Author's Note
Hello readers. It has been several years since this story was updated. I had to give it up because my emotional health was so strained in the years of 2013-14. Since then so much has happened in my life, but HTTYD has always been in my heart and this story, on my mind. I said I would finish this, and now, with the third film coming up (and already out for some!), what better time than now to close the doors on this epic my sister and I started. It's been such an integral part of my HTTYD experience and thus, of my life. I have met so many people because they were fans of the story, and I am forever grateful for all the comments and appreciation this story has gotten over the years. I know I have gone major AWOL on responding to comments, whether on FanFiction or deviantArt or my own website. But know that I appreciate you and I am glad you found some joy in reading this. Thank you. If you're still here or if you're a new reader, please enjoy the conclusion to How to Train Your Dragon II: The Dragon Whisperer.
May we all become Heroes the Hard Way. Long Live Dragons.
Below is a summary of the previous and (now) alternative universe events of this story. The differences in canon were developed back before the second film came out; factors like Hiccup's mother and Toothless' past (and Heather herself) were all up in the air in 2012, when my sister and I developed this tale. (Also Dagur from the show didn't exist LOL.)
How to Train Your Dragon II: The Dragon Whisperer
This is the story of a Hiccup who didn't have a mother––and who never would. This is the story of a dragon's family, one that lived for a thousand years, one that warred for generations in an ancient feud bonded in blood. This is the story of a Hiccup who starts off a young boy, who grows into a leader, who grows into a chief, a husband. This is the story of a bond between a boy and his dragon, a bond unbreakable but wrecked by the communicative divide between human and beast.
This is the story of Heather of Herkja, of the Skirra Véllite tribe, a girl on the way to becoming a woman, a chief's daughter fated to kill for someone else's salvation. This is the story of an island of slaves rising up against their captors and masters. This is the story of the Dragon Rebellion, as a thousand chained beasts turn on the very training Hiccup had unwillingly gave them.
This is a story of bloodshed and blood feuds, of responsibility and recklessness. This is the story of finding that thin line between selfish and selfless love. It is the story of another time, another place, but still a story of Hiccup and Toothless, the Dragon Whisperer and the most feared of all dragons, the Night Fury. This is their bond and this is their love.
I.
Once, a thousand three hundred summers ago, a Night Fury was born in the great northern Cold Lands. He was a wild, proud creature, one of many of his tribe. He was a leader, a warrior, and always alone. Many children he had, and to them he taught the code of the Night Fury: In a lifetime such as ours, you will meet many who claim a friendship with our kind. Be warned, my child, for they will all fail you. There are few to trust and fewer yet to love. A Night Fury lives alone.
II.
But one of his children, one named Dagr, found another truth in a cove on the island of Berk. For it was here that Dagr found the boy Hiccup and lost the name his dragonkind gave him. He became Toothless, the first dragon in history to allow a human to ride upon his back.
III.
But in joining the band of humans, Toothless became an outcast to the ancient dragons of his old life. They called him traitor and human-lover, and they doubted the possibility of dragons and humans living as one. One dragon hated him most, the dragon Skari. Skari was a Skrill, a dragon whose father held a blood feud with Toothless' clan. For in the ice of the Cold Lands almost sixty years ago, the two patriarchs of the Night Fury and Skrill species had fought, dueled to the death in the spinning chaos of the Death Spiral. Neither had come out alive, and to each of their sons, they bequeathed the hatred of the blood feud.
IV.
Meanwhile, many years later, Stoick was born. He had a brother who came after him whose name was Rune. Fate chose that these two men, many years later, would fall in love with the same woman––a compassionate, fire-willed shield maiden. Her name was Valhallarama.
Valhallarama loved them both, dearly, and so it was told there would be a challenge for her hand. On Stoick's Induction Day, the day he achieved manhood and joined the council of war, he and his brother faced one another in a contest of endurance, skill, and fortitude. However, not all was left to Fate on this fateful of days. Stoick cheated his brother out of Valla's hand and claimed the contest for himself. Rune, in a fit of anger, attacked his brother, intent to kill. Rune was then banished from the tribe and was never seen from again. He never intended to return to the isle of his brother. But then a certain child was born on Berk…
V.
The boy's name was Hiccup, born to Vallhallarama. He was a weak, ill-fated child, and Viking tradition called for him to be left upon a hillside, exposed to death's scythe. But Valla, already weak from illness and childbirth, had mercy upon the child and asked for Stoick to spare him. But in caring for him, tirelessly, and with a love that knew no bounds, Valla sacrificed herself, and she succumbed to her illness. She gave her life for her son, and so Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third lived.
VI.
Rune had known no love like that of Valla's, and when he learned that the Stoick boy had killed her, as he saw it, he poured all his bitterness and anger and sorrow into that child. He cursed him, willed and prayed and invoked the gods that the child would be Stoick's curse, as he was his own. And indeed, Hiccup was that very thing for Stoick for the first fifteen years of his life.
VII.
As Hiccup grew up, Rune raided and forged a life alone on the archipelago. He formed his own tribe, the Skirra Vél, and settled on the island of Herkja. On one of his raids, he found a child, one that reminded him of his lost love. Her name was Heather. Her parents had died in Rune's attack, but Heather was not an ordinary child. She was strong-willed and tenacious, but sensitive. She found a sad longing in Rune's heart, an emptiness that slowly consumed his mind, and Heather grew to love him, protect him, cherish his intelligence and artfulness, even as it eroded away with the deterioration of his mind, consumed as it was in anger. She took on his bitterness as her own, and took on his salvation as her mission.
VIII.
On the day of Hiccup's eighteenth birthday, the day he became a man, Rune and Heather determined to bring retribution to Stoick and his runt of a child. A symbolic death, a sacrificial lamb, a stroke of justice, they said. Someone had to die for Vallhallarama. Rune's warships landed on Berk, feigning peace. Stoick, knowing the error of his past and the wrongs he had done to his brother, took the offer and accepted his brother and his tribe, ready to forgive. But for Heather, peace was not the plan, and on the night before Hiccup's Induction, she stabbed Stoick's son. As he lay dying on the floor of the Great Hall, she lured Toothless into captivity, to await a fate of death in the Herkja tradition of the Dragon Hunt.
IX.
War broke out between the tribes. Hiccup survived, but he was now torn between a responsibility to his tribe and the love for his dragon. He chose Toothless and went after him, alone, knowing he could not let his friend die if he had any strength in him. His friends came after him, and on the island of Herkja, they found the enemy building an army of dragons to face off against their own. Hiccup found Toothless in the great hall of their city, in a caged pit displayed for the derision of all. Hiccup freed his best friend, and they took to the woods. But there, waiting for them, was Skari, Toothless' ancient enemy. Hiccup became a pawn in their feud, and Skari captured Hiccup in his jaws, betraying the boy into Heather's hands and luring Toothless with him into captivity.
X.
Heather realized she had not killed Hiccup––and this was a failure in her father's eyes. For the first time in her life, she had seen the object for her father's hatred––the boy Hiccup––and she became fascinated by the strength of will and love she felt in both Stoick's boy and the boy's dragon. For years she had hated this child she had never known, but now she doubted the purpose of Fate in all this. Rune, ever spiraling into insanity and bitterness, slowly cast aside his trust in her. And she, trying herself to find a common ground between her loyalty to his thirst for blood and her own misgivings about murdering Hiccup, chose a path of shame, rather than death, for the boy. On her order, Hiccup was branded as a slave. They forced him to train a dragon fleet for his very enemies, or else watch Toothless and Astrid suffer the consequences of his disobedience.
XI.
It was the eve of the attack on Herkja by Stoick's fleet. Hiccup decided that he could no more be a traitor to his tribe. He begged Toothless to escape, told Astrid to leave him, asked to be abandoned so that he would be free to refuse his captors. He knew it meant death, execution by Rune's ruthless hatred, but he was ready to take that, if it meant his friend's life would be spared. Heather had longed to take Hiccup's place in Toothless' eyes, and Toothless, torn by his love and loyalty to Hiccup's desperate pleas, obeyed his best friend and flew over the battlefield to freedom, with Heather on his back. But over the sea, Toothless could take no more. He could only obey Hiccup to a certain point. Could he break the boy's heart to save his own, disobey Hiccup's earnest pleas to fulfill the righteous anger in his own dragon's soul? And so Toothless turned on Heather, taking her down into the deep ocean, spilling her blood with his own jaws, angered by the sacrifice his Hiccup had asked of him.
XII.
As the first volleys of Stoick's fleet found Skirra Véllite blood, Herkja itself hummed with two sides of its own rebellion. Dragons in the thousands had turned on their Skirra Véllite captors, unlearned as this tribe was in the importance of love in one's relationship to a dragon. Slaves in the hundreds also turned on their overlords, as the human rebellion came to a head. Many slaves were captured on raids; some had been on this island before Rune and his band had subjugated them. Hervi, who was the chief prior to Rune's attack long ago, had wished for a peaceful rebellion. But now he watched on the shore of the battlefield, mourning the fate of an innocent Hooligan boy and praying for a chance to do one last right thing before the blood of dragon and slave, Herkja and Berk, mingled irrevocably together.
XIII.
Toothless, having (as he believed) slain the girl Heather, returned to the shore, saving Hiccup from execution at the hands of Rune and his men. Heather, meanwhile, was caught up by Stoick's ship as he headed towards the shore, the Hooligan chief intent on a last confrontation between him and his banished brother. And so, under the ashen sky of darkening storm clouds, Stoick and Rune fought… with Rune laying a blow upon his brother and watching him drift into the foam of the gray ocean, his vision wavering with the shock of the revelation that Stoick had laid on him––that Valla had willingly given herself for her son––that everything Rune had believed about Valla and Hiccup was wrong.
XIV.
Two patriarchs, of two tribes, broken by each other, in the midst of a war between dragon and man, tribe and tribe, slave and warrior; in the midst of a sky growing dark with the growing ash from Dragon Island, just off Helheim's Gate. The earth now rumbles with the breath of an awakening volcano. The sky now boils and glows with the coming storm and fire of lightning. The ocean is red with the blood of war; it churns with the dance of a thousand water dragons, psychic as they are with whispers and glowing lights. And the land is thick with human screams, as slave cuts down master, as fallen Hooligan warriors draw blood from Skirra Véllite attackers. Skirra Vél riders fall in great numbers from the sky as the dragons under them throw them off and kill them, laughing at the fragile trust between abused dragon and heartless captor. And Hiccup, having just been saved from the bloodshed of the shore, breathes in a moment of rest among friends––Noor, the Frankish cook; Iggy, the child slave; Astrid, his warrior and his beloved; and Toothless, his first and best and most fierce friend. Hervi is approaching them, coming from the shore himself, having seen the state of war and Hiccup's coming role in it. He is covered in ash from the burning village, covered in other men's blood, and he is following the trail of one Night Fury and a lone boy destined for great things.
How to Train Your Dragon II
The Dragon Whisperer
Act III
A Friendship Tested
Chapter 32
Anguish of a Child
It felt like an age ago, when Hervi the Once-Chief had first laid eyes on Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, knowing that he was the target of his master Heather's planned assassination. It was an age ago, when he regretted not letting Hiccup know that Heather planned to kill him. It was an age ago, on Berk, when Heather and the Skirra Véllites had tried to lay a twisted sense of justice on the Hooligan tribe.
And today, he had once again seen that boy almost die.
This time, it was on the shore of the battlefield. The backdrop, a thousand dragons fighting in the air, blood falling from the sky and washing up on the waves. He had been a chief once long ago, but the battle he saw today was darker than any he had seen. Hiccup had almost been executed today. Rune, Stoick's long-lost brother, had given the order, and the thin Hooligan boy had been dragged to the place where his last breath would take place. Hervi had seen the clean axe hoisted in preparation, its glimmer viciously clean in the midst of darker-stained weapons around him.
The boy was weak, for he had just refused to cooperate with the Skirra Véllites––and was punished cruelly for that new decision. The Skirra Vél had his Night Fury, and if he did not train their own captured beasts, then his dragon would be killed. That was the offer, and that's why the boy had accommodated as much as he did up to this point. But Hervi had seen the moment that Toothless had flown out of captivity under Heather, and Hervi had seen the life coming back to Hiccup's eyes when he saw his friend free. For Toothless' freedom meant Hiccup's own, freedom to be loyal to his tribe again. Hiccup had been lashed to an inch of his life for his refusal to cooperate, but Ragnar's whip did nothing to crush the renewed spirit of the boy's heart. Hervi had fought as best he could for the boy, telling both the Skirra Vél and slaves gathered there on the shore that the boy was not a traitor, had never thought of anything but his people and his friends and that, indeed, he was innocent of the crimes Heather had accused him of.
And that's when his dragon came, a thrashing wild creature from the sea. There was a fire in the Night Fury's eyes that Hervi had only seen once before, almost sixty years ago, when he watched two Strike Class dragons duel in the lightning tornado of the Death Spiral.
Toothless had flapped his great black wings, shrieked with an anger that was inhuman. He scooped Hiccup from the midst of the enemy, rushing inland towards the burning city and the forest on the other side.
Hervi knew his own words on the shore were treasonous, the way he had defended Hiccup against the Skirra Vél. He only hoped it inspired some of his own people––the slaves on the island, the people who were once his tribe and the new slaves from lands far away. He had thrown in his lot with the boy and his people; maybe today after all was the day of reckoning? The day he had been so long in initiating, the freedom of the slaves, the transformation of the island.
Hervi struck off towards the town, into the flames of the burning Herkja city. He shielded his face from the heat of the flames, hot as they were from the dragon fire from which they came. There was only one safe place on this island now––the forest behind the city.
For all the dragons fighting in the air, there were still an army chained to the ground. A pang hit Hervi's heart, for Hiccup's words still rang in his ears:
A dragon is not a slave, and a dragon has no master. You can't take vengeance on a dragon. He'd only come back and return it to you, because training a dragon is not about your will or his. It's about the bond between you, that you both can put aside the violence that defines each of us, and be one with that creature. Dragons are loyal creatures, if you give them a chance…. And one day, you'll realize that you'd do anything for that dragon, and he would do anything for you.
And Hervi wondered how many more hearts on Herkja Hiccup had touched with that simple speech.
Near the edge of the city was the chief's house––Heather and Rune's. It was the house at which he served for almost twenty years now. He knew it well. Hiccup had resided in it, too, in the days he had been a slave for the Skirra Vél. Hervi reached its heavy doors, looked back and saw a sea of fire below him. The orange flame went from the land into the sea, as Hooligan ships caught fire alongside Skirra Véllite ones.
He turned away from the sight, as if he'd be permanently frozen if he took it in any longer. He entered the quiet, almost cool interior of Heather's home. He quickly found the things he sought––a roll of bandages, a jar of mead, a clean set of clothes, a loaf of bread, a sharp dagger, a wheel of hard twine.
He set off again, towards the forest, following the trail of a Night Fury.
§ § §
There was a certain safety in these woods, Hiccup thought. The sounds of war felt far away, almost as if the crackling embers and yelling were figments of the wind. Hiccup took comfort in the delusion, knowing that the weight of its reality would hit him again soon, when he would have to face up to its consequences. He was safe at the moment, tucked away between the spruce and ferns, dark blue shadows surrounding him, a persistent wind blowing through the tree trunks. He was in a meadow, and Toothless was lying next to him, resting from his own wounds, taking these precious moments to breathe.
Hiccup was leaning over, arms against Toothless' back. Astrid, behind him, slowly ripped away his blood-stained clothing. Hiccup winced as the fabric pulled away from his wounds. "Is that really necessary?" he hissed, leaning tightly against Toothless for support.
"You know it is," she said, flatly. "Noor says she's finding yarrow. It'll help."
Hiccup clenched his jaw. "I doubt it."
Toothless hummed beside him and looked at Hiccup with a rolling, sarcastic lilt in his eyes. Hiccup tried to laugh. It was ridiculous enough that he was still alive, stranger still that he was with Toothless. A deep longing filled his heart suddenly, the aftertaste of almost having resigned his best friend to a life without him. He brought his arms closer around his friend, felt the tense, wet scales under his bare arms, felt his warmth. Toothless hummed and looked at him with those deep, intelligent eyes––and Hiccup realized, he had been willing to give up his life with Toothless, if by doing so, he could allow his friend to live. But Toothless had about as much regard for his own life as Hiccup did for his… and so here they were, through fire and arrows and blood, to reach each other again.
They would live together, or not at all.
There was a rustle in the brush ahead of Hiccup, and from the bushes emerged Noor, the slave woman from Heather's home. She only spoke broken Norse through a sharp Frankish accent and had a tendency to click her tongue in disapproval. She tsked again at Hiccup's state, her critical eye motherly as she pushed a sprig of yarrow into Astrid's hands. She said something Hiccup could not understand and tapped his shoulder impatiently.
"No, I can do it," Hiccup heard Astrid say, behind him. Noor hummed, as if she were doubtful of Astrid's abilities. He heard a slosh of liquid and braced himself. The sharp sting of the ointment pulled a sharp breath out of him, and he shut his eyes, knew the pain would ease soon. He took a moment to cherish Astrid's hands on him, her soft fingers caressing him, a gentleness and love from human hands his body had not felt in much too long. He recounted the horrors that had been done to him––the beatings, the lashing, the chains. Anger hummed like a low dragon's growl in his heart, but he could not find in himself the hatred to take vengeance for the things they'd done to him. He had seen the confusion in that Heather's eyes, and he knew delusion and sorrow and loneliness were heavy crosses to bear. It made a person do strange and terrible things. And yet he was willing to go to war, and he would fight and even kill––to save his tribe, to save his friends, and to prove that a Hooligan is never defeated.
And yet, he felt his heart yell inside him, to know the realities of war, of what his own hands would have to do.
He thought about Ragnar and Heather and Rune, the people who'd given him his injuries, mental and physical. He clenched his hands with the pain that shot through him, at the memory of those faces. Maybe it was only because he'd been so close to death, so close to losing everything… but he only wanted to forget them, lose his memory of their violence, and be that young boy once again. But he knew there was a chance he'd face them in the coming battle. His body shook involuntarily, conditioned to fear.
He felt Astrid tense. "Talk to me, Hiccup," she whispered.
"Just… cold," he lied. She was a fierce warrior, his Astrid, and she would not rest if she knew he was afraid.
"I'll make a fire." She laid a soft hand to his bare shoulder. "Also, you're lying." But her voice was quiet, not accusatory or sarcastic. He felt her nose against the back of his cheek, felt her kiss him softly. "I'm here, Hiccup. Toothless is here. Don't forget that."
He swallowed, turned around to look at her, searched those bright blue eyes, full of fire and anger and… love. That's what she was to him––she was his strength, his willpower when he felt like giving in. "Thank you," he whispered, meaningfully, and she stopped, a tense well of unstated emotion running through the stress lines of her face.
"I'm not losing you again," she said, an edge in her words. There was a deep conviction behind them, and Hiccup felt a great need to collapse into her protective embrace, run away from the entirety of this chaos and go, at long last, home.
"Astrid, when this war is over…" he started, very seriously.
"Yes?"
"Let's make it official."
"What official?"
Hiccup stared up into her eyes, glistening in the waning moon. Her braid was tangled and unkept, her armor dented and askew. There was a fierceness in her face, a determination laced by exhaustion and stress, but still, ever and always, fearless. Even now, her strength became his own. He took her hands lightly in his. "The blonde, green-eyed kids, of course." He smirked, despite himself.
"Get out of this alive and maybe I'll reward you with some." She laughed, cooly, then looked at him, a heavy longing in her eyes. She bent down to kiss him, her hand cradling the back of his head as it lay on Toothless' back. He let her lips search his own, took in the mingled heat and hope in her kiss, and for a blissful eternity, he did not think about the war or the pain or all the things he should have done but failed.
Toothless hummed behind him, yapping. Hiccup felt the dragon's shoulder under him turn, and he broke the kiss to find Toothless' bright eyes questioning him critically.
Astrid tapped the dragon's nose with her finger. "It's a human thing, you wouldn't understand."
Hiccup shrugged. "I'd check with Fishlegs on that one."
Toothless growled sharply, unsatisfied with his human companions. He shook his body with a reflective shiver from head to tail fin. Hiccup allowed himself a smile.
There was a sound behind him suddenly, a rustle in the brush. Astrid glanced up, her body relaxing as with recognition. Hiccup turned, heard the squiggle of a child's laugh, a hum of a small dragon. It was Iggy and his Terrible Terror. The little child slave had his hands full of dragon, the little creature licking the tiny boy's face, green wings flapping uncontrollably. The dragon didn't have the basics of flying down just yet, apparently. Noor was with him, trying to grab the dragon but also, alas, failing. Iggy kept trying to speak, squeaking out a "Hey!" and "Listen!" between wing flaps and dragon licks. "I got something to tell Hiccup!" he yelped, helpless to his dragon.
Toothless yapped gently at the presence of another—for once, friendly—dragon. The Night Fury's rhythmic, lilting clicks distracted the Terror long enough for Iggy to get a word in edgewise, as the small dragon's round eyes turned to face the black dragon. "Hervi's here!" Iggy gasped out, grabbing the Terror and throwing off the dragon from his face. "Boy, Hiccup, you trained him too well!"
Hiccup smiled. Iggy's dragon was probably one of the few he'd trained on this island that wasn't being used for warfare at the moment––or trapped in a cage. The thought brought back a bitter taste in his mouth, heightened only by the sight of Hervi. He emerged from the shadows, a knapsack thrown over his shoulder. The lines of stress on the old man's face made Hiccup remember what he'd tried to tell the man a few mere hours before… If I die today, tell my Dad I love him. Hiccup looked away from Hervi then, as he let the sounds of war sink deeper into his mind again. Hervi would bring news of the battle, and with knowledge comes the need for action, the need for him to be the warrior for his people that only he could be.
Hervi approached almost tentatively, looked to Toothless with the same awe he had back at Berk, ages ago. The Night Fury still commanded that kind of attention with the people who knew his species' power and their danger. Hiccup smoothed his hand over the back of Toothless' neck, indicating to his dragon that Hervi was okay. Toothless gave him a side glance, a snide passing of understanding.
"Hiccup, are you okay?" Hervi's voice was soft.
"I've had better days."
Hervi didn't smile, his lips tight and tense. He swung his pack over and riffled through it, handing Astrid a roll of bandages. He avoided Hiccup's eyes for an unusually long period, busying himself with his satchel of supplies. Food, tools, clothes. "Look at me," Hiccup said, finally. He could read guilt better than most, and he needed Hervi to be honest with him.
The older man met his eyes finally.
"I'm not angry at you for not telling me that Heather meant to kill me back at Berk," Hiccup said, firmly. There had been too much harbored hatred in this place for far too long. He wouldn't contribute to the poison of grudges today.
Hervi looked long and hard at him, his eyes growing gentler, calmer, in the fading darkness.
Hiccup read it as a tentative acceptance of his offer of forgiveness. "What's happening out there?" Hiccup prompted.
The old chief cleared his throat. "Chaos. You were right; the dragons would not take to their new masters, not with the way the Skirra Véllites are. They don't love dragons, and now the creatures are taking back their freedom. Their anger is… frightening, even for a dragon." He paused. "I could almost say they've gone mad."
Astrid perked suddenly. "The Red Rage?" she breathed.
Hiccup bit his lip. It was a rare and frightening thing among dragons, documented only scarcely in the annals of Viking interactions with the flying beasts… It was a mass attack by dragons, with a seeming strategic purpose behind the organized assault. And it was always rapid, always chaotic, psychic somehow and viciously directed. The eyes of these Red Rage dragons were glazed, so said the tales, shimmering with the veneer of insanity.
Hiccup had touched each of those dragons out there, trained each one of them. He tried to see them now, those creatures he guided from distrust to an uneasy peace. He'd been forced to do it, but the joy of connecting to a fellow creature had been a balm to him in the midst of his slavery, and it saddened him to know those dragons he had known were consumed by anger now, even to an enemy as worthy as the Skirra Vél.
"Have they attacked our dragons yet?" Hiccup looked up at Hervi.
"Yes, some of them."
"How many of us are down?"
"A third of the Hooligan fleet is down, on fire or being boarded by Skirra Vél. The village is destroyed. Warriors are fighting mid-air, against their own dragons and against Hooligan riders. But I would say Berk is at an advantage." Hervi spoke with a strange calm, a learned tone from many long years of war and strategy. "The beach is a bloodbath. The air is thick with smoke and the wind keeps rising. The storm would be at full mast soon."
Hiccup remembered the tremors he felt underfoot earlier, remembered the slow breathing of Dragon Island, the flakes of ash on the shore. His mind whirred, piecing together the atmospheric knowledge he'd gained in all the years flying Toothless, as well as the geologic insight provided by Fishlegs' unending encyclopedic breadth of interest. If the wind kept up, neither their ships nor their dragons would remain stable. It would become a foot soldier's battle, and those were the bloodiest. And the tremors and ash… well, he had a nasty feeling about that too.
While Hervi was speaking, Astrid had been wrapping Hiccup's back with the set of bandages the old chief had brought, tucking fresh herbs along the inside, washing his back in mead. Her hand landed on his shoulder and Hiccup reached up and took her fingers in his own as he thought and tried to plan something that would help get them out of this mess. "The last thing I remember," he said, "before Toothless got me, was this deal my dad was offering to get me back. They said my father captured Heather. Is that true?"
Astrid's hands stopped moving, the ramifications working in her own mind. "We have her?" she asked, a dark warrior's thrill in her voice. She would love nothing else than to run a sword through that other woman. Her ease towards violence sometimes unnerved Hiccup, but he ignored it now, watched Hervi's face for an answer to his question. Because if they had Heather, the chief's daughter, he believed they could negotiate a peace.
But a grim pallor came over Hervi's face, and his shoulders heaved down in a heavy sigh. "Hiccup, Astrid…" he started. "I don't know how to tell you this… but what I saw on the beach, after the Night Fury saved you…" He looked Hiccup in the eye, and the insides of Hiccup's chest twinged with an ugly foreboding. Hervi's voice grew unusually clear. "I saw your father come ashore with Heather. I saw him and Rune fight on the beach. They both went down. Rune attacked your father, and… I saw the waves carry Stoick down into the sea. I do not think either of them survived the battle."
There was a stunted, dead silence in Hiccup's heart. He heard Astrid gasp behind him, far away, like a muffled scream in a deep cave. "Are you sure it was my dad?" came his own voice, surreal in its even tone. He felt his hand ball into a fist, an urgency growing desperate inside him.
Hervi nodded, a grave, sure nod that Hiccup could not bring himself to trust. He had to get out there; he had to see it for himself. He would not give up on his father. Stoick was a warrior, a chief, one of the best men he knew… and Hiccup had so much to say to him before he said goodbye. He wasn't dead, he had to believe that. But two voices fought inside him––an anger forged by denial, and a growing panic laced with agony.
"I need to get out there, now." Hiccup's voice wavered. He looked back at Astrid, her eyes still locked in shock. A part of her still wanted to protect Hiccup, knowing he was in no shape to lead a tribe, knowing he could collapse of exhaustion any moment. But the other part of her was loyal to the principle of his leadership, the part of her that trusted him, now, after all that had happened. She folded in the last of Hiccup's bandages, rose, and held out her hand to him. She had committed her life to this boy, her loyalty and her strength. He would be her chief and her husband, and even when he did reckless, stupid things, he did them for the protection of his own, for the life of his friends. She could argue with his methods, but she could not argue with his heart and his conviction––and that was why she loved him. "Whatever you do, I'm going with you," she said.
Hiccup clenched his jaw, knew the gravity of Astrid's words. He took her hand and stood up, slipped on the clean clothing Hervi had brought him. There was no more time for words and waiting. He nodded to Hervi, thanked Noor for her help.
Iggy, the little tyke, had been quiet during the serious exchange. His eyes were glazed and wide now, and even the little Terror was docile, lying on the ground, as if he knew the pallor bearing down on the company. "I'm sorry about your dad," he squeaked.
Hiccup pressed his lips together. "I'll find him, Iggy."
The child ran up to him suddenly, wrapped his short arms around Hiccup's leg and Astrid's. "I wish I could do something to fix things." He looked up at them and Hiccup could see a tear rolling down the boy's cheek. "Please don't any of you die. I don't get scared a lot, but I don't know if I can take it if one of you died."
"You're too young to worry about that, Iggy. We'll be fine." Astrid leaned down and ran a hand through the kid's hair. She smiled, a pained but beautiful smile. Hiccup bit his lip, knew that this time Astrid was wrong. He'd spoken with Iggy before; the kid was only seven and he'd already lost both his parents to raiders, branded and taken here as a slave. If anything, Hiccup's experience in the past few days made him realize no one is too young to experience pain, no one too innocent to be broken, no one too small to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
He knelt to Iggy's level, took the boy's hands in his own. "This world is crazy, Iggy. Don't ever give up hope. Keep that part of you alive, the part that knows things can be better. You'll grow up, and it'll be people like you that make up for the people like Ragnar and Rune."
Iggy's eyes filled with wonder. "I will?"
"Sure," Hiccup said, "I'll tell you more later. Right now, you're in as much danger as we are. This entire island isn't safe. But stay alive for me, okay?"
Iggy sniffed a sob away, nodded vigorously. "If I get to ride Toothless," he piped, "maybe I'll try and stay alive a bit more." He blinked conspicuously, that little smile returning.
Hiccup smirked. "Of course. He's yours for a day."
Toothless growled, thinly slitting his eye at Hiccup.
Hiccup tried to give his friend a grin back, but his smile collapsed into something halfway between relief and an unending sorrow. How he longed to have these moments back, untainted by the madness of his slowly unraveling world. He reached out towards those bright green eyes, and Toothless' expression melted into gentleness, understanding filling his unspeaking orbs. The dragon pushed his head into Hiccup's chest, rolling the side of his head softly over Hiccup's hair and around his head. Hiccup brought his arm over Toothless' neck, and breathed… let the cold early morning air fill his lungs, closed his eyes and said a prayer for his father, for his tribe, for his friends… for himself. Odin, grant me wisdom to carry out the things I must do.. Thor, let me be stronger than I think I am. Let my friends live, and let me not be too late…
He exhaled forcefully, his heart shaking in his chest. And Dad… I know in this life I won't part from you in anger. I will find you. I will see your living eyes again… Stay for me, wait for me.
He felt Astrid slip her hand into his own, felt her lithe form join him in Toothless' embrace. The dragon hummed, a throaty, long vibration that ran through Hiccup's body and filled him with warmth, comforting him in these final moments of peace.
§ § §
Heather grasped her father desperate on the shore, his body slipping from her arms, the ocean trying so hard to take him from her. "No––" she yelled. She could feel Rune's soul slipping away from her, his heart drifting to places far, far away from her. But there was a bright clarity in his eyes, eyes that were clear for the first time in years. It frightened her, to see those eyes. They were too sane, too living, as they looked at the sky, at the dark gray emptiness above them. "Dad––" she cried out, trying to bring those eyes back to her. "Dad––"
She collapsed on his heavy body, her injured legs folding beside him into the wet, sucking sand below. Blood and sand mingled with the red foam swirling around her. Her father––of one heart with her, but not one blood––the man who took her from the riverbed those years ago, the enemy who saved her, who became her father, as she had now tried to become his savior. Her hands roved over Rune's armor, tears choking in her throat. After all this, after everything, after everything she had tried to be for him––daughter, chief, warrior, killer––her heart could not bear to see him die into clarity like this.
"Come back to me…" she whispered, her voice ragged.
And then those eyes came back from the sky to look at her. Those eyes on the heightened edge of a terrible sorrow, like a dead man come back to life for an instant, a ghost that was more alive than a soul could ever be. Destined still to the grave.
"How could I be wrong…" Rune's voice cracked. "…about everyone who matters…"
She gasped, her little hands holding him up, above the swarming waves. "Dad…no…"
The eyes took her in, the sorrow breaking over his features, and she could not tell if the water in his eyes were from the ocean or the man. "I can't take this anymore…" he breathed, barely audible.
She held him closer, her heart heaving inside her. She tried to say she would fix it, tried to say it would all be okay… but her throat choked on the words. Hot agony burned in her eyes. She too was tired, tired of trying, and of Fate laughing at them. Hiccup would not be killed and Rune would not be made well. Those were the hard truths. But even now, after all she and Rune had risked and lost, it seemed that Fate would ask for yet more. And it was as if Heather expected it, as if this had been the cruel ending since the start… that she would poison her hands with innocent blood, would compromise her convictions, would bring war upon her people… and all to lose the one person she loved, to make her alone in the universe.
"Valla believed in the Hiccup boy…" Rune gasped, as if the revelation was too much to fathom. "My Valla, my Valla… she saved him, she wanted him to live."
A painful weight shook inside her heart… as if she wasn't surprised by that fact––the fact behind everything they hoped to gain by murdering the son of Stoick. It was a lie… and they'd been trying to kill the person someone else had already spared from death's cold arrow.
Fate was indeed a dark, ironic artist.
Rune looked at her suddenly with an agony in his eyes, a great regret and love. "And Stoick did not kill you, my daughter. He spared you––"
Tears pushed back into Heather's eyes.
"I… did not believe he was capable of that…" Rune shut his eyes suddenly and his fists clenched in pain. "I guess… there's a lot I did not believe."
Heather pushed her head into Rune's shoulder, her body shaking. She could feel his death coming, feel the weight of his injuries on his body, but more, the weight of his heart… the loss of that anger and pain and vengeance that had extended his life ever since his soul died that day twenty years ago, when his own brother banished him and he lost the love of his life. He had lived this long on the promise of revenge, the promise of a life to pay for a life… but maybe the life that meant to die was his own, and the payment, clarity. Nothing she could do would wind the thread of a life unraveling.
"I love you, Dad," she breathed, and as he looked up at her, she felt the words on his lips, in his eyes. He was a ship unmoored, a feather in the wind, and as he passed from this world, in her heart she ran after him, after the fading sails, the disappearing gossamer of his soul… and she cried there on the beach upon his body, great heaving sobs of a young girl, barely eighteen.
§ § §
Fishlegs wasn't the most known for bravery among the dragon riders. He was the nerd, he did the reading. It was Tuff and Ruff who did all those stupid crazy stunts that somehow, inevitably saved the day. And Hiccup and Astrid who took the solemn burden of responsibility for the team. Snotlout, well, he talked a lot and did little. It just wasn't expected of him, Fishlegs Ingerman, to do the saving when it came down to it.
But here he was, the only one he knew who still was free on this island. He'd seen the twins and Snotlout captured and thrown in a dungeon. He'd seen Astrid rally her forces of one (herself) against a greater enemy. He'd seen Hiccup and Toothless bound and hauled off to face certain death. But here he was, alone in a burning Skirra Véllite town, with no one to advise him but himself. He swallowed.
Number one, he didn't have to worry about being recognized. The war was in full swing now, and there was a frightening amount of blood in the general vicinity of civilization. No one was looking for stray Hooligans to throw into dungeons right now.
Number two, that meant he could do anything he wanted.
And number three, that meant he could find the twins and Snotlout and free them, and then go and free some dragons. Do some good yelling for Meatlug. It wouldn't be too hard to find her. Fishlegs was sure she was as desperate for him as it was the other way round.
He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath. Okay Fishlegs, you can do this. He set off through the flame-charred town in the general direction of the great hall. There was a tunnel just off to the side of its base that led down to the dungeon he had seen the other riders taken. The hall was situated farther back in the town, and as he approached it, he found women and children hiding in the caverns of its roots. For once, he did not hear yelling and cries of pain, but tears… soft yelps of fear as he passed some child's hiding place, horrific sobbing as a mother tried to comfort a frightened daughter… and the hum of panic as others fled the area for the woods behind the town. It was enough to break one's will to do anything, the sight of so many in agony. Fishlegs stopped a minute from his search, felt his huge frame shiver at the terror of war. Mom… Dad? he thought suddenly, and he wanted to go home… tell them he was okay. Not everyone was as lucky as he was, to still be on his two feet, still with the possibility of his friends being alive.
This isn't what life was supposed to look like. He wanted it all to be over.
"Meatlug!" he yelled, into the chaotic inferno. He needed his dragon now, that sense of home and normality in the madness and terror he was feeling. "Meatlug!" He scurried over the cages near the great hall, looked past dragons shackled to posts. He tried to look into burning shacks and homes, hoping his dragon wasn't caught somewhere under the rubble. "Meatlug, where are you?"
And then he saw her––in a cage on the route to the great hall. Her bright yellow eyes were clouded with worry, and she was stuffing her face into the dirt, whimpering and occasionally looking up, as if to check if the world was still crazy.
Fishlegs was on the ground at the foot of her cage in an instant. "Meatlug, oh my baby girl, what'd they do to you?"
The moment she saw him, Meatlug perked, a kind of hectic enthusiasm taking over, looking at her rider with the biggest two eyes possible. "Yeah it's me, you're gonna be okay! Boy am I glad to see you. Let's get you out of there."
Fishlegs hunted around and found a large sharp rock, heaved it and snapped the lock on Meatlug's cage. He swung open the door and was immediately greeted by Meatlug's rocky embrace, and he collapsed backwards on the ground, consumed in Meatlug's tongue and slobber.
"I've missed you too, girl."
Fishlegs looked at his dragon, almost forgot about the war. He needed that moment of simple friendship, to ground him in the chaos. But he had a mission to do, and with Meatlug, an Ingerman could do anything. "Come on," he said, getting up and mounting his dragon, "we've got work to do."
He flew the rest of the way to the tunnel entrance, keeping an eye out at the dragon cages for Stormfly, Hookfang, and Belch and Barf. At the front of the tunnel, he grabbed a torch, lit it with the fire that was creeping over the side of the tunnel entrance. He coughed with the smoke that plumed out of the light. "Okay, Meatlug, just follow me," he coaxed, waving off the smoke, but finding the air so full of smoky ash already, it was useless.
He was grateful for the coolness of the tunnel and the trapped atmosphere in the long passage underground.
He inadvertently tiptoed through the passage, half-whispering, half-yelling out his friends' names. His voice echoed in the narrow stone. There was no guards, but he felt the tremor of dragons within the passage, somewhere in the darkness behind the bars that lined the walls. Meatlug cooed at the wild creatures in the cages, curious and scared at the dangers. One of the dragons––a cramped Razorwhip––looked at him with a wary eye, an exhausted eye, and Fishlegs felt his heart go out to the poor guy. "We'll get you out soon," he soothed.
And then––a voice further down… "Fishlegs. Odin, is that you?"
It was Ruffnut!
"Yes! Yes it's me!" Fishlegs scurried down the dungeon, almost slipping in the slick stone below foot. His torch bobbed light irregularly down the cold passage, until he reached a cell where the twins and Snotlout were wilting away.
"You guys look terrible!" Fishlegs shrieked.
"Oh just shut it and get us out of here," Ruffnut scowled.
"Meatlug!" they all cried out as the Gronckle finally trudged up into the light. Tuffnut poked his arm out of the bars. "Fishlegs, O rare vision, let your dragon's sweet lava fall upon these bars and set us free!" he beseeched, arms outstretched.
Fishlegs turned to Meatlug. "Go for it, girl!"
In short order, Meatlug had melted off the locks and bars of a dozen and more cages in the passage. Snotlout was almost in tears at his freedom. In the dungeon, the jokes had long ago run thin and the three riders had faced the terrifying fate of listening to the war outside with nary a light to go by. They had found a common ground in devising a viable war strategy for various situations.
"I'm never trusting you two again, you and your stupid plans," Snotlout snapped at the twins through his sniffles, in a voice much more squeaky than he intended.
"We'll see about that," Tuff drolled. "You've never been one for remembering good advice."
"Quit the gabber," Ruff snapped. "Fishlegs, you can take us over the battlefield and find our dragons, right?"
Fishlegs nodded, mounting Meatlug and offering her a hand. "Already on it."
§ § §
Heather was too weak to carry her father's body up from the shore. Everything in her had withered in those few minutes on the shore… She lay there kneeling on the sand, her father clutched in her arms, the great ocean sloshing, crashing around them, the red waves receding and breaking on her. Her tears had long ago dried on her face, as she looked up, past the black silhouettes of dragons, past the volley of arrows and rocks from one belligerent to the other. It didn't matter which side was doing the killing; she looked up past it all and into the gray sky––the faceless monotony of it, the unheeding coldness, unfeeling, unhurting, unfazed. Her heart held onto that faceless gray like a child grasping its mother, and she stared with a daunting ferocity, trying to hold back the next volley of tears, trying to stay the thoughts that threatened to consume her, to dam the regret and agony and loneliness that were her lot in life.
What was it all for, anyway?
And how could she live like this anymore… half a life, half a soul, half of who she was?
She heard voices around her, at long last. The yelling of Brandr, trying to reform the troop lines; and Ragnar, a vicious war cry in his throat. She heard the squelch of axe on limbs, the slice of sword against sword, and dragon fire… the hot burning furnace like lava all around her. She looked to her right, towards her island, Herkja, saw the face of it aflame, a wall of orange and red, sliced by the passages, dark blue, between houses. Ahead of her, Hooligan ships, being boarded by her men. Sails catching fire, ripping with the barrage of wild, screaming dragons. Those dragons, the ones she had so painstakingly forced Hiccup to train. There was a glaze in their eyes now, a ferocity even she had never seen, in all their contests with dragons over the years. A part of her thought that maybe Hiccup was behind this, but the other part went back to his words, the ones about love and connection when dealing with dragons. Her people weren't like Hiccup; they didn't treat dragons with respect and sanctity. Even she knew that.
Was, then, the death of her own people her fault too?
Behind her, the line of Stoick's ships wrapped around the shore, each one full of warriors streaming towards the shore and towards the injured eastern flank, to support the ships boarded by her men. Her people didn't have a chance. Others, in great numbers, were falling from the sky, victims––injured and screaming curses––victims of the dragons who had turned on them.
She looked at her people, in hand-to-hand combat on the shore. She had led them in the stead of her father for so many years. She could see that they were leaderless––without her, without her father. But her heart had deadened, and she looked at the battlefield like a ghost in the land of the living, detached, unseeing. Her father would feel so alive in battle, but she saw the violence now as merely a mirror to the agony in her father's soul. War was not the answer, but the stand-in for the blood sacrifice he sought. And she had done so well in war––she, a surrogate for her father, feeling his pain, living his vengeance, being the hand that dealt his craving for death.
Somewhere far away, she wanted it all to crumble into oblivion, to dissolve from existence––to wipe away the entire island and everything that had come from that day twenty years ago. She wanted to hack off at the root the source of all the agonies that had plagued her world… wasn't that what Fate wanted anyway? To kill her, condemn her, at long last.
She did not know how much time had passed, when the waves wrapped around her father and carried him far out to sea. She watched as his body was pried slowly from her hands, the sea a gentle, insistent guardian. He would go the way of his brother, she thought… And there was something painful in the irony that he would be laid to rest in the same sea that Stoick had cheated him upon.
An ugly anger filled her suddenly, an anger that had nowhere to go, merely existed and collected, like a blacksmith's fire, the scraps of agony in her soul, melting them into an ugly, formless morass––hard and hot and dangerous. She rose, and she heard Ragnar behind her, shouting at her.
"Your dragons are killing us––"
She turned to him, the seething formlessness of her mind slipping from her conscious grasp.
"You put in your lot with that Hiccup boy… as if dragons here would be weapons. Look at them now, look at them."
She did not need to see her people to know they were losing, that she was wrong, that trying to emulate the boy's methods brought nothing of his heart in the aftermath. She stood up to Ragnar, at full height and she felt the wind whip up her wet hair, carry her cape behind her, and she thought of her father, the way his soul was always far away, even as his body was a mountain in her presence. She too could be a mountain that was dead within.
"Well?!" Ragnar persisted. "Save your people. Our chief, our real chief, is dead anyway. What are you going to do about it?"
Fire welled in her soul. She unsheathed the sword at the side of her waist, walked up to Ragnar and shoved the blade up under his ribcage, into his chest, his heart. He choked. Blood spilled out from between his lips, his eyes stilled in shock, betrayal.
She stared at him.
"You are not worthy of my father or me. You never were," she spat and pulled the sword out. It squelched on its way out of the man. She turned away, the water around them red with Ragnar's blood. She waded up the shore, up the sands, towards the healing flame of her world on fire.
She would walk through the orange tongues; she would find one of those dragons the boy had trained, a dragon worthy of the burning desperation and violence in her soul. She would tempt Fate's hand one last time and chase oblivion in the ashen, melting skies.
§ § §
Skari felt a rage build up inside him. He was still chained to the large, unyielding ash tree at the corner of his cage. The top of the tree was aflame, giving off a heat that stirred Skari to a thirst for action. There were several dragons in this cage with him, Timberjacks and Nadders and Gronckles tied to posts and metal bars, chained and unridden by Skirra Véllite warriors. Their eyes burned with a need to kill, and they writhed, impatient, in the chains that held them. Give us a human to ride us, so we may kill them, the dragons around him hissed in the dragon tongue.
Skari was not stupid; he had watched the humans' war since it began, and he saw the dragons that had been taken, ridden by the human scum, and he had seen those rebellion dragons take down their riders with a ferocity even he felt proud of. But the humans did not trust the dragons anymore; the trick was up, and his fellow cellmates here were wishing for an impossibility. There would be no more humans to come and take them now.
Be he would wait. The human battle, in all its pettiness and insignificance, would end, and the hot fury of the fire in the human city would come and burn their chains down. The blood at the end of the day would not be that of dragons. He licked his long tongue over the teeth of his lips; how he longed for human blood to shed. How he longed to fulfill on the rage that consumed the dragons here, a delicious, vitalizing rage that had been so long in coming.
He had caught sight of the Night Fury a few hours before, running up through the town and into the forest with that heinous child on his back. Human-lover, he growled. Even the dragon's rage could not turn him wild again… like the weak dragon that he was. He watched the sky as the battle raged, knew that if he didn't see the Night Fury in the sky, then the boy must not be doing so well. He grinned. It was Dagr's own foolishness to tie his flight to a human. He would put an end to them; he only had to wait. Then the last of the Night Furies would be dead and gone, and he and the memory of his family could, at long last, rest.
Suddenly, Skari saw something silhouetted against the flames ahead of him, towards the town. It was the shape of a small figure, a human, and her swinging fur cape caught the hot breeze that swept uphill from the fire. He throated a growl, watched her approach the cage, watched those little deceptive, human eyes. It occurred to him suddenly that this was the same woman who had led Hiccup once on a chain and allowed him to visit his chained Night Fury. A touching reunion if it weren't so tainted by human vulnerability. But this woman had been there, and he could read in her eyes a hatred––something he understood, no matter in what language it was expressed. She hated the Night Fury's precious boy, but she had looked to the Night Fury with a wistfulness that confused him.
As the pieces of the strange drama slowly unfolded to Skari, he looked at the approaching woman, constructing a plan in his mind.
§ § §
Heather entered the cage in which a dozen or so dragons were chained. She was flushed with heat––from the fire and her own soul. And she felt tears stinging her eyes, dried salt collecting on her cheeks. She had walked up to the cage near her home, the cage in which Toothless had been chained, before the war, when she still controlled Fate. She looked at the creatures captured here, looked at the glaze of fury in their eyes, the way they writhed in their chains and bit at their leather straps. And she saw herself suddenly in those chained wings and latched claws, a fury withheld and slowly slipping from her, desperate to erupt.
There was one dragon, thin like Toothless, black like him, that was chained to a tree that was alive with flame. He did not look up at the fire slowly gaining on him. He looked at her, an intent in his eyes, a glaze that spoke with a clarity she understood in her soul, if not in her mind.
She imagined the lightning that must have struck to set that huge tree on fire. If Thor had set a finger upon it, maybe Fate was telling her that this was the dragon on which she would die.
She approached the Skrill cautiously, carefully. She found herself mumbling soothing phrases to the dragon as she reached out to it, repeating words and notions that had come from Hiccup's own lips, that day she watched him train a hundred dragons. Tears pushed into her eyes, as she realized she had nothing to fall back on, with her father gone. She was repeating the words of her enemy, as if falling to the other side would fill the void of her failure to save her own.
The Skrill hummed, looking at her still with those wide, intelligent eyes. If she truly believed Hiccup, then those eyes meant the dragon was thinking, taking in the things she was feeling, saying, an open book to her own communication with it.
"Just fly with me, dragon…" she breathed out, putting both hands on the dragon's skin, feeling its body heave with each heavy intake of air. "Take me away from here."
§ § §
And so Skari allowed a human upon him. He felt the chain lifted from his neck, felt the girl's thin legs wrap around his shoulders. The Timberjacks around Skari hummed with the constant throbbing refrain of the dragon rebellion, intent as they were on the great plan of deception and rebellion. They looked to Skari with an expectant thrill in their eyes, for they too knew the significance of this woman. She was a leader of the human tribe. Killing her would be quite the show.
But Skari wasn't doing this for the rebellion. He had a young man and a Night Fury to hunt.
Make red your claws with human blood.
Obliterate the human filth.
Torch the humans like a wood.
The rebellion has come.