Chapter 2 - Troubles

A:N: Now, when this chapter was named Troubles, I didn't know it would be so troublesome to write. As you can see, it took more than five months, and even now I'm still not sure it's good enough. The time comes when editing and reediting becomes less productive than actually writing, and I decided to cut the pity party short by actually publishing this thing. Tell me what you think about it, what you liked, what you think needs improvement. The first reviewer on this chapter gets a victory cookie - speaking 'o which, here's one for Dragonrider's Fury, who reviewed the story sometime in April. Thanks for hanging on, D.

Written June 9th – November 19th, 2020.

Published November 20th, 2020.

(::)

Now, on to the content.

It didn't matter that Hiccup had been (until recently) heir to the chieftainship, or that he had the blood, or that the Hoffersons had a better boy to give for the position, or that Snotlout didn't know what he was talking about and couldn't be trusted with any position whatsoever. At least, that is what the Jorgensons might have thought. Snotlout's main problem, Hiccup thought that morning, was that he was conceited. He was always thinking too much of himself and never learning from his mistakes because he reckoned it was always somebody else's fault that he'd tripped up; yet at the same time he had just enough charisma to convince most of the children his age to participate in his hairbrained schemes.

At a younger age Hiccup hesitated to pass judgment on people. It seemed every time he did so he condemned them, and blinded himself by prejudice to their change (if ever their characters churned a course for the better). Snotlout indeed could be changed. But was it worth the effort to do it? The caring part of him said yes; the practical segment of his brain yelled abuse at him to the effect of no.

These things and a little more he mulled over before he got out of bed – not an assortment of leaves and furs laid atop hard rock, nor a bunk half rolling over with every wave, but a bed, warm, steady, and comfortable; perhaps not by modern standards, but good enough for him. Altogether he stayed in this one far too long for his self-interest, in case he had been the type to go out and meet people and network with them until he had a spider-web of contacts looking out for him because they thought they'd get something in return.

Now, however, he got up and looked out the open window, to the green forest beyond on one side and the lime swards on the other, grass uninterrupted running down from the hillock on which the Haddock house stood and down to the village, playing, frolicking, bending and rising in waves like notes in tune to the music played by the wind, down to the conspicuously new houses in the town. He put his brown-haired head on his arms and his elbows against the sill and enjoyed the view for a while, before he decided it was a good idea to go downstairs and have breakfast (if there was any) or catch some (if the larders were empty).

Stoick was in the kitchen already, raiding the full larders. There was bread warming on a breadholder over the wood-fired stove, and a haddock on the grill for Hiccup's homecoming, and all at once the familiar scents and items which he had spent so long around became nostalgic to him, and he spent a long while on the steps before his father turned around and saw him.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning, although, Dad, the fish are burning."

For a moment he'd been afraid his father had gone domestic, but no; here was the old haddock he knew; one sitting down to table with him with jerky motions born of emotion suppressed, and one roasted through, crispy to the bone (which Hiccup was sure it ought not to be), but delicious by dint of it having been cooked on the old stove in the old house. As in every working house, the conversation was slow coming while eating was being done, but when the food was finished they could talk, if only for a moment before there were chores to be completed. It would not do to be lazy.

"Pretty good," said Hiccup. Stoick was the man who'd burned soup, so this was a decent meal from him.

"Pretty good," said his father.

Was the chief unsure what to say? It looked like he was. All this time with Hiccup who knew where, probably dead, and as if in a dream suddenly his son was sitting at the table eating and drinking and making comments about the food. If Hiccup were in his father's position he would've been pinching himself to make sure he was awake.

He was probably conscious, but it might be a good idea to make sure – no, definitely up and about. For the moment the world was cheery and bright, with few concerns and no troubles and no fight about the chieftainship. When the food was ate they put away their lackluster plates, and Stoick hefted a large axe from where it was leaning against the mantle and Hiccup hefted a much smaller axe from by the fireplace. Father and son tramped out the door and to the back, where there was a woodpile, a stump, and uncut logs.

"Think you can do it?"

For a moment Hiccup hesitated.

The world hit him a moment before he came back to it. He could be strong, but also smart, he figured, so he raised the axe, bounced it a second or two in his hands to make sure he had a good grip, focused on the log sitting innocently on the tree-stump, swung, and missed.

The old Hiccup would've been brutally disappointed and gone into an internal spiral of self-pity. The new Hiccup looked at his father to see how an axe was held, adjusted his hold, and swung again.

It was going to be a long morning, but that wasn't bad, wasn't bad at all. Taught to use every scrap of provender it caught, his body took the food of the morning and injected it to his muscles. He was at the peak of his strength.

Chop!

Splinters spewed and a slice of wood went flying one way and three-quarters of a log rolled another. Better than last time. He tapped the head of the axe against the remainder, searching for the center.

Chop!

It cracked down the middle and he turned it over and tapped it with the blunt end, splitting the hardwood smoothly most of the way down, with jagged spikes of wood fiber protruding sideways from the end, whitish-brown, and ochre in the grain, and smelling of cinnamon. Dried in a shelter over the winter, the timber was lighter than it seemed, or he was stronger than he was: at any rate, he tossed the bole into a pile, waiting to be stacked.

And on it went, till morning was waxing to afternoon, and a blister was growing on his hands, and tiredness encroached on his bones like necrosis. But it was just as these things were becoming unbearable that Stoick put down his axe from where he was chopping, and Hiccup did one more block before he did, too.

"Got chiefly things?" asked Hiccup.

"There's a disagreement flying around in Berk by now," said his father. "The men get out of bed and eat breakfast and chop wood, or husband the animals, or other things. But when they have time on their hands that's when they make trouble; the young boys and Mildew."

So they laid their tools in the shortening shade under the rafters, blades up, to spare the metal the moist dirt which would so quickly destroy them by rust, the downtrodden earth from which vibrant grass bloomed, lime-green where the sun shone and dark as pine needles where it didn't.

The carven door beckoned to him, asking him if he would come in and tramp through the house and take in its furniture and humble fireplace, but Stoick was more practical, and went around to save time, and they trotted down beneath one of Hiccup's windows, to the collection of the old villagers and the old houses (for Hiccup, at any rate: they were the same buildings he'd left that morning when they'd set off for the Meatheads).

Berk did not have a street plan, or much of an organized anything; when the dragons came the villagers rebuilt as they could, and the result was a hodgepodge of back alleys and main streets which went nowhere, and back windows with potted herbs sprouting next to a traveled fairway of cobblestone. Wooden buildings with swooping roofs and mounted green dragons' heads (mostly real) housed cobblers and fishermen and tanners of animal skins brought back from nearby islands. And always there were the shipwrights in their own district, toiling double at stinking mixtures of pitch they used for caulk.

But the natives of this place knew their directions, or soon knew after they were educated by their peers. Stoick was a master of the byways, squeezing his bulk through the tightest places, if necessary. He was not there for anything in particular, but trawling the village for any issues which the people might ask him to judge. Hiccup followed, on his father's left side and slightly behind, much like the shadow he used to be. Today, however, he stood straight and carried himself like a freeman instead of a Roman bond-servant.

There was one debate the villagers did not trust Stoick to judge, and the Haddocks knew it.

So he passed under the gaze of Tuffnut leaning on the window-frame and looking down from the blighted Thorston home where only the twins lived, keen blue eyes fixated on him in particular.

He bumped into Fishlegs in the town.

"It was good playing charades with you last night," Hiccup said. The words tumbled from his mouth and into order in the nick of time before they were muddled by his thick tongue.

"Oh, very good," said Fishlegs. "I can't play again if you want me to, I'm sorry. Father wants me working the catch logs."

The big blond looked over his shoulder and looked at Stoick, who was going around greeting people at the moment, and shaking hands and saying hellos.

"Your father would be Screech, right? No."

Fishlegs shook his head.

"That's my uncle. Thought you knew it."

"No, it's been too long. If -"

Fishlegs chuckled.

"It's alright, it's alright, you don't need to memorize our whole genealogy. We're not worried about this chiefly business. People will always need navigators, and fishermen, won't they?"

"There's no reason why they wouldn't."

"I can always look out my window and see the sea. As long as it's there I'm alright." A pause. "I'd vouch for you though, if ever we got involved. Your head is on straight."

A call haunted the streets.

"Fishlegs! Those logs don't read themselves! Hurry up!"

And the boy grinned a dry smile. "Got to go, Hiccup. Take care of yourself."

He lumbered down the narrow byway, excused himself past an axe-wielding lumberjack, then melted away as if he had never been there.

His statement implied that Snotlout didn't have his head on straight. Or maybe Hiccup was reading what he wanted into Fishlegs's words. It was a mix of both, he decided. Suddenly he felt tired; the people around him were crushing him, squeezing until his personality was bottled up and he became a typical viking. He refused to let that happen. Anxiety told him to politely excuse himself. But he'd determined to rebuild, and it was conviction that made him stay.

What did he do to make him different, though? Everyone here could be self-sufficient if they needed to be. Was it curiosity? A willingness to change his ways?

That last was it. He was flexible.

And here came a bullheaded problem which needed a flexible solution. It was Snotlout in the company of Spitelout, who possessed the more prudence of the two, as his hand was clasped firmly on his son's shoulder, able to prevent most rash actions from his descendant. Hiccup laid aside his reservations and mentally reclined. It would be good to delve deeper into the measure of his adversary. He did not think 'enemy'. Snotlout might hate him until the end of time, or he might be made friends with, reasoned away from his conflicted course. His instincts warned him that the chances were rigged heavily on the side of hate, and so prepared for sudden reception of a blow to the face.

Otherwise known as getting punched.

"Good day, brother," said Spitelout, though it was anything but a good day. So he hadn't said chief. Interesting. Hiccup made a wave with his hand at the raven-haired Snotlout, who was not wearing a helmet but had his raven hair hanging at his ears. This month he had gone through the effort of getting a relative to give him a do other than bowl-cut.

"And likewise," said Stoick, ignoring the slight. How magnanimous. "Hiccup is adjusting himself to the town."

Meeting people. Making an appearance to combat any villainous slander. That was how these power plays worked. Hiccup wished he could just be done with it, and give away the position to a third party, but what would happen to his lineage then? Certainly he did not anticipate having children for a year or three at least; the several until he married Astrid and the nine months it took for a kid to appear. Anything could happen to him in that time.

Snotlout proffered his hand to Hiccup for a second, and they shook again, knuckles bulging, skin whiter than white as Snotlout grunted, struggling for the advantage. His palms were blackened by a minefield of grime, but Hiccup's were equally callused, muscles hardened by the days of good food aboard ship.

Five seconds passed, until Hiccup decided holding longer wasn't worth it.

"Good shake," said Hiccup. He relaxed his hand, and Snotlout gripped for a second more, then let his arm fall to the side of his black vest and brown tunic.

"I beat you," said Snotlout, and Hiccup pursed his lips.

"There's more to life than wins and losses. I've found events often fall in between," he said, which was magnanimous to say, but unnecessary, because he was the one supposed to be winning here, not offering the opposition tips.

"If you lose, you lose," said Snotlout. "Blah blah blah, compromises, right?"

Spitelout looked down at his son from where he was talking to Stoick near a cobbler's out-stand, where the shoes hung from hooks on dark wooden racks and the air smelled crisply of leather. Snotlout was looking away from his father, and did not see the glance, but Hiccup did. He also saw villagers standing in the corners of the worn shale road, wearing their unobtrusive brown tunics and lending an ear to the conversation.

"You can't always get what you want," he said. "With the other tribes? Maybe. But winning the handshake means running roughshod over me."

"Ha," said Snotlout. His smile went halfway up his cheeks, exposing yellow teeth at odd angles to the run of his jaw. "Strong over the weak."

"And the butcher over the talker," said Hiccup. "In this world."

That was what the court of public opinion wanted, wasn't it? Why had he been so happy to come back here, and have to worry about people? The warm morning glow was fading from his bones. And what would Astrid think?

"That's the way it should be," said Snotlout. "Things will never work any way else."

And the raven-haired boy turned and walked away; handshake won, conversation won, leaving his rival to stand in the sun and wonder just what had gone wrong. Later Hiccup wandered through the town at the side of his father, chin-up, feet straight, arms swinging just so, exuding far more confidence than he felt while Dad towered beside him. They'd reached the edge of the village and were about to turn around when Hiccup said:

"I need to go think about things."

"Use common sense," said Stoick.

He watched his son stride away towards the grass just outside the village bounds, looking left and right and up and down. The boy stopped at the corner of the last building, hands in pockets. As if from nowhere Astrid appeared and he turned and greeted her.

Hiccup needed a fresh perspective, a new goal. He couldn't win if he didn't know when he'd won, or even if he wanted to compete.

"I might not be coming into the forge today," he said, and Astrid nodded; one of their little gestures that told him she understood and knew the reason why, perhaps better than Hiccup might've known himself. A special bond melded the two; an odd synergy that only they shared.

"Take a stick," she said. "Stay out as long as you need to."

Hiccup ran his hand through his hair, then felt it come away greasy. It had been changed by the thick Berkian atmosphere. He sighed, and a fleeting moment passed between them, spent listening to the deep heave of the familiar sea, and the tang of the ocean's salty scent mixed with the electrifying aroma of baking bread.

"Take care," said Hiccup. Neither of them said anything about Astrid coming along, for they both knew she'd stay behind.

Astrid clasped his hand till their knuckles went white, then wordlessly let go. Hiccup turned away and trotted up the hill, hands in pockets out of habit instead of chill. He knew Stoick was watching, had known, and tried to convince himself that that changed nothing. Instead he focused on what was around him.

It was a pleasant day; the grassy green beneath his shoes arrayed with delicate wildflowers, their petals yellow and purple and soft pink. Sweet perfume escaped into the air when they crunched underfoot, and he took it in with shallow breaths. He did not often take deep breaths, for it was too easy to catch cold in the winter. The warm spring air did little to change that. Already by now the morning madness was fading away, as if it were yesterday, or the day before.

Unbidden, his mind began classifying tracks; rabbit, dragon, squirrel, deer, field mouse, and so on. Each left a different footprint on the soft ground, which took on on a brownish hue when he entered the eaves of the forest. He could spend weeks here, living by his wits and his hands, but to do so would be giving up, renouncing his birthright. Again he wondered how much of the pressure was his own guilt weighing down on him, and how much was his father's expectations ushering him forward.

Someone other than Snotlout had to take the chieftainship, maybe Torenn – but he was not related to the Haddocks by blood. The Jorgensons were, and that was a point in their favor in the eyes of the villagers. If no one became heir then Stoick would die and then there'd be chaos.

There was an alternative to all of these options, but he didn't know what it was, only that it existed. Astrid's insight would be helpful now that they were away from the distracting noise, the enclosed streets, but gone were the days when the two of them could walk freely with each other in the open wilderness.

Hiccup slapped a branch and it slapped him back. Grownups and their distrust. With any other boys his age they would've been right; with him they were wrong. What did they think he was going to do, mistreat her?

"Oh, the gods hate me," he said aloud. "First I'm shipwrecked for six months with no hope, then I'm injected into clan politics as soon as I get off the dock, 'glad to see you, can you make me chief pretty please'. Now's a great time for more bad luck. Can we get a bear around here? A dragon to carry me away without a trace?"

If the gods did not hate him they certainly foisted mischief on him.

A fire would burn away his ill thoughts. Even as he remarked this his hands found sticks and dry leaves and brushwood, and piled them on a patch of dry earth. With practiced motions born of necessity he drew a flint from his vest pocket and snapped it against a bar of cold iron, throwing sparks which set the bundle alight.

He had his fire. It crackled and danced, licking greedily at the feedstuff which Hiccup had given it while the boy sat with his back to a dark tree trunk.

There was the old bola launcher, the Mangler, unfinished, but nearly done, and still in the shop. He'd probably shoot it off once, then dismantle it, for he didn't want to hurt dragons anymore, not after the island, not after Stormfly and the others.

The last stick burned to charcoal and Hiccup made no motion to add more fuel. The acrid smell of wood smoke saturated his vest – good, he liked it that way.

He could do a lot of things with that forge. Give him peace and he'd turn out a dozen things he was interested in, but society would not give him peace.

That thought was no closer to a breakthrough than he'd been when he'd tromped out here, what, an hour ago already? Hiccup rose and stamped out the fire with his shoes, then walked towards home. Tomorrow he would come out and do the same thing, and next day, and the one after that.

Hiccup had always liked the woods.

Like a ghost he meandered through town, courteously taking village greetings and then slipping away like water. From shop to shop he wandered to the forge, directionless; an apple in his pocket, bought and paid for half an hour ago, the memory of its purchase evaporating like so much hot water, and with callused hands he explored the tools of his trade, bringing up old recollections, making them his. He shuddered. He had left, but in a way he'd never come back.

A sense of otherness filled him when he fed the fire to the incandescent glow needed to soften metal, and when Gobber walked in and beheld his apprentice with bellows working the red maw. It was a pale imitation of Stormfly's torch, whether that light was lit in peace or anger. Heat seared his fingers, scalding them even as they were held before the forge, and Hiccup withdrew to put on his gloves, then returned bearing scrap iron.

It'd been too long since he'd done this. He dropped the scraps into a ceramic cup, relishing the clink of metal against metal, and frowning when it ended before he expected it to. Berk's supply dwindled with every dragon raid. Soon there wouldn't be enough.

He quirked an eyebrow as he pushed the cup into the furnace with a pair of tongs, remembering the red rocks from Sword Island, at the top of the hill on the island's 'handle'. Someday he'd go back. The dragons might be there to greet him, all three of them, the tramp Nadders whose likenesses were so imprinted on his consciousness. Dragons killed hundreds of his kin, but the Vikings slew thousands of them.

As if by second nature his hands moved, taking the pot from the foundry and pouring its glowing contents into a bar cast. Light hisses greeted his ears, and puffs of steam burst from the sand cast, moisture boiling and sizzling away. An idea prodded his mind while he was pouring, and he set it aside, telling it to wait until the bar set and tempered, and the rest of the shop duties were over and done with.

He brushed a brown curl away from his eyes with the back of his sooty glove.

"Afternoon."

"Been long enough, apprentice. It's crazy; if yeh hadn't been shipwrecked, yeh'd be poundin nails for missing yer work. Getting the lassie ta' tell me, why, ya' couldn't even look me in the eye."

"I'll be doing nails anyway," said Hiccup. "although I can't help but notice that bucket of bent swords is bigger than when I left last year."

Gobber strode closer, pointing at Hiccup with his false arm. "And if yeh'd been around during the winter ta' help me, it'd be smaller. Ah, what am I going ta' do with you? Gone are the days when tha' dragons could use you as a toothpick."

"They never did catch me," said Hiccup. "Technically."

"Lucky bum," said Gobber. "Dragon-fightin' cost me an arm and a leg."

"I noticed." Hiccup put a dull sword on the grinder, averting his head when the sparks let fly. "You saved my inventions."

Gobber scratched the back of his head. "About that. I reconstructed your winnowing-thing."

Hiccup turned the sword over, working on the second edge. "Did it work?"

"Mostly."

"I had an idea to go with it, actually," said Hiccup. "I'll get to it when I'm done with all… this."

"Good… Ay, don't nick tha' sword," said Gobber, and the forge plunged into work talk.

They went on like that for about an hour, tempering iron, sharpening dull edges and forging spearheads, which was an easy task compared to making a sword or an ax. Hiccup settled into the warm rhythm, heating metal, pounding it, turning it over, and wiping his hands on his smock between the regular strokes of his wooden-handled blacksmith's hammer, the one he'd used since he was ten.

"Wait a minute," he said, raising an eyebrow, "this thing is too small."

Gobber rubbed the back of his head with his arm, adding another layer of dirt to his already-stringy hair. "Aye, it is," he said slowly. "Could yeh do with a longer handle?"

"That would work," said Hiccup. "I'll finish up the forge stuff now and start on that tonight."

A knock rang through the walls and Gobber grunted. "Someone ta' see yeh," he said. He went to the front of the makeshift building, leaving Hiccup to work on the spearhead, which had cooled during their talk. Hiccup sighed, then pumped the bellows.

"It's warm work," Gobber was saying, "and don't bother tha' lad. He's got enough on his plate without all tha' well-wishers heckling him."

Hiccup smiled. He'd forgotten how much he missed the old blacksmith, and how much time had passed since he'd stood here, building, creating with his hands; inventing things. Here came Gobber.

"Who was it?"

"Ahh, Tuffnut wanted to see yeh."

"Thorston business?"

"With that boy, nobody knows," said Gobber. "Expect more of that thing, especially from tha' ladies. You'll be a big hit with the girls."

Hiccup blushed and looked at his work while his teacher twirled his beard. "That is, if they survive Astrid's gentle persuasions."

"She's proud," said Hiccup. "She wouldn't fight with them like that."

"Ruff has a way of getting under people's skins," said Gobber. "So do the other girls. You two – yeh're headstrong in yer own ways, as stubborn as yer father, sometimes."

Hiccup made another square hit with his hammer, which rebounded off the workpiece with a clang. "Dad's a special man," he said.

"That story of killing a Terrible Terror from 'is crib, it's all true," said Gobber. The man lowered his voice. "But yeh know? I was the reason it was there in tha' first place."

Oh, not this story again…

Gobber went on with a wink, aware of his apprentice's thoughts. "If it's funny once, it's funny every time," he said. "So anyway, I attracted tha' little beastie with a rattle I had in my cradle. It tried ta' eat me, but I was too strong for it, and it went over ta' Stoick in search of easier prey."

Gobber paused for impact. "And then yer father hit it over tha' head with a spatula. That man is something special, I swear."

"An overachiever at an early age. I wonder why he has such high standards."

"Losing yer cool?"

Hiccup shrugged. His brow was dripping, but that wasn't what Gobber meant. "No. Just feeling cramped."

"Alright."

They kept working for four hours more, fixing the swords and nails the villagers habitually broke during their daily activities. That was fine, because it gave Gobber stuff to do, and Hiccup an excuse to pound out his frustrations after-hours, engraving, tempering, tinkering until he fell asleep in the forge and the fire died out overnight.

Woodsmoke and charcoal saturated his tunic, stained his smith's apron and his hands too, the delicate hands he'd always been mocked for. Now they'd turned dark, with dirt smudged under his nails, calluses on his palms and rough striations on his fingers. Smith's hands, workers' hands. Outside, the last sounds of daylight life settled into a monotonous rhythm; candles hissing when lit, water sloshing in washtubs, sparks flying when Vikings tossed wood into fires.

"Getting late," said Gobber. "The old man's heading ta' bed."

He lumbered from the workshop, switching his hammer-prosthetic to a razor.

"Night Gobber."

"Night."

With that, Hiccup was released from regular forge-work and now free to go home, or stay here, working. The prospect of a bed slightly less hard than dirt, his room, the great house, all that attracted the softer side of his heart, but he needed to stay here and fix things, like his hammer.

It wasn't a bad hammer, just getting too small. The head was the length of his palm with a square-like head, small enough to get at the details and large enough to apply decent force; it also had a curved part on the back for extricating nails. That was what made his choice. He'd keep the head, just make a longer handle.

Near the back of the forge Gobber had a collection of handles; for billhooks, tree-trimmers, spears, swords, and kitchen utensils. Hiccup juggled them between his hands, looking for one that felt back-heavy now but would feel right once he'd made into a hammer. Of the ash, oak and hickory that the smith kept, only oak would do: ash wasn't as strong as oak or hickory, and hickory splintered in cold, or degraded more than oak did near the head of the forge.

When he'd found a good piece about the length of his forearm he whittled off the top to fit the old head, tested it, then daubed the wood with a few drops of oil and rubbed that in, to keep out the moisture. Soon he'd put everything together, and had a new hammer.

Now, something to test it on.

Hiccup stoked the bellows, then trotted into his part of the forge, where his inventions were still scattered where he'd left them; farm tools, improvised cutlery (he called it a fork) and prototypical knick-knacks all lay on shelves. Between a coil of rope and nested wooden buckets for the fire brigade lay the Mangler, dusty and much worse for wear, with its bola hanging lopsidedly off the side of the wooden stock.

To a younger boy, it'd been the culmination of a short lifetime of learning and work, with all the features and gadgets he could've asked for, including, but not limited to; automatic deployment, easy reloading, and a set of wheels to drag it around on. He would've added a rack for weapons, but then he was called away for the trip.

Figures he came back five months late.

He put his hand on the stock, rolling his fingers, tap-tap-tap, with another hand on his chin. Perspectives changed. He didn't want this anymore, had always known it would be a fool's errand from the beginning, and made it anyway just because he was running low on hope. Necessity was the mother of invention, and he'd badly needed someone's esteem.

Was that a warp in the limb? - the wood had dried over the winter and now the metal parts were the wrong size to fit. That would change with spring, but he didn't know just what would happen, so he'd probably sketch it, disassemble it, not bother with it anymore after that.

Somehow that didn't feel like the right ending.

"One time," said Hiccup. "I'll fix you up."

And that reminded him; he needed a new sketchbook. So many things to do, so little time to do them, with the choice of heir looming in the background.

He should just give it to Torenn and be done with it. He didn't know how to encourage, to lead, to smooth things over when stores were low and everything was rough, except he had, when Astrid fell sick and wounded on the island, and he had to pick up the slack. He could lead. All he had to do was quit questioning himself; something that would never happen.

The Mangler's warped carcass spoke to his hands, to the smith's hammer held tightly in a palm grip, its wrought iron sights tarnished with a thin coating of bad metal. There was good temper beneath the corrosion, to a person who knew how to look. Hiccup knew. It was a weapon made to capture dragons, by a boy who never wanted to kill dragons, and now would never do so, if he could help it: they were noble beasts, intelligent, curious, sometimes playful.

He placed a hand on the oaken bowlimb.

"Why do they kill us?" he murmured. "Why do they take what's ours?"

He'd find the answer, but until he did, no one knew. Only the dragons had an inkling, and what they knew they could not say.

Elsewhere.

Toothless bit back a grunt of frustration. He'd meant to send the soldiers bushwhacking in a harmless bit of forest, but Morph's law had struck, and they'd captured an innocent. Do the needs of the many truly outweigh the rights of the few?

By his escorts' feet was a kicking and struggling Nadder; a red whirlwind of frustration and strength of will and fury, hardly worth the trouble of restraining one instant, never mind for an entire journey. This the Night Fury and his compatriots both saw clearly. But what his compatriots did not see was the other thing this Nadder represented; his failure. For by sending them off one direction he had captured one of the people of this country whom he meant to save from tyranny.

For the first time he noticed one of the Nadders had a streak of blood running down his chin, and they all had scorches splashed on their scales, and were scented of smoke but most particularly magnesium. Behind them a weak blaze sputtered in the trees, choking on wet grass and ferns and moist tree trunks and sending up green and yellow smoke as the flames crackled lower and lower.

"If we had more guys along with us, boss, we could take him back," said one of the four. They all kept as much of their bodies away from the captive as possible, as if afraid of getting burned.

"Yes, we could," said he. The captive fell quiet and sullen, eyes darting between them and fixing on him with anger, bluster, and fear, thought of something to say but didn't speak. The Fury noticed this, but his compatriots did not.

Here loyalty aligned with morals; it'd be difficult to take with them this dragon who always would look to slash their throats and get out, unlike the Gronckles, who could have been herded by a Terror. The dragon wouldn't take a long move well, either.

This was immoral.

"Boss?" asked the soldier. The other three shared glances behind the dragon's back, as if they thought themselves invisible to their master. He was in charge, by right – but he knew he was thinking wrong.

"Take him away, the four of you," he said. "We need enough to set up a watch."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, sir. You might need us around."

So She had ordered them to keep a watch on him; he'd suspected before, but now he knew. He gathered his mind for a battle of will. "That's an order."

Between the directives of the Queen who was far away and the order of the Fury who was right here, the soldier chose the Fury.

"Right away."

When they were taking care of this dragon, this Nadder, that was when he could flee, run and go away, to some other place, like a dragonet running from his problems. That would leave the innocent here, with the soldiers, and the Queen's peons free to do her bidding, even without their leader – but he was vacillating. How difficult morals made things!

He was so self-absorbed, he hardly noticed his underlings fly away. For him the time between his order and their departure was like the blink of an eye, and when finally he looked up and saw their retreating figures he welcomed their absence with open wings. By the Big Is and the Big Isn't, he'd make good use of his time.

For an hour he flew north, soaring two hundred spans above the trees, at a height where his silhouette attracted nearby eyes as if he were a winged diadem. When he reached rockier, inhospitable territory he turned eastwards and dove, gliding near the low ground in the shadows of the craggy hilltops, so that no one would see him. At times he walked at a pace that ate up the miles, trotting on padded feet like a black cougar. Then, when afternoon was fading into the golden hour, he took up wings again and flew, slipping from darkness to darkness between light.

Night was at hand, and there was no better time for a Fury to prowl. He poured on speed, overtaking the owls in their noiseless flight; slicing the air as he turned south-west and flew for where he'd met the free Nadders in the stand of cedar. Hunger pangs sliced his innards, but food could wait.

It was good to make contact with these dragons, to have people to talk to outside of the Queen's circle of influence, who would help him be in the know, but more importantly, they'd provide a safe enclave if things went sour, which was all too likely. Her Eminence was infamously bitter.

The glade was drawing into view, along with a pond a little further north, with grey rock protruding from the slopes where the ground was uncovered by the sea of green grass, now a verdant ocean waving gently in the moonlight. He remembered the smell of this place; an ingrown musk similar to the scent of elk. With a quiet flare he set down beneath the banks of towering evergreens, breathing the ambient air through his keen nose, in search of the morning's spoor.

Nadder's scales smelled clean, metallic; like a rasp. Here. Part of a bole's striated trunk had been rubbed away, the bark's natural curve flattened, and the fragrant wood exposed, while at the tree's roots blue scale-dust was scattered between the pine needles.

"Guess you couldn't resist scratching an itch," he said to himself. "Sloppy. You won't go far with dragonets in tow."

He folded his wings, looked down with bright green eyes and picked up the Nadders' scattered tracks, which led away north-east, into the interior. He followed them with his eyes dilated to slits. A huntress like Astrid might have passed within ten yards of him and neither seen or heard him that night, when the light breeze stirred the sheaves of pine needles up above and bit at coats and scales with the last of the winter chill. A grouse watched him stalk with gimlet eyes from its hideaway in the lee of a spare gorsebush, and relaxed when he passed it by. Toothless was king.

Deep into the forest the tracks suddenly ended, after heading straight unwaveringly for a hundred spans. Toothless looked up, and the snapped branches and open sky above laid out the story clearly for his eyes: how the dragons had stopped, paused, and taken to the air, all through the same hole in the canopy. He made a wager then, based on gut feeling and instinct, betting they would head northeast for a while more, then circle, probably left, towards the pond.

After all, that was a mirror image of what he had done.

He found them in the lee of a tall, narrow ridge that looked like a bread-crust, huddling together. One was awake of the six; the older male, whose keen eyes panned the horizon. The Nadder had good senses, but not good enough, and it fell to the Fury to reveal himself, so he glided with his right wing to the woodline and his left to the cluster of dragons, invisible, then banked and alighted on a hilltop not fifty yards from where the dragon was. With even, liquid motions he trotted down, walking even when he felt the Nadder's eyes fix on him.

"What are you here for?" asked the father. A dragonet stirred in its sleep.

The best thing to say was the truth. "To run."

"And what brings us into this?"

"You were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Fire burned at the back of the dragon's throat, and then it vanished, perhaps because he realized he couldn't kill Toothless, but Toothless could easily slaughter him.

"And what about my friend?"

It took a moment for the words to course through the Fury's mind and find the relevant facts. "That was an accident."

A rumble built in the father's throat. "And it's an accident that Her Ugliness's peons show up on our doorstep?"

"It wasn't my choice," said Toothless. "I'm leaving. I've made up my mind and I want to get out of her employ, as much as you don't want to be in it. But -"

"Bet you enjoy the power too much."

"No. She has leverage."

He had leverage over this dragon too, if he was willing to use it. The red-scaled dragon had been referred to as the father's friend.

"Ah," said the other dragon. "That makes things difficult."

He sidled away from the group a few dozen feet, to reduce the noise. Toothless followed.

"I'd like your advice on where to go."

That caught the Nadder off-guard for a moment. "There's here, but everyone knows who you are one way or another. Dragons here hate your guts…" he drifted off. "My wife included. You could go further east, further than this land, across the water and into another, but they'll hate you for being an easterner, never mind your blood. Past that… nobody knows."

"I see. Thanks."

"Return the favor, if you can. Keep your eye out for two people, man and woman – not dragons, see. In the islands I expect. Both are pretty thin, one has golden fur and blue eyes, one has brown fur and green ones, and a scar across his chin. They do a lot… I know that's a terrible description, but, I'd like to see them again."

"What about helping your friend?"

"That goes without saying," said the dragon. His eyes dimmed, as if he were remembering an old event. "I've done this before."

Toothless nodded, kept silent. There was much about this Nadder he didn't know, and there was much to ask, but that wasn't the most tense part of the meeting. Helping this dragon meant crossing the line in the sand, throwing off the pretense of being a good little Fury for his overbearing master.

The father looked him in the eye. "Don't be someone who runs away."

"I won't," said Toothless. "Now, here's my idea for how we'll do it…"