :)