Here we are again. I meant to upload sooner, but school got hectic and I only just managed to finish this and get it proof read by my lovely Beta. And by lucky coincidence, Loti has just produced another piece of amazing art related to this story. You may find it here: http:/ aveku-chan-kataang ./gallery/#/d4u8chj

(delete the spaces)

I wanted to upload this sooner, but FF decided to not allow me to upload anything for a while. Anyway, onward!

Chapter 19

Hiccup

The feelings were intense. It was indescribable. The joy. The freedom. It was almost overwhelming. And it was made all the more real by the presence of Toothless. Both the warmth of his body, and the loving presence in his mind. I felt as though that love would set me alight. We ran through the forest with absolutely no destination in mind. Because we were free. Utterly free. We had moved beyond the judgement and the cruel actions of the Vikings of Berk. Now, we are alone. Truly alone with no one to act as our equal. We can go where we wish, and do what we want. I felt like singing. My eyes had been restored to their full capabilities. As we ran through the night, each and every tree was outlined in silvery light. Every detail was made evident. And as I glanced to my left, my breath was stolen. Beside me ran Toothless. A Night Fury. A Shade in the words of his own kind. And I was almost utterly distracted by his powerful beauty. In fact, a pine branch managed to hit me dead in the face and I felt the bundle of leather in my arms jump out of my grasp and flee into the night. The world spun around me and something pushed hard into my back. It took a moment for my head to slow its spinning enough for me to see that the foliage of the forest and the night sky stretched before me. It seemed as though the offending tree had managed to throw me on my back. Laughter bounced against my ears and in my skull. A large face appeared upside-down before me and obscured the night.

"Well. That should teach you to stare at others." I felt a smile cross my face. I reached my arms up and pulled down on the large head, until its nose was pressed against my own. It was warm and smooth, yet rigid, the strange contradiction of his scales.

"It's hardly my fault. You're just too much of a distraction." Toothless pulled back and snorted, bathing my chest in his scent. My head spun again as it overwhelmed me.

"You are just too cute."

"You be quiet. I'm a fierce warrior." That did it. Toothless shook with dragon guffaws and fell down beside me rolling in the grass. "You stop laughing or I'll be forced to defend my honor!" I leapt to my feet. What little control Toothless had managed to keep up to this point was gone. Small spasms of flame burst from his mouth. Bushes and shrubs were turned to ash as they were struck and consumed by the dragonflame.

Acting on my promise for vengeance, I leapt into the air and came down on Toothless' stomach which momentarily lay exposed. In a blink I had my arms around his neck and we were rolling through the flames. My own laughter had burst out of me as I came down, and now the forest echoed with dragon bellows and my own shrill amusement. The flames of the burning plant life licked and sputtered against my skin as we rolled over and over. It tickled immensely, adding volume to my laughter. Then I realized that we were still moving. We must be rolling down hill. Toothless was trying to dislodge me with forelimbs, but my grip was too tight. He gave up and instead curled his head, limbs, and wings around me in a protective embrace as the world rotated around us.
After a while, we came to a stop. Toothless stayed wrapped tight around me. I could barely move and wanted to even less. We had left the fire behind at the top of the hill. Toothless raised his head and glanced around while I continued trying to suppress my laughter. Through his eyes, I saw the hill we had just fallen down. There was a large trench. A furrow in the land as though something heavy had slid down it.

"Toothless, is this..?"

"Yes. Yes it is." We were lying in almost exactly the same spot, on which we had met a few weeks past. Had it really only been that long? The world had done a backflip since then. Changed. It was unrecognisable now. But we had both made a choice that day. The killing stopped with our meeting. Now, we were free of the cycle.

"This was where I lost the power of flight. This is where my life ended." I froze. Was that really how Toothless thought of it? He had never even suggested any kind of unhappiness in his thoughts until now. "And this is also where I met the other half of my soul. Where my second life, began." I felt my eyes widen. The presence of Toothless in my mind grew. His thoughts enveloped me, surrounding my own with feelings of security, safety, freedom. All of the things that it was a male dragon's duty to provide for his mate. I knew that nothing would touch me. And if it tried, it would be reduced to a bloody pulp in less time than it took me to exhale.

"Toothless, let's get one last look of all of the island, then go. Leave. Fly until we reach beyond the horizon." In my mind, I felt the dragon's smile.

"That ledge, high on the mountainside. The one you were too scared to come down from when you climbed up to it to escape the village. Back when you were only seven summers old." My grin was wide.

"Exactly."

XXX

Astrid

The forest was exceptionally dark tonight. It was nearly impossible to see. At first, I feared I'd lost him. That is, until the noise began. Barely a mile out from the village, the forest echoed with noise. Sounds of hilarity and happiness. They were so completely contrary to my current mood, that I simply stopped and listened for a moment. That was Hiccup laughing. No doubt about it. And right along with him came growling sounds that sounded like something big trying to laugh like a human. Despite all the unnerving things I had heard and witnessed tonight, it was this, horrible, unnatural laughter that gave me pause. How could they sound so happy? People had died. Nearly half the village. And Hiccup had even slain one with his own hands! He was insane. A murderer. A foul, soulless demon, accompanied by a creature that matched that description to the letter. I hadn't realized that my feet had carried me forward a few more steps, until I broke through a canopy of leaves, and the exact same time that a flash of light exploded before my eyes. I was temporarily blinded.

Squinting, I tried to make sense of what lay before me. A large black mass was rolling on the ground, and from it, emanated the sounds of laughter. As my eyes adjusted slowly, I managed to catch a glimpse of Hiccup, clinging tightly to the figure of a Night Fury. And as I watched, they rolled through the fire, in fact, I think they were trying to stay in the fire. They were prevented from this goal by the hill that lay only I few feet away. Over they went.

This would be dangerous. I'd already disturbed this strange pair a few times, and I had not come off the better for it. I would wait. Watch. Try to learn what I could. No one had ever been so close to a Night Fury before, and lived to tell the tale, than I had been, and still was. I would learn as much as possible while it was here. Very slowly, I crept slowly towards the lip of the hill, dodging burning shrubs as I went. Really, they weren't even trying to be discreet. I peeked over the edge, and down. It was something of a steep slope, and there was a trench or ditch stretching all the way down the side. As if something heavy had slid down. Strange, when I had seen them last they were rolling. At the foot of the hill, in the center of a clearing, lay a ball of black scale. The dragon had curled up and Hiccup was nowhere to be seen. Unless he was under the dragon. That was where he'd been all the other times I'd found him.

It was so pathetic. He seemed to be letting the thing dominate him. Making no attempt to resist, or get help. He deserved his fate. And I knew what his fate would be too. That dragon was toying with him. Playing some kind of sick joke. It would get bored with Hiccup eventually and he would suffer the full penalty of foolishness.

Suddenly, there was movement. The ball below split, and separated. A horrifyingly enormous wing stretch skyward. It was wider and longer than any dragon wing I had ever seen, except for maybe the Timberjack, whose wingspan was long enough to slice through multiple trees, but they were still narrow. These black sails were relatively enormous! But now I saw something even more disturbing. Under the wing, in the middle of the curled reptiles body, there was another, pale, curled shape. It lifted its head. Hiccup starred up at the dragon, as the dragon starred down at him. And an enormous smile spread across his face. I knew it was large because I could see it from all the way up here, glimmering in the moonlight. Then, the distance between their heads shrunk down to nothing, and they were rubbing their heads passed each other. This probably would have made me ill if I didn't know that Hiccup had done much worse.

Hiccup stood, and he stuck out in the middle of the clearing like a dull knife in my belt. Moonlight reflected off of his pale skin. That was another thing that was strange. How could he survive without a shirt? It may have been unseasonably warm of late, but only during the day. Even now it was chill. And Hiccup stood there half naked as if he felt nothing. He would die of exposure to the elements even if the dragon did not kill him first.

The movement was sudden. Very sudden. It caught me completely off guard. Hiccup bolted into the forest and the dragon leapt after him. But he wasn't bolting away, he was running straight up the hill! I dived for the cover of a bush. I lay there on my stomach, looking up through the leaves, and watched as Hiccup came hurtling over the lip of the hill. Past it in fact. Straight up. Before I knew what had happened, he was standing in the tree that overlooked the hill, and the dragon stood below him. I held my breath. The dragon was sniffing heavily, and it's eyes narrowed, so much like a human's would have done. For one fraction of a second, I was sure it could smell me.

Then the wind shifted. I felt it change from blowing across my side, to blowing straight in my face. The beast turned and looked up into the tree. There was a rushing sound, a pair of bare feet landed in front of my face. The scary thing was, the utter lack of noise with which they landed. There was no sound whatsoever, and barely any vibration in the ground. Hiccup moved like a ghost. As I watched, he bent down, and picked up a clumpy bundled object. The strong smell of tanned leather hit me in the face, carried by the wind. Then, without a glance or any kind of signal between them, they were off, running for the mountain.

Their actions were so random! It was all too frustrating. With a sigh, I lept to my feet and set off after them at a run.

XXX

Toothless

The trees beginning to thin. The slope of the mountain that was the center of Berk was getting steeper and steeper by the second. Hiccup was leading though I knew the way. Really, it seemed that Hiccup was not as in tune with my own mind as he could be. It was probably just his humanity. Hiccup's thoughts were as easy to delve into as my own. I found myself remembering his life as if I had lived it. Even now, I could feel his sense of the past. Remembering that day that he had climbed this very mountain. Yet Hiccup did not draw memories immediately from my mind as they became relevant. It would probably come with time. Hiccup made one final leap. And landed crouched on a large outcropping of rock that jutted from the mountain side like a thorn on a weed stem.

Here it was ten years ago that Hiccup had stood, looking down at Berk and thinking about his separation from it. He had not truly belonged. He never did. And as a young boy, it had hurt him badly, to be shunned by his own kind. He had needed refuge. And up here among the mountain breezes and the silence, he had found it. Of course, then he'd been too frightened to descend. I gave a bound and watched the outcropping slide downwards past me, then under me, and then I had landed. Hiccup, still crouching, almost hit his head on my chest. He grinned up at me before giving a playful shove and standing. He stepped to the edge of the stone.

"You know, it looks so small down there." I took a step forward and gazed over his head. There, far down below were the twinkling lights of Berk. It was rather amusing, that such an innocent little image could be soused with so much blood. From here, the village looked like a small group of fireflies. "It's much smaller now than it was before of course, the other dragons saw to that." And indeed he was right. With our exceptional night vision, we could see the burnt out ring around the lights, that had once also been covered in buildings, but was now lifeless, ravaged by the destructive force of hateful fire.

"You're free now. You need never think of this place again." Hiccup rocked back on his heels, and I felt his weight press against my chest.

"I know that I'm free, but this was the place of my creation. My origin. It's a part of me. I won't ever be able to truly leave it behind." He lifted his head and looked up at me. "But that does not mean we can't leave. We can fly." And with that statement, Hiccup pushed himself forward, while one of his hands curled around the topmost section of my right foreleg. He swung himself, keeping his feet stationary, out over the immense drop, and then back, taking a single step and ending standing beside me facing the mountain. I chuckled. His fear of heights was certainly gone.

He shoved my shoulder. "I got over heights a while ago. I've flown. I'll never fear heights again." And so saying, he strode back to the place where the outcropping converged with the mountainside. There, my flight harness was bundled in the mountains shadow. As he began to connect it to my artificial tailfin, I looked out over the island. The drop was certainly immense. The mountain beneath the outcropping did not slope outwards as it should have, but rather plunged almost straight down to the forest floor below. It would have been a pretty decent fall. Without wings.

Buckles snapped and locked into place, and I felt the straps of leather tug across my scales. The familiar weight of the pad rested on my back the place that would keep Hiccup stable in flight, and allow him to shift the position of my tailfin. Hiccup came around front of me to buckle some strap or other across my chest, but finishing that task, the hands lingered. I bent my neck and looked down at him. He was smiling back at me, and his newly draconic eyes reflected almost all of the light that shone from the moon and stars. They positively glowed.

I heard the loose rocks behind us shift. Clatter. Hiccup's beautiful eyes rolled skyward, their depth changing to a flat look of annoyance. "Surely it's not.." Hiccup glanced over my shoulder. He sighed. His next words were spoken aloud in a voice of anger. "No, it IS her."

XXX

Astrid

The outcropping was quite easy to find. Even long after I'd lost their trail, I could hear the loose rocks tumbling down the mountain side. The shape of a dragon leaping up a mountainside, even in the dark, is quite the sight to see. It took me far longer to climb the same distance than it took them, and I was afraid they would fly away, but to my astonishment, having reached the outcropping, I saw that they still stood there. And yet again, they were starring at each other. Probably looking into each others freakish eyes. And even from here, I could see Hiccup's eyes. Glowing. Slitted. Unnatural. The smile on his face was as contradictory as any face had a right to be. The thing he was staring at was a DRAGON for crying out loud! There was simply no way to explain his actions. What was it he had said in the chief's house? Something about love? Absurd. It was a demon. A soulless murderer. But then, Hiccup was a murderer as well. Perhaps he had found more fitting company. I felt my lip curl in a sneer. I was rather surprised at myself, I usually try not to show outward emotions, but this disgust was far too intense to hold inside. Unfortunately, that was where I lost my focus. The loose rock I was standing on, gave way as I shifted my weight.

I didn't fall of course, but the rocks went tumbling down the hill, clattering as they went. Hiccup's horrible eyes rolled towards the heavens, then, quick as lightning they fell, and bored into mine.

"No, it IS her." The words were harsh and grating, full of anger. Where had Hiccup found anger? He had never expressed the emotion in all the fifteen years I'd known him. Now he called it effortlessly and poured it, steaming, into his voice. My weight shifted automatically. I was in danger now. The enemy had seen me. Better to have a stable surface to work on than the rocks and low ground I was stationed on now. I leaped over the edge of the outcropping, drawing my knife as I went.

The dragon turned with speed that ignored its massive size. It was agile beyond belief. Hiccup shifted forward into a slight crouch in front of the beast his lip rising in an animalistic snarl. His strange eyes were opened wide, staring at me with tiny slitted pupils. I noticed that his hand flew to his side first, as if to grasp something, but finding nothing in his belt, it simply curled up into a ready position. The dragon behind him had slitted eyes and was snarling in a horrible fashion. It's tail lashed behind it over the edge of the cliff.

"Astrid, did you really have to spoil our departure? We're leaving. Isn't that enough for you?" His voice was hard, but the anger had cooled. It was a voice of ice, rather than fire.

"No! It's not enough! How can you even consider that! You killed Snotlout! Your own cousin!" His face did not even twitch at the accusation.

"He tried to hurt us. He was a threat. We eliminated the threat." I was about to respond, but he spoke again before I could say a word. "And my actions are no different than any other Viking's!" I felt the disbelief spring across my face. But before I could say one word, he interrupted again. "Tell me Astrid. Why do you kill dragons?"

"Because they..!"

"Because you perceive them as a threat!"

"I.."

"All your life, you have been taught that dragons kill on sight! Is that not true?"

I nodded

"And when I met a dragon, did it kill me?"

"I'm sure that it was the first thing on its mi.."

"AM I DEAD! Do I look dead to you?" He stood now, letting his arms drop. "I am not. Toothless did not hurt me, nor will he ever." At this, the dragon looked down at Hiccup, and I could have sworn I saw it's eyeridge arch. Then, it turned and disappeared over the edge. I gripped the dagger tighter in my hand. Hiccup was standing now, in a relaxed position. He took a step back, placing the heel of his foot at the edge of the outcrop.

"Astrid, I love Toothless. It is as simple, as that. There are no alterior motives, no witchcraft, no foul play of any kind. I love him. And I am lucky enough, that he reciprocates that love. You don't have to believe me. I don't need your belief. But you would be wise to know the situation. I know that there is a person somewhere deep inside you Astrid. You're better than this. Than meaningless slaughter. Find the person within you. My expectations of you are high." He seemed to pause and consider something. "And tell my father goodbye." And that was it. Hiccup took one step backwards into the night, and disappeared, over the edge, into empty space.

XXX

Hiccup

For just a few moments, we fell calmly, and peacefully. The wind whipping up past us was a lovely sound. Then, the ground started to get closer. I reached out, and grasped one of the saddle straps. I pulled myself around Toothless, and positioned myself squarely above his upper back. I slid my foot into the stirrup, and released the pin that held the tailfin locked in the closed position.

We spread our wings. All three pairs. Berk was coming up fast. We had an idea. As we began to pull out of our dive, we opened the flaps in our scale that ran along our side. The wind whistled through these flaps, and produced the howling shriek that was the identifying, terror causing signal of the coming of a Shade. We leveled out over Berk, and then began pumping our wings, and using our newfound speed to gain a bit of altitude. We turned for the North, and flew on.

XXX

Astrid

Of course I ran to the edge and looked over to see what was going on. And in the moonlight, I just made out two shapes far below. These two shapes converged, and the resulting single shape widened. The Night Fury's wings were open. I watched them, until I lost sight of the dragon against the sea. Love. Hiccup had looked me straight in the eye, and told me that he truly loved the monster. He even had the mating scar to prove it. Was it even possible? Surely not. And then he had told me that I was better. His expectations were high. Who did he think he was?

XXX

Stoic

Surely this was his fault? He must have done something wrong. The boy had not been raised properly. Stoic stood on the small porch of his house, looking out over his village. It seemed as though the entire world had fallen apart in this one day. It was his fault. Somehow, he had caused this. Then, there was a shrieking sound. He heard the cries of "Night Fury!" "Get Down!" But there was no following explosion. Only a shadow that flitted through the sky, obscuring the stars as it passed, and a cloud of dust, that rose as it passed over the town center. He looked up, and saw, just for one sliver of a second against the moon, the outline of a dragon, with a scrawny figure on its back.

There was a wordless cry of anguish and despair. It took Stoic a moment to realize, that the voice was his own.