Hello everyone, and welcome to the third day of Snoggletog!
Today's and tomorrow's stories will actually be linked, a nice little thriller two-shot for your enjoyment.
It is set during the first one or two seasons of Race To The Edge, and obviously, it is set over Snoggletog.
Thank you for all of your kind reviews so far!
So enjoy! *Tosses you virtual mince pie*
.oOo.
"This ends now!" Hiccup yelled. "Hand it over, Viggo!"
"Ah, my dear Hiccup. This attitude isn't exactly friendly, and on Snoggletog too. What a shame. You'd be lucky if you got a piece of coal in your stocking, never mind the dragon eye."
"You're one to speak. Have you ever done anything even remotely nice in your entire life?"
"No, but yet, I must have, because one of us has the Dragon Eye right here, within their clutches, and one of us, will never grasp it again." Hiccup looked down at his empty hand, clenched his fist and let an angered stare pass by his face.
It was Snoggletog for the Vikings, a holiday for family, festivities and relaxation. But not for the Dragon Riders.
It was their first winter alone on their Edge, but rather than dwell about not being at home or celebrating with one another, they are going in for their biggest ambush yet.
Viggo had had the Dragon eye for sometime now, and everyday he did, it aggravated Hiccup even more. It fuelled him with some kind of furious determination he had never seen in himself before.
Weeks of battles, miniature ones leading up for the real moment of adrenaline. Enough ambushes and interrogating Viggo's men and other hunters to know the ins and outs of his biggest operation yet.
Snoggletog eve. Nightfall. An armada of ships armed to Valhalla, a floating fortress, almost impossible to impenetrate. And it was then, only then after days of sailing from an unknown location, that Viggo and his men would capture the Snow Wraith for themselves.
And if this operation were to succeed, it would give Viggo the key to all of the dragon he desires. Al of the Dragon Knowledge known to the human race. All of the things he needs to take Hiccup down forever. All of the things he needs to take dragons down forever.
It simply cold not happen. The entire group knew this. And yet, Hiccup's plan had shocked the lot of them.
Let him arrive safely. Let him take the Snow Wraith. Let him begin embarking on his journey home, and only then, will they attack.
Months of planning. Months of over-contemplating absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong. And now, early on Snoggletog morning, before the sun had even risen, here he stood, the future Chief of Berk, at the mast of his greatest enemy's ship.
"You've lost. Your time is over, Viggo, lets face it. We have you surrounded," He took a deep breath, and pulled a newly-built inferno from his belt, and lit it, the flames slicing through the air, and walked towards the man, threateningly. He didn't flinch. "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You give us the Dragon Eye and the Snow Wraith, and we leave in peace. If not, we fight until the death. Let's just say the winner takes it all."
"Tempting offers my boy, tempting indeed," Viggo seemed to be internally laughing at Hiccup. "But you should know that I never take the easy way out."
And with that, he pulled back his arm and launched the Dragon Eye into the freezing sea below.
"No!" Hiccup yelled and dove into the ocean after it.
"Now!" Viggo barked, and a hunter whipped the Snow Wraith whom was standing chained to the side of the ship, and he released a blast of ice.
A great, mighty blast of ice.
A thick, deadly blast of ice.
A sheet of said ice which was now covering the entire ocean for a miles radius.
"Hiccup!" Astrid yelled as she swooped down, Stormfly's claws grasping at the ice in attempts to rip through it.
But it was no use.
Hiccup truly was ice-trapped.
.oOo
He swam down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Deep into the dark oblivion of the sea. The temperature chilled his body to the bone, and he struggled to plough through, his prosthetic not helping one bit. He'd never truly been able to swim with it again, never mind whenever his body was protesting, numb and on the verge of hypothermia.
But that strange determination had kicked in once again, along with a crucial thing for him: a will to survive.
Viggo had attempted to outsmart him time and time again, strived to end his life as well as his fight for Dragon's freedom from a world of torture and misery. But this time he would not succeed. Hiccup could not leave all he had behind. All the knowledge he had discovered. All the friends he had made. All of the dragon's lives he had helped save and shape. And he could not lose the biggest source of dragon knowledge in existence.
His fingertips grazed the surface of it's golden rimmed lense, and he ploughed downwards, adamant that this fight would not end there.
His fingers wrapped around the body of it, and he suddenly pulled himself upwards, now his only goal getting to the surface.
Almost there...
His lungs were growing tighter, the oxygen withdrawal finally taking its toll. But it didn't matter now, he was at the surface, ready to...
His head thumped against something hard, and he felt himself sink slightly, confusion radiating through him. His hand pressed against what felt like freezing glass. It reminded him of home, when in the winter months he would draw various faces on his window in the ice, much to Toothless' amusement.
He would have figured out what had happened by now. He would have realised that despite all of his planning and all of his efforts, he had caught himself in a trap. Caught the others in a trap. He would have felt guilty, the determination wiped from him as if it had never existed in the first place.
He would have thought about all of this, if it weren't for his main preoccupation at that moment in time.
He was going to die.