Author's Note: It's technically Friday, albeit only by two minutes when I post this. Posting because I happen to be up and able at the time. I'm heading into a wi-fi dead zone until late the 25th, so any particular reviewers (you know who you are) who I regularly respond to, that will be when I can get to it. On the flip side, this is nine days dedicated in a large degree to writing free of distraction, and the sequel to this story is pretty high on the list. I wrote a 160,000-word story in 21 days. Let's see what I can do with nine.
What to bring into indefinite exile? Hiccup was never very good at packing, and this particular situation made it even harder. He only had the limited space in Beryl's saddlebags, along with whatever he could carry.
Food wasn't an issue when traveling with a Night Fury. Water, however, could at times be less simple. He picked up two large canteens and added them to the pile.
Beryl was nosing around the room, trying to be helpful. "What is this for?" He held up a metal object.
"That's a hinge. It lets stuff move." Hiccup sighed. "Ignore the random metal bits. I never clean up failed inventions, in case I can reuse stuff." He had actually moved a lot of said miscellaneous junk aside recently, in preparation for some vague plan of moving a flat rock up into the loft for Toothless to sleep on. No need for that now. He added drawing supplies to the saddle bag. Those were always useful. His personal map was still on him.
"How about this?" Beryl held up a spare prosthetic.
"That's a good idea." Hiccup stuck it in the bag. "We should bring some canvas and connecting rods too, for your tail." They'd pick those up from his space in the blacksmith's shop on the way out.
And so it went, as the two sorted through everything Hiccup owned, trying to decide what would be worth bringing. Hiccup left all of his drawings and various journals, notebooks. They weren't vital, though he didn't like the idea of them being left behind. Luckily, he had never documented anything past their trip, so there was nothing really dangerous in those books. Not that knowing of Vithvarandi was dangerous, more that being around her was. He'd be luring that danger with him when he went.
Eventually, they were left with full saddlebags and a substantially messier room than when they had started. Hiccup judged that night was falling at the moment. He looked around, knowing this would likely be the last time in a long while that he saw it. "Time to go."
He headed down the stairs, Beryl behind him. They were interrupted at the door by a deep and familiar voice. "Where are you two off to?"
Stoick. He hadn't really considered that his father might be home. Stoick rarely was, after all. Dealing with a village of Vikings was constant work. "Oh, nowhere important."
"So stay. I need to speak with you, son." Stoick gestured for Hiccup to come back.
Hiccup reluctantly sat across from his father, who was watching him from across the table. Beryl sat down at his side, seemingly alert. Only Hiccup could see the tension in his friend, the paranoia that never fully left nowadays. "What is it?"
"You've been spending more time in the village recently. That is good." Stoick smiled. "I was beginning to think you wanted to live in the woods, you spent so much time there."
Hiccup didn't respond.
Stoick continued calmly, as immovable as a boulder. "I also heard about your little spat with Astrid." He didn't seem mad, more amused than anything.
"Which one?" Hiccup laughed sadly. "There've been a few."
"Does it matter?" Stoick leaned in. "I put her in charge of dealing with the dragons because she was the best one available at the time. I half assumed you'd take over once you were able to."
"That would be dishonorable."
Stoick waved his objection away. "No, not like that. I thought you'd work something out between yourselves. But now..." His expression changed slightly. "Do you want the job? I can remove her officially."
That was unexpected. Hiccup could only rarely recall Stoick going back on a decision like that. "You'd do that?"
"Yes, I would."
"Well, while I'm flattered..." Hiccup steeled himself. "I can't take it from her, and I wouldn't be able to anyway."
"Why not?" Stoick seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Ah, you want to be training to become chief full time, is that it? I should have guessed."
"Uh, no, actually-"
Stoick's voice turned serious. "You know, being chief isn't all fun and games. I remember nights where I needed two blocks of ice to deal with the headaches."
Of course, he remembered. That was last week. Hiccup snorted. "So do I. But-"
"And you are aware you would have to do what's best for the tribe." Something changed in Stoick's voice. "There are sacrifices a chief must make."
Hiccup hardened his voice. "No, dad, I won't be training to become chief. There's something I have to do first."
"And what would that be?" Stoick laughed. "Finding some foreign wife and bringing her back here? You seem done with Astrid." His voice was probing.
"No, not at all." Hiccup noted that Stoick's face fell a little. "I need to do something... and I don't know how long it will take, or where I'm going."
"What?"
"I can't say."
"Then I forbid you to go anywhere." Stoick slammed his hand down, the wooden table shaking from the impact. "Your duty is here."
"Something is not right." Beryl sounded troubled. "Convince him to let us leave."
Hiccup agreed. There was something off here, something he was missing. A tiny worm of suspicion was beginning to grow in his mind. He pressed harder. "Dad, trust me, this is for the good of our people. A chief protects their own." And the only way he could protect his own was to leave them, to get Vithvarandi away from them.
"Is this about that lizard of yours?" Stoick pointed at Beryl. "You already tried to fix him. Maybe it's time for the son of the chief to get a more obedient dragon if this one is being stubborn."
"I thought stubbornness was something our people valued," Hiccup retorted, quite stung by Stoick's words and angered by the very suggestion, "and Beryl is family."
"Be that as it may, you know everything you do reflects upon me. Everything that lizard does reflects upon you. A chief cannot be surrounded with those who ignore his commands, even if they think they're acting in his best interests."
"This isn't about him anyway. It's something about me, something I need to do. You left on quests in your youth, why do you deny me the same?" That worm of doubt had grown. Hiccup was acting on it, probing Stoick. This argument wasn't something he normally would have used. It brought back painful memories for his father.
"I went in search of Valka, yes." Stoick was controlling his ever-present grief well today, his voice only tightening a little. "It was necessary, but I left my responsibilities to do so. I will not allow you to do the same, not without knowing the reason."
It was becoming clearer now, that odd little doubt growing within him. Not clear enough to act upon, but clear enough to test. "I can't tell you. Just... make sure..." This would be a good test, though he no longer meant what he was about to imply. "Make sure Astrid knows I want to come back."
Stoick frowned. "You do still care for her? Honestly, I wasn't sure." He leaned in. "Has someone else caught your eye?"
At that moment, Hiccup's doubts crystalized. He could put a name to them now, and they were no longer doubts, but conviction. With that revelation came... rage. Pure, unadulterated rage, flowing through both sides of him. It had been subtle. So subtle, what he saw.
He stood, bowing his head. "You know what? You're right. We will stay." Moving over to Beryl's side, he began removing the saddlebags, or at least making it look like that was what he was doing. "Beryl and I know our duty." One final confirmation of what he knew.
"Good." Stoick began to stand.
There was no hesitance in Hiccup now. He met Beryl's eye, pure cold rage meeting confusion. A whisper broke the silence between them, unheard by Stoick. "Trust me. Fire."
Beryl's eyes widened, and he visibly hesitated, looking at Hiccup, seeming to ask if he was actually serious.
He nodded. "Kill her."
Beryl understood. Without warning he fired, a blue blast hurtling across the room and hitting Stoick in the chest in a heartbeat. The explosion destroyed the table and set fire to several supporting beams. All was still as the dust settled and the black ash floated across the room, stirred by the displacement of air brought on by the plasma blast.
So many little hints. The disdain for Astrid. Probing about how he felt about her, asking about others who might have caught his eye, practically giving him the perfect excuse to introduce a foreign woman with no questions asked. And the most telling of all. Stoick was no idiot. He had never heard the name Beryl before. At least, Stoick had never heard it or remembered it being used to refer to a black Night Fury.
Vithvarandi, however...
The black ash floated in the air like a dark dust, throwing the room into gloom despite the torches scattered around and the fire in the hearth. A nondescript Viking Hiccup recognized as Arvind the Strong stood, rage painted across his face.
Hiccup wasn't in the mood to talk, to wait. He attacked without thought, throwing a knife like he had practiced that day with the tree. It hit Arvind square in the neck, and after a shocked gurgle he too collapsed into a pile of black ash, Vithvarandi deprived of another body. She retaliated almost immediately, a plume of black flame surrounding whatever form she had been knocked into.
Beryl pounced, trying to drive Vithvarandi down while she changed. He was thrown back by the flames, before barely avoiding a blast of flaring white fire. Then a very familiar Nadder rushed Beryl, her mouth open and preparing to fire again.
Hiccup tackled her, slamming her against another support beam. The house groaned in protest, wood shifting as weight was redistributed. He didn't care.
Vithvarandi kicked him off with her powerful legs, glaring at him. She made to move for the door.
She was stopped by Beryl, who tore into her from the side, his teeth and claws raking bloody scratches across her legs. He only got a few good hits in before being again slammed back by the eruption of black fire.
Hiccup fired into the torrent of flames, realizing that he had at some point assumed Ember's form without even trying to. Letting the body of a battle-ready Night Fury replace his own seemed like a good idea anyway, and now was not the time to worry about the moral implications.
Now was the time to avenge his father.
His blast did nothing that he could see, and the flames disappeared to reveal... nothing.
Beryl stared at the empty space. "Is that it?"
A bloody gash torn across his side by nothing either of them could see answered his question. Beryl roared in pain and turned, swiping through the now empty air with his claws. There was a pause as both Hiccup and Beryl looked around the house.
The ash and dust swirling through the air gave her away in the end. Hiccup saw a distortion, a place in the room where there was no ash. Vithvarandi was standing immediately beneath one of the main logs the floorboards of the loft were laid upon, next to one of the few undamaged supports. Waiting for another chance to attack.
"Beryl, run!" He blasted at her, intentionally aiming for the support beam through her invisible form. Then he ran, aiming for a wall that Stoick had spoken of repairing soon, one with slightly weaker logs and wood.
He had time for one thought. This was going to hurt.
The plasma blast exploded against the support, Vithvarandi having moved out of the way even as he aimed it. He felt the shockwave push him forward, tucked his head and angled his shoulder at the wall. The crack and crunch of the wood was surprisingly loud, and also surprisingly painless. Upon landing he rolled, wooden shards jabbing his back along the way. There was a loud and prolonged crash behind him, along with the subtle 'whoosh' of fire catching.
He got to his feet, noting Beryl on the stairs leading to the Great Hall. His home, Stoick's house, had both collapsed and caught fire with that final blast, going from a proud Viking house complete with decorative wooden carvings to a large, elaborate pile of tinder. Small flames licked at it in many places, casting flickering lights out into the darkness.
The rubble shifted, groaned. Both he and Beryl tensed, ignoring the shocked cries of several villagers who had been nearby, who had seen the destruction. This was far from over.
A small, indistinct shape flitted from behind the pile. Hiccup leaped into the air even as Beryl ran after her from the ground, both chasing after that expanding bolt of black flame. Rage drove both of them, making them heedless of their wounds. Beryl was still dripping blood from his side, and Hiccup had a few pieces of wood lodged in his back. Neither cared.
Vithvarandi dropped like a rock, landing in the village square, in the form of a large Monstrous Nightmare, a dark blue one made black by the night and flickering torchlight. She roared, a sound of frustration and anger. "Stop attacking-"
A blast tore a hole through one of her wings, effectively shutting her up, or at least replacing her objections with a scream of agony. Hiccup landed in front of her as Beryl sprinted in from the side, both moving to flank her, pacing like predators.
Hiccup was embracing every memory Ember had left him, letting himself treat them as his own. Ember had taught Beryl to fight. He knew his son, had taught him and Spark how to fight as a team. Spark was not here, but Ember could take his place. Both sides of him wanted Vithvarandi dead, truly and without hesitation now. He was entirely focused.
Vithvarandi snarled, lighting her body on fire in preparation. "You were to be mine. I am holding back, can you not tell?! Stop attacking!"
"You killed my father. You killed my mate." Hiccup snarled loudly, a sound that would freeze the blood of any who heard it. "I will never stop attacking you." With that, both Night Furies pounced, Beryl taking his cues from Hiccup. They latched on and bit down, tearing into any vulnerable part within reach, ignoring the creeping pain the fire of the Nightmare's skin brought even to fireproof dragons. It was inconsequential. The noises of the fight echoed throughout the village, easily rivaling and surpassing anything heard in the worst of the raids of years past. Constant bellows, shrieks, and roars, of Night Furies and all other types of dragons, those of pain and rage.
O-O-O-O-O
Snotlout woke to the cacaphony, smacking his head on a bedpost as he scrambled up, grabbing a helmet and sword before rushing out of the house, spurred on by months of training not easily forgotten. He realized that they were not in fact in the middle of a raid after a few moments of standing in the middle of the dark street.
"What is Hiccup's dumb dragon-?" Snotlout was cut off by another unholy screech anyone would recognize as the signature of a Night Fury. "Yikes." It sounded like something was dying out there.
Tuffnut stumbled past him, seemingly in a daze. Snotlout grabbed him by the shoulder. "Are you crazy?"
Tuffnut looked at him for a moment. "I'm not the one out here in underwear and a helmet. Come on, let's go watch!"
Snotlout followed his friend warily, hoping Astrid wasn't around to see him. Or maybe she'd like what she saw... That thought gave him courage. It wasn't like she was looking at Hiccup anymore, so he still had a chance with her, at least in his own mind.
He ran into Tuffnut as he was daydreaming, falling back into the mud. Great. Definitely didn't want Astrid to see him now. "Why'd you stop?"
"It's... glorious." Tuffnut's voice was exuberant. "Ooh, that's gotta hurt." After a moment he spoke again, less enthused. "Actually... this is kind of a bit much."
Snotlout stood, moving to see what Tuffnut was admiring. All the while, those inhuman shrieks of rage and pain assaulted his ears. He crested the small hill and looked down into the plaza.
The sight shocked him into silence, a rare occurrence for any Jorgenson. There were two Night Furies, which in itself was a shock. One was clearly Toothless, the other a dark orange and slightly larger. They were fighting a third dragon ferociously, a Monstrous Nightmare if he had to guess, though it was hard to tell at this point, it was so wounded, bleeding profusely and only partially lit, large sections of its scale and skin gone or damaged, shadowed by the flickering torches and its own flames.
The Night Furies were killing it. Before Snotlout could even think of intervening, it died, Toothless ripping its throat out while the other Fury distracted it. The Nightmare promptly collapsed into a massive pile of black ash. The two Night Furies immediately attacked a strange dragon that definitely hadn't been there before, one with four heads that all acted independently, striking and snapping.
Tuffnut's jaw dropped. "I'm dreaming."
"No... definitely not." Snotlout hated that his voice was shaking, but he couldn't help it. Besides, black magic was one thing all Vikings were scared of. This was definitely one such case, so it wasn't embarrassing to be scared out of his mind. Right?
The Night Furies were working together, it was clear, baiting and attacking the heads in tandem. Snotlout recognized tactics when he saw them, though he wasn't the greatest at coming up with his own. The Furies took turns baiting a head, the other tearing into it with claws and teeth as soon as one head was far enough from the others, all while fighting off the other three. They were receiving small wounds, but the four-headed dragon was definitely coming out the loser in each exchange. Dragon blood stained the ground around them.
After actually losing a head, the dragon recoiled, becoming engulfed in unnatural black flame. Snotlout stared as the flame receded to reveal a Nadder. A very familiar Nadder, who immediately put the Furies on the defensive with a barrage of razor-sharp spikes.
"Stormfly?"
He hadn't even realized that Astrid was right behind him until that point. As such, he was too busy trying not to fall flat on his face from surprise while she raced past him, ax drawn. Straight into the most violent and unnatural battle he had ever seen.
O-O-O-O-O
Hiccup roared in pain as a spine grazed the edge of his wing, cutting a furrow along the bone. Vithvarandi seemed very effective in the body of a Nadder, unlike that of a Snaptrapper, which she had switched out of once they had relieved it of one of its heads. Who knew how that worked for a real Snaptrapper, let alone Vithvarandi. Either way, she was much harder to deal with now, and she definitely wasn't holding anything back.
Beryl knocked her back with a blast, leaping across a row of spines sticking out of the ground like a sharp fence, getting in a good slash across Vithvarandi's chest before leaping back to avoid her clawed kick.
In a moment of inspiration, Hiccup grabbed a spine out of the ground, holding it sideways in his jaws. The sharp edges cut into his gums a little, but he didn't care. He could barely feel the many small and few large injuries he had sustained, which was likely thanks to the adrenaline running through him. Beryl and Vithvarandi were tangling in close quarters now, Beryl keeping the much less agile dragon on the defensive.
Hiccup could almost see the intent clear in Vithvarandi's frenzied eyes. She was going to switch to some other form to throw Beryl off, as she had done several times. He wasn't going to give her a chance.
He leaped into the tangle, grunting for Beryl to back off, before slamming the spine sideways, straight into Stormfly's chest. Right into her heart, which their short claws couldn't reach. She shrieked, convulsing and flinging him back, before stilling and crumbling into black ash. He ignored the small blip of pressure in that place in the back of his head. It wasn't important.
Fatigue was distant but palpable. That had been their fourth, maybe fifth kill so far, and Vithvarandi seemed to get all her energy back with each new form. They were being worn down, despite apparently winning the individual battles.
He looked to the side in the moment it took Vithvarandi to die and saw a lone figure standing in the middle of the open space, ax at her side in shock and confusion. Astrid.
A force slammed into his side and neck, flipping him and pinning him to the ground. The bulk of a Gronckle blurred by black flame to become Mildew, with a knife held to his throat.
"STOP!" Mildew's body yelled, pressing harder. "Stop or you die." It whispered to Hiccup. "Though I should just relieve you of this troublesome form, I want you sane. Losing the first one is quite... traumatizing, damaging. I'd not have that happen now."
"Yeah... because you killing my father and mate wasn't traumatizing enough." Hiccup could see Beryl out of the corner of his eye, preparing to fire from where Vithvarandi had apparently thrown him. Blood streamed down his friend's face, but Beryl wasn't out of the fight yet.
"Others are expendable. You must lea-" Mildew's sneering voice cut off with a jerk as an ax buried itself in his chest. Astrid's ax, thrown by her from half the plaza away. In a moment of lucidity, Hiccup felt almost insulted. She really thought he couldn't get away from an old man with a knife?
He rolled away, struggling to his feet as the telltale black flames immediately engulfed whatever Vithvarandi had been, as Mildew's body crumbled to ash.
Tired. He was tired. No rest though, as a Terror lunged for his eyes, its small size and high speed making it impossible to hit in time with a blast, his fatigue slowing him. He reacted without thought, copying what he had seen Vithvarandi do throughout the fight. Blue flames engulfed him, and by the time the Terror reached where his head had been, unable to stop its momentum, it was met with a hunting knife through the length of it. More ash, another little blip of pressure in his head, and yet another form, this one a Viking with a crossbow. Vithvarandi immediately spun and aimed at Beryl, who had been sprinting towards them.
Astrid swept the Viking's legs out from under him, pinning him to the ground.
Hiccup had forgotten she was there. "Astrid, don't-"
A flash of black and Astrid was hurled back. Hiccup couldn't move fast enough to catch her, her body limply falling through the air. Beryl, however, managed to get under her, at least partially breaking her fall with his wings and back. She tumbled onto the ground, unconscious.
Vithvarandi was now in the body of a dragon Hiccup didn't recognize right away. That is until it spit acid at him. "Changewing!" He shifted back to Ember in an instant, hoping the blue flames would repel acid as well as they apparently did other creatures.
It worked, but by the time his vision cleared, she was gone. Changewings could camouflage themselves against almost anything, as they had seen back in the house. She could be anywhere, preparing to strike.
The plaza was silent, save for the crackle of a few fires started in the battle. Beryl was standing over Astrid's unconscious body, doing his best to look in every direction at once.
Only those in the plaza itself heard Vithvarandi's final words, uttered from seemingly nowhere, floating through the darkness
"This is not over. If I cannot have you with me, I will end you. For now, I give you time to reconsider. Even though you have harmed me, I am willing to forgive..." Her voice drifted off.
Time passed, neither of them truly believing she had left. At length, Astrid stirred.
Hiccup groaned. "So much for protecting the village by leaving." They had gotten the idea too late. And judging by the number of witnesses, this was not going to be something that could be explained away... and she still wasn't gone for good.
Author's Note: And the (non-corporeal) prize goes to Living Lucid Dream, for calling the Stoick(Vithvarandi) scene! I really didn't think anyone would guess that.
The non-OC death count continues to rise. This story is quite violent, unlike almost anything else I've got out at the moment (Namesake being the notable exception). It's oddly freeing to have no-holds-barred fights, compared to the pesky moral standards the protagonists in most of my other works hold. It won't get much more graphic than this, though there are a few shock moments in other future fights that will probably make the more squeamish among my readers flinch. (As a side note, where is the line between T-level violence and M-level? I'm not going to cross it, or even come close, but it would be nice to know.)
Also, has anyone noticed the odd properties the fire of transformation possesses? It burns anyone but the user, spreads from the palms, is apparently capable of an unnatural amount of force coming from what should be something intangible… The transformation might be the purpose, but the fire that facilitates it is not insignificant. Interestingly, the fire's properties grew out of necessity, while I tried to determine whether hypothetically shifting in a small area into a form too big would kill the shifter or not. The properties of the fire are my answer to encroaching mass during transformation. It's not entirely necessary to know, but for those who are interested, the fire is something of a repelling factor, capable of responding to any force exerted from outside with an equal and opposite reaction. And that's if the wielder is standing still. Any force exerted from behind the fire is amplified exponentially, along with that natural repulsing factor. Of course, this is limited by the fact that the fire is only called out in between forms, and the shift takes less than ten seconds at its slowest. I do like developing my mechanisms, it seems...