Chapter 11 - Plans

Astrid grunted and swung her hammer downwards, driving the last nail into place with a satisfying thunk. With a sigh, she set down her tools and looked out over the Magnusson's freshly repaired roof towards the edge of the village.

I can't take it, she thought, I need to know.

As far as she could tell, she was the only person on Berk who knew that there had been two Night Furies over the village in the battle. Hiccup had saved her from the Zippleback, and he'd appeared to be fighting the other Fury, but then she'd lost track of them until one of them attacked just before Stoick landed. The uncertainty gnawed at her from within, and she couldn't stop imagining him lying injured somewhere on the island, or worse his broken body dashed against the rocks by the sea.

"No" she whispered, he couldn't be dead, not after she'd put so much effort into keeping him alive; not after he'd saved her life in return.

Or what if it was Hiccup who attacked us? a voice whispered from a dark corner of her mind. So far, he had seemed mostly unaffected by the Queen's control, but what if his immunity ran out?

With a furtive glance around, she left her tools and crawled to the edge of the roof. Her legs gave out on landing, drawing a pained noise from her throat, and sending her sprawling in the dirt. It felt like there wasn't an inch of her that had escaped injury in the battle, but she could walk, so wasn't worthy of the healers' attention.

Gods above, she was tired. She'd managed to grab a few fitful hours of sleep in a chair at the back of the Mead Hall, but it hadn't helped; with the secret trips to see Hiccup and Stormfly, it felt like weeks since she'd last got a full night's sleep.

Still, she was a VIking, she was made of sterner stuff. With a soft growl, she forced herself up onto all fours and then her feet, making her way past the blackened wreckage of the village's outskirts, into the shade of the trees.

Unable to withstand the uncertainty any longer, she found her pace increasing as she made for Hiccup's cove, hoping that if he survived he'd think to meet her there.

She burst through the undergrowth into a clearing on the rim of the cove, stumbling to a sudden stop. Across from her, on a patch of blackened grass, two dragons lay side-by-side. Relief and elation rushing through her, she ran towards them. "Hiccup! Stormfly! You're alive!"

Hiccup rose and swept his tail across the ground in front of him. 'ASTRID,' he wrote in the ash, 'ARE YOU OKAY?'

She came to a stop and looked down at herself. Her clothes were torn and stained with blood and soot.

"I will be," she replied, "My house burned down in the raid, these are... these are the only clothes that I own."

Hiccup crooned softly. 'I'M SORRY.'

"It's okay," she replied, brushing off his concern. He unconsciously shuffled his wings, letting out a sharp hiss of pain. Her gaze snapped up to him, landing on a semicircle of puncture marks surrounding his right shoulder.

"Hiccup!" she exclaimed, "What happened!?"

'THE QUEEN TRIED TO DROWN ME,' he wrote. 'THE NIGHT FURY CAUGHT ME, DID THIS, THEN THREW ME IN THE SEA.'

Astrid winced; he was lucky to be alive. "Can you...?"

Hiccup shook his head with a sad croon.

Grounded again, she thought.

'HOW WAS IT?' he asked. 'IT LOOKED BAD.'

It's hopeless, she thought. We don't have enough people to rebuild the village and refill the food stores in time. If the dragons attack in those numbers again...

No, she gritted her teeth, You can't just give up.

"It was," she admitted, in a flat tone. "Just over half the village is left."

Hiccup was physically staggered by her words, slumping to the ground, whimpering. She crouched down to his eye-level.

"Hiccup..." words failed her; how could she offer comfort when she could barely process the facts herself?

'IT'S MY FAULT,' Hiccup wrote with an unsteady paw 'I COULDN'T STOP HER - EVEN AS A DRAGON, I'M USELESS.'

"No," Astrid told him firmly. "Everyone in the village had been preparing for that fight all their lives, but you, you'd been a Night Fury for barely a week - For Odin's sake, you only learned to fly that night! But you still helped, Hel, you probably saved us; while you distracted the Night Fury, you bought time for Stoick to land and reinforce-"

Hiccup's pupils narrowed, and a haunted expression passed over the boy-turned-dragon's features.

'MY DAD'S HERE?' He wrote.

"Relax Hiccup," she told him, "Nobody knows about you."

For a moment they were silent, the gravity of the situation sinking in. Hiccup was grounded again, trapped on the island and vulnerable. Meanwhile, the fate of Berk balanced on a knife's edge, her people were wounded and desperate; unless they found some advantage in their situation they would surely fall when the dragons returned.

"Hiccup," Astrid breathed, "We have to do something."

The Night Fury grunted something in a dejected, dismissive tone.

"I'm serious Hiccup," she told him, hope kindling in her chest. "We Vikings have fought dragons in the same way since we first sailed here. Now, for the first time in seven generations, we have new intelligence: we know about the Queen, we know that the Dragons aren't willing participants in this war - gods, we know that dragons are actually intelligent!" She took a breath. "If we carry on fighting as we are, the Queen will kill us all; we have to go to Stoick and tell him what we know."

'WHAT WILL THAT ACHIEVE?' He responded. 'EVEN IF YOU COULD CONVINCE MY DAD NOT TO KILL US - THAT'S A BIG IF - WE DON'T KNOW WHERE THE NEST IS AND THE QUEEN STILL OUTNUMBERS US.'

Hiccup watched Astrid's face fall and he let out a soft growl of frustration. He couldn't stand by and watch his home's destruction, and he'd promised Stormfly that he'd help free her people, but there was no way he could think of to fight the Queen that didn't end in his death or enslavement.

"There has to be something," Astrid thought aloud. "The Queen's control can't be perfect; there must be some weakness we can exploit, use to turn her army against her."

"There is a way," Stormfly hummed. "It's more risky than I'd like, but we don't have many options at this point."

Hiccup turned to her in surprise; the Nadder had been quiet since Astrid arrived. "What is it?"

Instead of answering, Stormfly nosed at where he'd been scratching runes in the soil. "You are communicating with Astrid using these marks in the dirt?"

He nodded.

"A physical form of language," she muttered to herself, "If only the Songkeepers had something like this..." She looked up at him. "Can you translate my words for Astrid?"

"It's slow," Hiccup replied, "but I'll try."

Astrid glanced between the two of them, a concerned expression on her face. "Hiccup, what's going on?"

'SHE SAID SHE KNOWS SOMETHING WE CAN USE'

Hiccup heard her breath catch in his throat and she turned to stare at the Nadder, mouth agape - as if just noticing the dragon was there.

Astrid recovered a moment later. "I'm sorry, Stormfly," she said softly, her hand going to her fringe. "I'm not used to thinking of other dragons as intelligent."

Stormfly leaned in close to her. "Think nothing of it, Hatchling," she crooned, the passage of her breath disturbing Astrid's hair. Astrid was silent as the Nadder began to speak.

"Earlier, I told Hiccup of the three Alpha Species: The Red Death and the Bewilderbeast, immense dragons with the power to sway the minds of lesser dragons, and also the Night Furies, gifted with the ability to resist the Alphas' influence as well as many other abilities that belie their smaller stature."

Hiccup scratched runes as fast as he could while still remaining legible, scrambling to summarise Stormfly's words.

"The power wielded by the Alphas - by the Queen to control her flock, and by the Night Furies to grant them their unique abilities - comes from the same source: The Aurlós."

"The what?" Hiccup asked.

"We call it The Trinity's Fire," Stormfly explained. "Some nights you can see the fires of the original Alphas shining through cracks in the barrier between our world and the cosmic forces, illuminating the sky with great sheets of flame."

Hiccup suddenly understood. "You mean the Northern Lights."

"Yes, I believe that is the term the humans use." The Nadder replied. "The manipulation of this energy is what manifests as the powers we call the Aür - to give the Alpha's abilities their proper name. When spread over a wide area, the Aür can be used to sway the minds of any dragon within range. Or, if they concentrate all their power in one place, an Aür user can achieve many things, including - " Stormfy's eyes flashed as she looked up at him " - changing one living being into another."

"Wait a minute," Hiccup said, remembering something she'd said before. "You said the only reason I could resist the Queen was because I'm an Alpha; it's because I have this power, isn't it?"

Stormfly nodded.

"Could I use it to turn myself back?" The question was out of his mouth before he'd consciously registered the thought.

The Nadder exhaled noisily; a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl. "I hoped I had impressed the importance of your position onto you, my Alpha, but, as you have asked, I will answer: Truthfully, I do not know. Your kind is naturally secretive, and the songs I remember rarely speak of the Night Furies' powers and, when they do, it his hard to tell what is a truthful account and what is a fabrication of the teller. Likely the only being who knows the answer to your question is the one who changed you."

"I'm sorry," Hiccup murmured, avoiding her gaze.

Eventually, Stormfly found her voice again. "You were correct, my Alpha; the Aür is what grants you protection from the Queen's power. However, at the moment you are only using your power instinctively; you need to learn to control it consciously, and extend its protection to others, to have any hope against the Queen."

"And how am I meant to do that?" Flying had been hard enough to learn; now she expected him to figure out magic?! "I don't suppose you happen to know a song to teach me how?"

Stormfly bowed her head. "I do not, my Alpha. The Night Furies were notoriously protective of their homeland, rarely allowing outsiders to visit their nests. If those honoured few ever spoke of the teaching of Night Fury hatchlings, the Songkeepers did not hear them." She raised her muzzle again. "Learning the Aür is a matter for you, and you alone, Hiccup."

"Ahem." Astrid tapped her foot impatiently as Hiccup spun around to face her. Finally realising that he'd been ignoring her for the last few minutes, he hurriedly finished writing out Stormfly's words.

If having a conversation - albeit an indirect one - with a dragon wasn't strange enough, she could scarcely believe the words Hiccup transcribed. If she was interpreting his hastily scribbled runes correctly, he hadn't just had the questionable misfortune of being transformed into the most mysterious of dragons, he was also a leader of the entire dragon race, and in possession of magical powers even the dragons didn't fully understand!

Hiccup finished the last sentence and stepped back, settling down on his haunches.

'IF I CAN LEARN TO USE THIS POWER, I CAN FREE DRAGONS FROM THE QUEEN'S CONTROL.'

Astrid's breath caught in her throat. "That's it!" She exclaimed in a whisper. "If you can free dragons from the Queen's control, they'll jump at the chance to fight against her, right?" She looked to Stormfly and after a moment's hesitation, the dragon nodded. "With the dragons fighting her as well, we'll have the numbers to- Damnit! No that won't work," she cut herself off, realising a flaw in her half-formed plan. "The Queen will figure out what we're doing, and she'll send enough dragons to overwhelm us."

Hiccup attracted her attention with a coughing growl. 'YOU'RE FORGETTING ONE ADVANTAGE.'

"What?"

'ME. I'M A NIGHT FURY, AND THE QUEEN THINKS I'M DEAD.'

"How does that help?" She asked, not following his logic.

'WE DOWN AT LEAST A COUPLE OF HER DRAGONS EVERY RAID, RIGHT?' She nodded, still baffled. 'SO WOULD SHE THINK AN EXTRA DRAGON OR TWO EACH RAID UNUSUAL, ESPECIALLY IF THEY NEVER SAW THEIR "DEATH" COMING?"

"Hiccup that's brilliant!" While Berk's situation was desperate, her people were stubborn; if they had a goal to aim for, they would find a way to hold out through the winter, and with Hiccup stealing dragons every raid, by the time Spring came and the ice receded they could...

"There's still one problem," she thought aloud.

Hiccup tilted his head and raised an ear-flap in unspoken question.

"We still need to speak to your father," she answered. "The dragons that you free are going to need to stay somewhere, and how many do you think you can hide in these woods before some unfortunate Viking stumbles across them?" Astrid was riding on a wave of hope, and at that moment she felt like even the immovable object that was Stoick the Vast could be made to shift. "Perhaps," she continued, pacing the clearing as she thought aloud. "There might be a way, we can demonstrate that dragons can be trusted."

'HOW?'

"The training dragons," she explained. "Most of them have been locked up in there for years, so the Queen won't be controlling them, right?" Stormfly nodded. "If I can get in there and show them that I don't mean any harm, like I did with you," she nodded towards the Nadder, "Then I'll be able to show the Village what the dragons are really like."

As her thoughts turned to the training ring, a terrible realisation struck her; she'd left the arena and Stormfly's cage wide open! She spun towards the Nadder, mouth half-open, only to hesitate when she realised what she was about to ask of her.

"Stormfly," she began softly, "I need you to come back to the village with me, to the ring." The avian dragon blinked slowly. "The village has been too busy with repairs so far, but eventually someone will notice you're gone, and if Stoick figures out what we're doing before I can convince him..." she trailed off; she didn't know what exactly the village would do to her if they knew she was working with the dragons, but it wouldn't be pleasant. "Gods be willing, it should only be for a week or two until I can convince Stoick you're not a threat."

Plus, she thought to herself, she'd feel a lot safer going into the ring unarmed if there was a dragon she knew on the other side of the bars.

Hiccup grunted to draw her attention. 'I KNOW MY DAD; HE'S NOT PERSUADED EASILY - ARE YOU SURE THIS WILL WORK?'

"We're desperate, Hiccup," she told him, "and I'm offering a chance to survive; we have no choice but to take it."

Stormfly trilled, rising to her feet and stepping towards Astrid.

'I WILL ACCOMPANY YOU,' Hiccup translated. 'WE'RE BOTH DEPENDING ON YOU, AND THIS PLAN IS OUR BEST OPTION TO BOTH PROTECT YOUR VILLAGE AND END THE QUEEN.'

"Thank you," Astrid said softly. Speaking up, she added "I - We'd - best be getting back to the village before anyone notices. Stay safe, Hiccup."

The boy-turned-dragon nodded in farewell. 'GOOD LUCK'

Astrid almost turned to leave; she hesitated, glancing back at the Night Fury.

"Hiccup," she began, haltingly. "I want to say something to Stormfly, do you mind translating for her?"

'OF COURSE NOT,' he replied, taking a half-step back and gesturing with his head to the Nadder.

Astrid turned to face her.

"Stormfly..." she began, "I..." Something suddenly occurred to her. "Wait, what's your real name? I've been calling you 'Stormfly' because, well..." it didn't matter. "But you must have your own name, right?"

Stormfly trilled softly. Astrid heard Hiccup's claws scratching in the dirt and looked over.

'I DID' he wrote for her. 'LIKE ALL DRAGONS HATCHED IN THE AGE OF ALPHAS, MY PARENTS GAVE ME A NAME, BUT IT IS ONE OF THE MANY THINGS I LOST TO THE QUEEN'

"Oh..." Before she could process the ramifications of that statement, Hiccup swept his tail across the ground and continued writing.

'I LOST MY DAM AT A YOUNG AGE,' he translated. 'YOU WERE THE FIRST BEING TO SHOW KINDNESS TO ME SINCE THEN. ACTING ONLY ON YOUR CONSCIENCE, YOU HEALED MY WOUNDS AND LET ME FLY FREE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SEASONS.'

Stormfly paused to nuzzle at her, before crooning more words to Hiccup.

'IT IS AN HONOUR TO BEAR THE NAME YOU CHOSE FOR ME.'

"Thank you," Astrid breathed, blinking several times in quick succession; she would not cry.

She took a deep breath, and raised her hand to Stormfly's chin. "If I knew what I know now, I would never have been in that ring, and you wouldn't have had to suffer what I did to your wing." She took a shaky breath, determined to get everything she had to say out in one go. "I'm sorry, not just for my actions, but for everything you must have been through at the hands of my people; and, that after saving both mine and Hiccup's lives, I repay you by asking you to go back into captivity."

Stormfly held the contact for a heartbeat before pulling away to speak to Hiccup. 'YOUR WORDS ARE APPRECIATED, HATCHLING. HOWEVER, KNOW THAT I HAVE ALREADY FORGIVEN YOU, AND THAT I GO BACK BOTH OUT OF OBLIGATION TO MY ALPHA AND PEOPLE, AND TO PROTECT MY FRIEND.'

"I..." she felt her eyes watering again. What had she done to deserve this devotion?

Stormfly simply hummed and took a step back, crouching down into a position Astrid recognised instantly.

For a fleeting moment she was hesitant, wary of being seen flying over the village in broad daylight, then the memories of their wondrous, magical first flight won out, and she quickly clambered onto the offered back. "Be careful of the village, okay girl?"

Stormfly chirped in acknowledgement, then Astrid felt her tense beneath her. No sooner had she braced herself, Stormfly exploded into motion; her powerful legs launched them into the air, a pause, then her wings flapped, driving them further upwards. Unlike their first flight, the blistering acceleration lasted barely a moment before they levelled out. Astrid opened her eyes, finding them skimming above the treetops, heading east, away from the village.

An elated chuckle bubbled out out of her as she loosened her grip on Stormfly, taking in a deep breath. Even though they were only a few yards above the forest floor, the air rushing past her and tugging at her braid was somehow, impossibly, fresher. She glanced down, watching the trees speeding below them in a green blur, faster than anyone on the ground could ever hope to achieve.

The ground below them plummeted into the sea at a sheer cliff. Astrid had a split-second to process this before Stormfly's wings snapped to her sides and they dropped towards the ocean. She screamed and clung tighter to the dragon beneath her as the vicious rocks at the base of the cliffs hurtled towards them. What must have been mere moments, but felt like aeons later, Stormfly's wings caught the wind again and they shot forwards, skimming across the ocean's surface, the Nadder's outstretched claws clipping white caps as they passed beneath.

When the realisation that she wasn't about to die eventually reached her brain, Astrid sat up, letting out a shout of pure adrenaline. Stormfly joined in with a joyous screech, startling a flock of seabirds from their cliffside nests. Astrid craned her neck backwards, gazing upwards in amazement as the birds scattered in a cacophony of shrieks and caws.

In a mirror of their first flight together, the sun was low to the eastern horizon, sparkling dazzlingly off the sea as Stormfly cruised low around the eastern coast of the island. A tinge of disappointment entered her thoughts as the headland that held the training ring came into view and Stormfly climbed steeply, alighting upon the cliffside they had taken off from before the battle.

Astrid winced as she slid to the ground; if riding on dragonback was going to become a regular occurrence for her, she would have to do something to protect her inner thighs, or Stormfly's scales would completely shred the skin off her legs.

The ring was still in the state she'd left it in; the arena gate, the Nadder cage, yawning open. Stormfly stepped around her, dipping her head with a soft croon. Astrid placed her hand on the Nadder's muzzle, mouth hanging half-open, unable to find the words to express the mixture of gratitude, sorrow, and regret that churned in her gut. Eventually, she settled on "Thank you Stormfly, again, for everything."

The Nadder held her gaze for a breath, then blinked slowly and moved away, stepping into her cage without a sound. Astrid reluctantly followed after the dragon, pushing on the heavy doors until they locked with reverberating, metallic clang. With a long sigh, she turned and rested her back against the cold iron.

It's only temporary, she told herself.

Hiccup wandered moonlit paths between pillars of pine, restless. Being free of the cove helped, but still, he was bored, and worse, hungry. He'd seen Astrid only once since she'd flown off with Stormfly three days ago; a few minutes stolen on the edge of the forest between repairing the village and replenishing Berk's food stock. He was alone.

He knew that wandering the island wasn't going to help conserve the energy remaining in his body, but the constant gnawing sensation in his stomach made it impossible for him to rest, and thus, he found himself padding into the forest.

Hiccup pushed his way between the fronds of several ferns into a small clearing. Above him a gibbous moon floated serenely between silvery wisps of cloud. Without thinking, he tried to spread his wings; he barely managed to open them a couple inches before his muscles cramped and he let out a gasp of pain.

Twisting his head sideways, he squinted back at his shoulder. The rate his body healed astounded him; where there had been bloody teeth-marks a few days ago, now there was only a series of rough, circular depressions in his hide, covered with black, scaleless skin. Despite his amazement, his brief experience of flight had only emboldened the part of him that craved it, and his wing almost couldn't heal fast enough.

Casting a final forlorn look skywards, Hiccup trudged onwards through the treeline and back into the forest. As he walked, a trickle of scent wound its way between the boughs. The odour triggered something in the back of his mind and he froze, front paw in mid air. His ear-fins stood straight up, twitching minutely at every sound around him; his nostrils dilated to bring in more air. He closed his eyes, blocking out his other senses and drew in a slow breath.

Blood.

Hiccup's eyes shot open. Something bleeding had passed this way, and recently too. He lowered his head towards the ground and breathed in again. He spotted the faint cloven-hooved impression in the dirt a moment later, confirming what his nose told him; deer.

The scent of the animal drew on him, and as he turned to follow, it felt like his body already knew which way to go, as if he'd discovered a new cardinal direction - up, down, left, right, and towards the scent.

The sensation was eerily similar to his flight from the Night Fury. His senses were on overdrive, picking up every twitch of the undergrowth in front of him and every rustle in the needles overhead. His whole body was tense, muscles moving in perfect harmony. His tail raised high in the air - to avoid disturbing the brush - waved slowly back and forth as he carefully placed his paw amongst the leaf-litter, all the while his heart pounded in his ears, marking time with it's steady beat. However, unlike the panicked, desperate race between the sea stacks, Hiccup was perfectly, serenely calm as he moved between the trees, with nary the rustle of a disturbed leaf to announce his presence.

Hiccup followed fluidly from trace to trace; from a droplet of blood on the ground here, via a footprint on a patch of bare earth, to a handful of broken twigs on a bush there. He crouched lower, chest nearly brushing the ground as he slipped into a patch of ferns. Just a few feet in ahead of him, in a lush, grassed clearing a small herd of deer had bedded down for the night. The end of the trail lay at the edge of the herd; a young doe, her leg stretched out awkwardly beside her. In the moonlight Hiccup could make out the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out from the muscle. It seemed she had survived an encounter with his former clansmen.

The former human's muscles tensed and his gaze focused on the the resting creature until everything else blurred into the background. He sprung, covering half the clearing in a single bound. The herd started at his sudden appearance and bolted, but he only had eyes for the doe. She staggered to her feet and managed a single step before he leapt again, bearing her to the ground. Instinctively his head came down, sinking his teeth into her neck, flooding his mouth with hot, fresh blood. The doe jerked once, twice, then stilled.

Hiccup let the carcass drop to the ground, panting softly. Had he just-? Had he just hunted and killed a deer with his bare hands?

No, part of him whispered, he'd done it with his teeth and claws.

Hiccup's stomach growled and contracted painfully as he stared down at the body. He let himself lower his head to take a bite out of the deer's soft underside, while his thoughts churned over what he'd just done. He wasn't a fool; he'd seen animals butchered before, and he'd already accepted that as a dragon he ate his meat raw, but there was something different about being so personally, viscerally involved in the kill.

He shook his head slightly as he cracked a leg bone between his jaws; he was thinking about this all wrong. He'd never been particularly stealthy as a human, and it hadn't been long before the village had stopped inviting him on hunting parties. Before, there had always been a part of him that felt ashamed that he couldn't fully support himself in the village; now, he couldn't deny a certain sense of primal satisfaction in the knowledge that the warm meat filling his belly was the product of his effort alone.

Finishing off the last of the deer, Hiccup set light to the remains and turned tail, wandering back through the woods towards the mountain at the centre of the island where he'd made his impromptu nest. Now that the shock had worn off, and with the pleasant feeling of a full stomach, he felt a lot calmer and more relaxed than when he'd entered the forest. After a few minutes' of walking he realised why; he was no longer dependent upon Astrid for his next meal. For the moment, the Queen thought him dead, in a few more days he would be able to fly again, and now he could hunt.

The moon was edging towards the horizon by the time he reached the small cliffside overhang where he'd sheltered for the last few nights, and when he laid himself down on a patch of freshly fire-warmed rock, he was asleep within minutes.

Astrid heaved on the towering oak doors of the great hall until they creaked open far enough for her to stagger into the hall. She couldn't find the energy to raise her head as she shuffled towards the back of the hall and waited for the cooks to serve her.

Eel stew again? she thought, with a hint of displeasure as a wooden bowl of grey-brown liquid landed on her tray. Truth be told, she was too exhausted to care; her body still ached from the battle, and she'd been working nearly non-stop for the last three days repairing and rebuilding houses destroyed by the dragons, and, judging by the number of blankets strewn around the edge of the hall, it would be at least another three before they were finished.

With a weary groan she sat down beside Ruffnut and Tuffnut, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the stench of sweat and dirt rolling of the twins' bodies. The Thorstons' house had been burnt to the ground in the fighting and, like her, they were still dressed in the tattered, soot-and-blood-stained clothes they'd been wearing at the time. The whole village was working overtime to get as much done as they could before winter set in, so nobody had found time to bathe.

Astrid took a spoonful of the eel broth, and followed it with a long draught of ale, setting her mug back down with a soft sigh.

"So," Snotlout began in a subdued tone. "When do you think we're going to have our next bout of dragon training?"

Astrid stared at him wordlessly; was he serious?!

"Uh, how about when we're not all working ourselves to the bone trying not to die, numbskull?!" Ruffnut shot back acidly.

"What would be the point?" Astrid added, "We've all already fought in our first battle and killed our first dragons; we're already warriors."

"It's not actually that bad an idea," Fishlegs put in. "We're pretty low on morale right now, and having a class finish dragon training, with the top trainee kill the Nightmare in front of the village, would give everyone a positive event to rally around."

"See," Snotlout said, a hint of his former confidence in his voice. "I told you so."

Tuffnut called his bluff. "You didn't understand a word he said; I don't think that was even Norse."

Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid saw Fishlegs half-open his mouth to correct him, then obviously think better of it, and the table lapsed into silence.

Astrid's thoughts drifted as she forced herself to eat the bland stew. Since she'd spoken with Hiccup and Stormfly three days ago, she'd only briefly spoken to Hiccup - a chance encounter with him one evening on the edge of the woods - just long enough for him to say he'd found a place to rest on the mountainside overlooking the forest, and for her to tell him about the ceremony Stoick was holding at the end of the week. Aside from that, she'd been too busy to even think about their plan.

"Do you ever wonder why they fight?" she asked quietly.

"Huh?" Tuffnut questioned, glancing up from his stew.

"The dragons," she explained, heart suddenly pounding in her ears. "We've been here for seven generations and all we've done is fight. Any smart animal would have left years ago, so why haven't they? What are they fighting for?"

"Because they're evil!" Tuffnut spat.

"Monsters." Ruffnut agreed vehemently. "If I ever find the dragon that burnt our house I'll..." she trailed off with a growl and savage jerk of her spoon.

Astrid glanced at the bundle of shawls and blankets sat beside the long fire in the centre of the room. After Gothi, Igna Thorston was one of the oldest women in the village; almost blind in one eye and in near-constant pain from her joints - spending the nights on the cold, hard floors of the draughty hall couldn't be doing the aged widow any good.

"Fishlegs?" she asked, turning back to the table, "what do you think?" She couldn't blame the Twins for hating Dragons at the moment, but surely the collector of dragon lore would be at least curious?

"I dunno, Astrid," he replied with a shrug. "It's just the way they are."

Astrid's fist tightened around her spoon, her knuckles turning white. They're being forced to fight us you fools! Now that she'd been told the truth, it seemed blatantly obvious to her, but she couldn't tell them, not yet. If she suddenly started ranting and raving about dragons, people were bound to start questioning her, then someone would inevitably figure out what she'd been doing outside the village for the last week, and she'd be locked up - or worse - inadvertently dooming them all. Plus, deep down, she knew that she had been much the same as them, and it had taken witnessing Hiccup's transformation and Stormfly saving her life to change her mind; mere words wouldn't convince her peers.

Deep in thought, Astrid barely noticed her friends gradually leave the table. She was still sat there when most of the lights in the hall had been extinguished or had sputtered and died. Her father stood behind her and rested a large hand on her shoulder.

"Things will get better, my girl" he murmured.

If only I could believe that, she thought, rising to her feet and making her way towards the pile of threadbare blankets in the corner of the hall where her family slept.

Berk was dark and quiet as Hiccup slipped between empty houses towards the cliffs. Being back in the village after two weeks as a wild dragon was a strange, almost dreamlike experience; everything was as he remembered it but also somehow wrong. Even in darkness, his Night Fury eyes could pick out details in the buildings around him he'd never noticed before, and alleyways that he had previously slipped through without a thought were now a tight fit for his bulk.

Worst of all was the smell - Gods above, it was overpowering! How had he not noticed before? What he could only describe as the stench of humanity was thick in the air, a cocktail of unwashed bodies and manure, mixed with a lingering odour of char and ash that had not faded in the days since the battle. The scent tickled something primitive in his mind, setting his instincts on edge and causing him to nearly jump out of his scales whenever a cooling timber creaked or a wounded warrior groaned in their bed.

Taking a shallow breath, he squeezed between the final pair of buildings and looked down on the survivors of Berk. Gathered on the docks below him, facing out to sea in a sombre crowd, was the remaining, able-bodied population.

As an apprentice blacksmith, Hiccup had spent enough time working with Ragnar Ingerman - the village shipwright - to know that it was a small miracle that the ship moored alongside the longest pier was still floating. The longship's hull was nearly blackened from bow to stern by overlapping scorch marks, and in several places it appeared that shields had been used to effect makeshift repairs. Worse, the lines of the ship were twisted askew, suggesting to him that the keel - the spine of the ship - had been damaged in the fighting. Repairing the vessel would have required them to near enough rebuild it from scratch, so instead the village had prepared her for one last voyage.

Stoick stepped onto the pier and turned to face the crowd. Hiccup's ear-flaps twitched and he found he could make out his father's words.

"People of Berk, we have gathered here tonight to remember those who were lost on the expedition into Helheim's Gate, and those who fell defending their homes in our absence. While we may not have their bodies to venerate them properly in the eyes of the gods and our ancestors, we remember their names:

"Axel, son of Arnór; Björn, son of Björn..."

Stoick began to list the names of the dead whose bodies either lay at the bottom of the sea, or had been rendered into unrecognisable clumps of ash by dragonfire. On the final name, his voice faltered and, in a hushed, pain-ridden tone Hiccup had to strain to hear, he added "... and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third, my son."

Stoick swayed on his feet, and Hiccup's heart twisted painfully. He had to fight the urge to call out to his father, knowing that Stoick wouldn't understand his voice, and that revealing his true fate would just cause his father more pain. It's better this way, he told himself.

Gobber stepped forwards and rested his remaining hand on his friend's shoulder, murmuring something Hiccup couldn't make out. Stoick took a deep breath - as if he needed the pressure of the air in his lungs to hold him upright. "We will remember them in our songs and in our hearts, and, while we cannot perform the proper ceremonies, we make this gesture in the hope of appeasing their spirits."

At their chieftain's words, a group of figures in dark cloaks moved down the pier and set about untying the longship from it's moorings, while at the same time the front row of the crowd produced bows and arrows from under their own garments.

Gobber handed a weapon to Stoick as he began to speak the time-honoured phrases.

"May the Valkyries welcome you;
and lead you through Odin's great battlefield.
May they sing your names with love and fury;
so that we may hear them rise from the depths of Valhalla;
and know that you have taken your rightful places at the table of kings.

"For great men have fallen; warriors, husbands, fathers ... sons." As his words drifted out over frigid waves, the men on the pier unfurled the longship's sails and pushed it out into the harbour, where the wind took it, gradually drawing the vessel out to sea.

A deep silence fell over the gathering as Stoick lit his arrow from a brazier beside him, nocked it, and drew the fletchings back to his chin. Hiccup thought he saw his father's lips twitch in a muttered prayer before he released the string.

The burning projectile arced high before falling down at the centre of the deck, where the flames swiftly caught. Seeing their chief's shot land, the rest of the archers lit their arrows and pulled back, loosing a flurry of blazing arrows out over the ocean, ensuring the ship burnt well.

As the flames grew higher, lighting up the horizon, Stoick rejoined the crowd and other mourners began to step forwards to speak a few words about the dead. Hiccup paid them little mind, his gaze fixed on the burning ship. He stepped forwards until his forepaw rested on the very edge of the cliff. He slowly spread his wings, and felt only the barest twinge from where the Queen had punctured his flight muscles.

Feeling a grin tug at the corners of his mouth despite the circumstances, he gave his wings a slow, experimental flap, then held them out straight and pushed off from the edge.

He felt no fear as his paws left the stone and he dropped towards the rocks below. He let himself fall for a moment before he adjusted his tail and the air filled his wing membranes, gilding over the Vikings below with barely a whisper of wind to signal his passing.

Hiccup closed his eyes and drifted out to sea, luxuriating in the feeling of the air flowing over his body, gently ticking at his fins. Finally, after his panicked, first experience, and the tortuous week waiting for his wing to heal, he could truly enjoy flight.

His eyes snapped open. He had waited long enough. He pushed his tail upwards and simultaneously began to beat his wings. Within a few effortless breaths he was higher than the tallest peaks of Berk. An unconscious hum of pleasure rumbling in his chest, he allowed his wings to still as he pitched up further, gradually shedding speed.

For a moment, everything was silent and perfect; he hung weightless between the depths of the sky above and the midnight ocean below.

Then gravity won out and he overbalanced; he fell backwards towards the waves, his paws outstretched towards the gently twinkling stars. He began to chuckle as he flipped upright and pulled in his wings - leaving them slightly open to control his descent and prevent them whistling - and by the time he leveled out hundreds of feet below he was laughing uncontrollably, feeling happier and more carefree than he had since his transformation - since years before that too, if he was honest.

Still chuckling to himself, he flapped his wings and rose again, then twisted his tail and rolled into a wide spiral. For a time, he simply flew; climbing, diving, banking and rolling, his mind working overtime to come up with new ways to test his wings, and his body rising to the challenge every time.

Eventually, with a satisfying ache in his flight muscles - like the sting in his biceps after finishing a lengthy project in the forge - he found himself gliding in the wake of the burning longship, and his thoughts began to sober.

While, officially, the vessel slowly disintegrating upon the waves below was a tribute to all those who had died in the last weeks, Hiccup knew that in his father's eyes, this was his funeral ship. Stoick would carry his grief for a long time - perhaps the rest of his life - but perversely, in a way, his 'death' was freeing for both of them.

For almost as long as he could remember, Hiccup had been a disappointment in his father's gaze. Now, with him out of the way, Stoick was free to adopt Snotlout as his heir, and then perhaps the chief could temper the Jorgenson's ego enough that he'd actually learn something.

It was a bittersweet feeling for Hiccup, realising that he was finally free from the shackles of his father's expectations; for the first time in his life, he was free to choose what he wanted to do without facing Stoick's disapproving glare. If, by some miraculous twist of fate, their plan worked and he was able to defeat the Queen, what next? He still had no idea if it was possible to turn back human, and he was beginning to wonder if that was even what he wanted anymore. Being a dragon was unlike even his wildest dreams, and he had to admit, even after just two nights, the freedom of flight was dangerously addictive. If they were successful, Berk wouldn't be hostile to dragons, so, perhaps, remaining a dragon wouldn't mean completely abandoning everyone he'd ever known.

Hiccup grumbled and tossed his head, letting the wriggle pass backwards along his spine and tail. He was getting ahead of himself; he could still be killed by Vikings or the Queen tomorrow, he should enjoy a moment of freedom while he could.

Gazing down at the ship below, a thought struck him; there was still one thing he wanted to try. Craning his neck, he raised his tail and shot upwards, climbing near vertically. He hung for an instant at the peak of his ascent, fixing his gaze on the bright speck below. He dove, pressing his wings to his side for maximum speed, feeling them begin to vibrate as the wind rushed past. A heartbeat, and several hundred feet later, he cracked open his jaw. Air forced it's way between his gums and heat blossomed in his chest. He held the dive. The heat grew and grew as he plummeted towards the ocean. At last, when it felt like there was a raging furnace between his ribs, and he could make out the individual planks of the burning deck, he released the shot and opened his wings.

The wind was so loud in Hiccup's ears he barely heard the thunderous blast, but he felt the flash of heat all the same as he shot across the waves fast as the wind itself. By the time he slowed and circled around the ship was almost completely gone, reduced to a few chunks of charred wood bobbing up and down on the black waves. With a final orbit of the wreckage, he set his tail towards Berk and flew onwards.

Barely a few minutes into his flight, his ear-fins pricked up at the sound of a familiar chattering and whispering. On instinct, he flapped hard to gain altitude, then stilled his wings, gliding. In silent horror, he watched as a flock of dragons flew beneath him, oblivious to his presence.

Hiccup hardly dared to breathe as the flock flew by. The mixed group of dragons was smaller than the host which had destroyed Berk, but he still counted at least one of every common type of dragon - and a few of the rarer ones as well. He let out a soft sigh as the last dragon passed underneath him and he didn't spot a certain, distinctive black silhouette. As the flock continued on, he noticed that many of the dragons appeared to be carrying things in their claws.

They're taking their prey back to the nest after raiding one of the other islands, he realised, turning his course to follow after them.

I need to find out more about the Queen, he reasoned as he trailed the flock. To be victorious you must know your enemy as you do yourself; that sounded like something Astrid would say.

Soon enough, a great fog bank loomed on the horizon, the thick mists almost glowing in the moonlight; Hellheim's Gate. On some unseen signal the flock wheeled as one and dove into the mists. Hiccup put on a burst of speed plunged in after them, barely managing to keep the last dragon in view.

Almost immediately, the open sea disappeared behind him, swallowed by the opaque mists. If not for the faint shadows in the fog ahead, and the constant chattering of the dragons as they flew, he would have been completely disorientated. The flock followed a twisting route, weaving this way and that, between sea stacks that lurked unseen in the mist, until he was almost on top of them.

This place is a maze, Hiccup thought, already lost; no wonder my dad never found the nest.

The chattering and whispering suddenly tripled in volume, reverberating around him, as if off the mists themselves. Hiccup glanced around in alarm, spotting two groups of dragons emerging from the fog behind him. Fear clutched at his chest, but the dragons flew onwards single-mindedly, joining with the flock he followed, not noticing the stranger in their midst.

Hiccup slotted into a gap in the formation, eyes darting all around him, expecting to feel teeth and claws sink into his skin at any moment. Surrounded on all sides by dragons, navigating the fog was much easier; his head-frills would twitch in time with murmuring of the flock and they'd bank in that direction, avoiding a sea stack that loomed out of the mists a moment later.

Just as he thought that the fog was beginning to thin out, they crossed an invisible threshold and were suddenly flying over open sea, rapidly approaching a jagged peak jutting up from the waves, a small plume of smoke rising from it's summit.

A chill went down Hiccup's spine; he knew this island. I offer you the gift of the Night Furies' dominion, the Fury had whispered in his dreams, find me and I shall bequeath this to you.

Hiccup shook his head - ear flaps slapping against his neck. He shouldn't be here. He was flying into his enemy's home unprepared and without a plan; what was he thinking?! He glanced around, but was surrounded by dragons on all sides; he couldn't break away without drawing attention to himself.

Before he could formulate a plan, the flock dove, and he was forced to follow or crash into the Nightmare above him. Ahead, they were heading for a narrow crack in the mountainside. There's no way we'll all fit through there! Panicked, his eyes darted left and right, but he was still hemmed in. At the last moment, the dragons in the center of the formation slowed, while those on the outside swerved inwards, slotting into single-file seconds before they crashed into the mountainside

Hiccup was blind. He twisted. He turned, following the signals of the dragon in front of him on pure instinct. His frantic wingbeats cleared the rock walls by mere inches. All he could hear was the rushing of wind and the overlapping thunder of wings, reverberating endlessly in the tight passageway.

They burst out into a large chamber. Heat and motion assaulted his senses. There were dragons everywhere, all lit from below in a ruddy light. Sulphuric vapours stung in his nostrils and his eyes watered. Squinting, he saw a gap in the wall of bodies and dove for it, skidding to a stop on a small ledge near the top of the cavern, partially shielded by a natural pillar.

Heart pounding in his chest, Hiccup crept to the edge of the platform. Below him, the floor of the cavern was shrouded in thick, noxious-looking mist, lit from within by the omnipresent red light. Above, the combined flocks swirled in a tight spiral. One by one the dragons flew to the centre of the chamber and dropped their catch, then dove away, landing on walls and ledges around the perimeter of the chamber.

It's satisfying to know all our food has been dropped down a hole, he thought, watching the body of a yak disappear into the mists.

In just a few minutes, all of the returning dragons had deposited their catch and the air was still. Everywhere Hiccup looked, he spotted more dragons; there must have been hundreds of them lining the walls of the nest, and gods know how many more in other caverns and tunnels below the mountain.Where's the Queen? He thought. Scanning the various outcroppings and perches, he spotted several large dragons of unfamiliar species, but they all sat in the same position - head bowed, facing the mist-shrouded pit.

A low drone distracted Hiccup from his search; a lone, decrepit-looking Gronckle was hovering in the center of the chamber, its skin hanging off it in flaps. As he watched, its wings stilled for a moment and it dropped several feet before catching itself and labouring back up to its previous altitude. The Gronckle opened it's mouth, coughing and gagging several times before eventually producing a single small fish. Unlike those before it, the dragon lingered in the air, scratching at a patch of flaking skin on its side.

A sudden hush fell over the chamber, the dragons around the walls pressing themselves tighter against the rock. Anxious, Hiccup glanced side to side.

With a roar like a collapsing cliff a monster shot out of the depths. For a moment, Hiccup was frozen, unable to comprehend the sheer size of the being before him. Then, with crack that made his ears ring, it's jaws snapped shut around the unfortunate gronckle.

Hiccup jerked backwards, nearly tripping over his own tail. His first thought as the monstrous head disappeared back into the mists was that he'd stumbled into Jömungandr's lair. Then he realised, and he wasn't sure whether to scream hysterically or laugh like a madman. That was the Queen?! Stormfly said they were big, but... that?! How in the names of Odin and all the Æsir and Vanir was he meant to kill that?!

With a deep growl like the groaning of ice-sheets in the depths of winter, the Queen's head poked up from the depths once more. Sheets of molten rock sloughed off her muzzle. Her nostrils opened, drawing in great clouds of mist.

What do we have here? Her every word was a stab of pain between his eyes. You should be dead, Night Fury.

A hundred pairs of slitted, reptilian eyes turned to glare at him. Hiccup didn't wait around - in an instant, he gathered his strength and shot into the air, striving for the patch of daylight at the top of the cavern with everything he had. The whole nest took wing simultaneously, and a moment later he felt the blast of air as the Queen's jaws slammed shut behind him.

The swarm of dragons pressed towards him as they shot towards the small circle of sky. He wasn't sure if the dragons were trying to stop him, or simply fleeing from their enraged ruler in primal terror; either way his wings clashed painfully with several other dragons and at least one set of claws raked down his back in those few seconds of terrified upwards flight.

Hiccup burst out into daylight, immediately pulling in his wings and diving parallel to the mountain, desperately trying to pick up speed.

Dragons swarmed out of a vent on the mountainside below, and a familiar, terrifying sound sliced through the air. Hiccup wrenched his wings open, throwing himself into a turn moments before the Night Fury's shot blew the rock beneath him into splinters.

Astrid's words echoed in his mind; If you get into a fight, your best chance is to end it quickly. He knew he couldn't escape while the Night Fury was in the air. With a grunt he flapped as hard as he could and pulled into a tight loop. At the top of his curve, he fired a shot at the black dragoness baring down on him, then breathed in sharply and fired again. The Night Fury twisted in mid air, slipping between his shots and streaking beneath him.

Hiccup folded his wings, spinning as he dropped. The wind nearly tore his wings from their sockets when he forced them open again, but now he was behind the Night Fury and he fired again. She darted away, and he twisted, wings and tailfins straining as he struggled to match her turn.

TIlting his head back, Hiccup could just make out the tip of her tail as he fought to stay with her, body screaming at him as they spiralled towards the ocean. The Fury could turn faster than him, and she began to gain on him as they chased each other around an invisible axis, but it wasn't enough. As the water rushed towards them they broke away, wings beating in time with their heartbeats as they fought to regain altitude.

Hiccup's muscles burned and his wounded shoulder began to ache again. In the corner of his eye he saw the Night Fury inch ahead. He growled and forced himself to push harder, but wingbeat by wingbeat, she pulled away. He had a shot, but his lungs could barely bring in enough air to fuel his exertions, let alone his fire.

He glanced in the other direction; the fog bank was only a few yards away, perhaps he could -

The fog beside him lit up, burning away as a Nightmare ignited itself, spewing fire into his path. Too close to evade, Hiccup flipped belly-up, coming to a dead stop in mid-air. Glancing back as he dove away, he saw the Nightmare hovering in place.

The Queen's playing with me, he realised, a cold sense of dread settling in his stomach. She knows I can't win so all she has to do is keep me bottled up and wait.

Hiccup didn't have any more time to think. A whistle cut through the air. He put his head down and flapped for his life, clawing for every scrap of speed his exhausted body could muster. The Fury's diving screech cut off with a taut snap of her wing membranes, and he risked a glance behind him.

The slight deceleration nearly cost him his life. He glimpsed pink throat and blue light, and desperately threw himself sideways, feeling the scorching heat flash past him. He followed up with a wild series of maneuvers, desperately trying to shake his pursuer.

It's hopeless, Hiccup thought. There was no way out, nothing he could use for a temporary advantage; no sea stacks he could dart between for a moment's reprieve. He pushed on through the pain of burning muscles regardless, corkscrewing, looping and rolling as fast as he could, but eventually his exhausted wings and tail failed him. All it took was spending fractionally too long in a turn. There was a brief whistle, then a weight struck him from behind, sending him crashing onto the beach.

Gravel gouged at his his chest, tearing off scales and spraying out around him as he skidded to a stop, the Night Fury perched atop him. "You are mine now, Night Fury," she whispered with the Queen's voice, her claws pressing lightly into his wing shoulders.

"No!" Hiccup thrashed beneath her futilely; his strength used up in his desperate flight.

The Queen's roar shook the pebbles beneath him. You ARE mine, Hiccup.

His vision dimmed as he felt the Queen press down on his consciousness. Distantly, he was aware of a circle of dragons forming around him and the Night Fury.

"Nnn-"

You belong to ME!

Red light.

Pain.

Nothing.

"Yes, my Alpha."

Author's Notes:

Long time no see, eh?

Friendly greetings!

Those of you who have been reading along with the recommendations that I leave here will now realise why I cited Rift-Raft's 'I Hear Him Scream' as one of my inspirations for this story waaay back in the prologue. :D

I know it doesn't really make up for the four-and-a-half month break, but at 9,480 words, this is the longest chapter I've ever published to date. To be honest with you; it's been so long that I don't really remember what caused me to stall on writing this, and I started my final year at university back in September, so I can't promise you any faster updates in the future. However, this chapter marks the transition into the final act of this story and the start of the snowball of events leading to the finale; we're getting there slowly!

My fanfic recommendation for you today is another of the most popular stories on this site: 'Persephone' by sunflowerb. Persephone bills itself as a 'Virgin Sacrifice AU' wherin Hiccup fakes his death after Astrid discovers him and Toothless in the movie. Five years later, a mysterious dragon rider starts turning up in the dragon raids, and in their desperation Berk offers Astrid to him as a virgin sacrifice to stop the raids. Of course, the rider turns out to be Hiccup and things don't go according to Berk's plan.

I won't spoil anything, but I will say that Persephone deals with some very serious and mature issues, and that sunflowerb either has personal experience or has gone above and beyond the call of duty in research to write one of the darkest and most heart-wrenching stories on this site.

My eternal gratitude to those of you who haven't given up on this story; thank you for reading, and please leave your thoughts in a review!

Until next time,

~Superbun