The morning after their short conversation dawned cold and wet. Autumn was truly upon them, the wind wild and the sky dominated by clouds both immense and dark, looming over the forest.
Hiccup hadn't slept at all that night. That unnamable feeling of dread had intensified, keeping him awake through vigilance. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that something was wrong. What, he didn't know, only suspected. But what else could it be?
The wind brought with it water, light rain falling almost sideways, dripping from tree to tree in the wind. Beryl stirred unhappily, groaning once he took stock of the situation.
"We won't find any good cover out here." It was fact, inescapable. The land was so uniform that there might not be more than a small hill for cover for hours in any direction. This miserable situation in which rain dripped irregularly upon their backs was irreparable.
"I know." Beryl lifted his tail, staring intently at the slightly mismatched fins. "So close."
"Yes. But not quite." Hiccup knew that the tailfin's proportions had to be very close, closer than it was currently, in all likelihood. Building working substitutes had given him a very good idea of what would and would not allow Beryl to fly. The current state probably didn't fall into the 'would' category quite yet, or at least not that well.
Hiccup took a moment just to take in how close to fully grown the new fin was. How perfect it was. No visible scars or marks, even from the prosthetic. It would be perfectly symmetrical, fully functioning. "I don't think you're quite ready to go yet."
"Which makes now the perfect time."
Twin plasma blasts obliterated two nearby trees, a shower of wooden slivers and burning bark setting several small fires, which flickered before dying to the light rain, as the now disconnected trees fell, landing slanted on other trees, held precariously. The forest fell into silence, the silence that so often precluded an explosion of violence. The tension simmered between the Furies and the speaker. A single spark could set it ablaze.
A nondescript female Viking stepped out from behind a tree near the two that Hiccup and Beryl utterly obliterated. She absently picked up a scorched shard, turning it over as if examining it before looking up. "That could have killed me."
There was no response. Something held both Hiccup and Beryl back this time, something intangible. There was no rage, only unease and disgust, buried under caution.
To an outsider, it would seem a very dangerous confrontation. For Vithvarandi. A single Viking facing two very agitated Night Furies, nowhere to hide in the forest that was the hunting grounds of those Furies. An unarmed human against two killing machines, facing them as if unaware of the danger.
But of the three, Vithvarandi was the least worried, it was clear from her posture, her voice. "You must know by now I mean you no harm, Hiccup." She emphasized the word 'you' while glancing at Beryl.
Hiccup snarled viciously at her, letting out all of his hate for her in a single heartfelt expression of aggression. "You harm me every time someone I love dies by your hands. You have harmed me more than I think you comprehend."
"Others are inconsequential. They are all doomed to the same fate eventually." Vithvarandi spoke neutrally, no emotion entering her voice. "I simply take the inevitable and use it to benefit someone, when it otherwise would have done no one any good."
"You steal life, memories, souls. Taking from others only to prolong yourself... to take from more people." Hiccup took a step forward, holding eye contact. "You are a leech on existence, something that exists only to take from others."
"If I am, so are you!" Vithvarandi glared at him for a moment. "We are the same now. Everyone will die eventually. We cannot hate each other. Because I am the only one you'll ever have that doesn't disappear, doesn't leave you alone."
"Wrong." Beryl stood beside Hiccup. "I will never abandon him."
"You will die. Everyone does but us." Vithvarandi dismissed him. "You cannot do anything for him but supply one of us with more time. If you truly cared about him, you'd let him kill you. Then at least he'd always have your memories, a way to be sure you ever existed. Enough time will dull any normal memory. He'll forget you, eventually. As if you never lived."
Beryl had nothing to say to that. He looked over at Hiccup as if seeking a denial of some sort. A promise of... what?
Hiccup didn't know what Beryl wanted to hear, but he knew what he would say. "Everyone dies. Beryl will never leave me because I will follow him to wherever we go afterward. Immortality is a curse, and I definitely will never kill another to prolong my life like that. I reject that aspect of this curse. I will die naturally, just like everyone else."
"You think that now. But when it comes down to it, the simple instinct to live will drive you to-"
"Sorry, don't have that one." Hiccup grinned, knowing well how unnerving a gesture it was on his draconic face. "A survival instinct, that is. Already proved that. Several times over, I'd say. What say you, Beryl?"
"Let's see... the first time we met, the second time we met, the third, our first flight, our first real flight, the arena with the Nightmare, diving into the sea to save me, fighting the Queen... being willing to die rather than kill me." Beryl purred. "Nope, no such thing for you. You've always risked your life for what you felt was right."
Vithvarandi was visibly surprised by that information. "You do not fear death?"
Hiccup shrugged his wings, answering simply. "I fear it. Everyone fears the unknown. But not enough to let it control me, make me do things to avoid it." His eyes narrowed. "Like you do. Have you no empathy whatsoever? What makes you more deserving of life than anyone else?"
Vithvarandi scowled. "We are more deserving because we can live forever. We are the only ones who can truly live. It is-"
"Not your right to take life from anyone." Hiccup cut her off, growling. "And you want me to be with you, acting like that. You tear people apart, cause mourning and loss every time you kill. All to extend a pointless life of bringing grief and suffering to others." What he was about to say felt like crossing some line, and he happily burned the last bridge. "I swear on my life and on the memories of everyone you've ever killed, I will end you." He meant it, and it showed in his voice.
Beryl growled with him. "As do I, for what it's worth."
Vithvarandi seemed shocked, her eyes widening. "You mean that?"
"With my entire heart. I will stop this cycle of pointless death. And when I'm done, I'll voluntarily give up every single form I have, save for my real bodies." Hiccup didn't mean to include both his own body and Ember's in that exception, but it felt right. "I will willingly limit my lifespan to match my best friend, and happily die of old age or anything else. You disgust me, and I will never be like you."
Vithvarandi was crying now, real tears rolling down her face, becoming lost in the moisture brought about by the now steady rain. Her voice was... disappointed, and pained. "You were my last chance. The last canister failed, he died then and there. Without you, I am alone forever."
"Not for long." Beryl took a step forward, claws outstretched. "That is just one more death to avenge."
Hiccup hardened his heart against Vithvarandi's genuine distress. She only wept for herself, and self-pity would not redeem her, though it did make it hard to see her as a monster in need of destruction. He recalled Stoick, Stormfly, Flint, and attacked without warning, a small fireball throwing Vithvarandi back.
She rose from the black ash, an expression of rage stretched across the face of a Gronckle. "You don't deserve the gift I gave you!"
"One." Hiccup took another step forward. "One victim avenged. How many more?" His voice was cold and threatening, distorted as plasma built up in the back of his throat for a more powerful blast.
Vithvarandi scowled at him, seemingly unconcerned, angered by his defiance more than afraid. "I can't let you kill me. Don't make me kill you."
"Try." Beryl launched himself at her, water streaming off of him as he moved.
"I will tear you apart, and kill him with your body!" Vithvarandi shouted at him, her voice cracking and shifting from one language to the other as she was engulfed in black flames, a jarring transition that highlighted the disturbing content of her shout.
It was unclear which of them she was threatening with which part. It was a horrific threat either way.
But when the flames cleared, she was gone. Mostly. There was a strange lack of water in the middle of one of the puddles a few feet away, a telling indication that she was still there as a Changewing, her invisible body displacing the water.
The irregularity disappeared, and the woods echoed with the sounds of the wind and rain. If the atmosphere had been foreboding before, it was positively menacing now. She hadn't left.
Hiccup spun, straining for any indication of where she had gone. This was not like the other times. She was fighting all out, and from what he could tell, far less likely to give up. That bridge he had burned, the line he had crossed? It had been the only thing keeping her from truly trying to kill him.
The trees shook in the growing wind, rain fell faster, cold and thick droplets streaming together to run in the depressions between his scales, a web of cold covering him. He strained to catch any sound besides the rain and wind, the creaking wood. To smell anything besides the forest. To see anything that might reveal Vithvarandi. Before she could strike.
Acid splattered from his right, glancing off of Beryl's side, the acid not hitting directly enough to stick and do damage, glancing off of his black scales to sizzle in a puddle, a small plume of vapor rising from the water. Beryl pounced immediately in the direction the acid had come from but met nothing but air.
Waiting, again. Another ambush, this one more effective. Hiccup snarled and fired, ignoring the burning pain growing in his shoulder until it was clear Vithvarandi had faded away again. Then he dropped and slammed his shoulder into a nearby puddle, desperate to remove the acid eating into his skin beneath the scales. The burning mostly subsided, leaving behind a raw ache only partially soothed by the cold rain.
"We need to-"
"Run." Hiccup cut Beryl off, his voice low. "Or fly, if you can manage it. We have no way to target her in these woods. No way to even see her." That Changewing seemed to be Vithvarandi's go-to fighting form. Impossible to see directly, and with a very dangerous weapon just as an added bonus. She wasn't fighting fair.
Which was fine. He didn't plan on fighting fair either. Never had, really. Fighting fair was for the strong and stupid. He always used his mind, and that generally involved breaking the rules.
Beryl spread his wings but closed them abruptly. Just in time, as a large glob of acid arced through the air where they had been.
Hiccup shuddered even as he blasted blindly at where the acid had originated. One bad hit of acid to the wing membrane and the unlucky victim was definitely grounded, maybe for good. They needed... time. Time for Beryl to take off.
Hiccup closed his eyes, focusing on his other senses. Sight was pointless here anyway. Vithvarandi couldn't be seen. But her camouflaging was a visual thing. No sight meant equality.
Sound. Beryl treading in puddles, turning in circles, asking what he was doing.
"Quiet." Hiccup focused on the subtler sounds. Rain and wind could be tuned out. They were constant sounds that didn't change, only ebbed and flowed.
Sound. Hiccup dragged up a memory half-buried, even by Ember himself. Night Furies, with their excellent night vision, had never needed alternative ways of seeing in the dark. He had considered it a pointless skill, even saying so when Flint taught it to him, one of the few things she had known that he hadn't. Now he was glad she had taught him to do it. To send out a very specific sound, one that changed as it bounced off of obstacles and returned to him. One that could tell him where things were.
It had been so long that the first roar he let out was off, not the right tone or pitch. He tried again immediately, getting it the second time around.
Echoes, reflections. His roar returned to him, almost imperceptibly faint. Distorted by how long it had traveled before bouncing back.
The information took a moment to decipher. Beryl. Various trees. A shape in the distance. To his right. Another roar confirmed that she was still there.
He opened his eyes, carefully not looking anywhere in particular. "Beryl, fly."
Beryl shook his head, but opened his wings quickly, wing membrane exposed and vulnerable.
Hiccup spun and blasted Vithvarandi, his plasma blast burning through most of the acid on its way to her, a moderately powerful concussive bolt which knocked her back into a tree, eliciting a groan as the old and gnarled pine cracked from the impact. "Fly!"
Beryl leaped, flapping out of sight quickly, his powerful legs pushing him most of the way out of the trees on the original jump. He was out of sight in seconds.
Hiccup wanted to follow, but first, he had to make sure they got a head start. Vithvarandi was still reeling from the concussive blast. Another shot into the ground directly in front of her sprayed dirt and mud all over her camouflaged form, giving easy visibility.
He would have struck, but she might just have several Changewings anyway. The time this had bought them was more precious. He launched into the air. Not fleeing. Choosing the battlefield.
Despite the driving rain, unsteady winds, and pained acid burn, Hiccup grinned at the sight before him. Beryl was flying, albeit somewhat slower than normally, favoring the slightly underdeveloped tailfin. Flying. The wait was over. Just in time.
The two met in the air, heading towards nowhere in particular, flying as fast as Beryl could manage. Hiccup flipped over his friend and laughed as they fled.
"Good enough?" Hiccup tagged Beryl's back with a wingtip as he passed over.
"Enjoy your air superiority while you can!" Beryl growled playfully back. "When I'm fully healed, you'll be eating my dust!"
"We'll see!" Hiccup glanced back, noting that Vithvarandi hadn't gotten into the air yet. Or she was still a Changewing, following in disguise. Actually, did their camouflage work with nothing to camouflage themselves against? He wasn't sure. Not a good idea to assume it didn't though. So they weren't out of the woods yet, even if they were technically out of the woods.
O-O-O-O-O
There was no communication as they moved out past the massive forest and over a series of rolling plains, green hills dotted with the occasional tree. Both were concentrating on listening for the telltale sound of wings flapping that would signal an ambush. Hiccup watched the sky above them, and Beryl covered the air below. In this way they traveled for several hours, tense and ready to fight.
By the time they were forced to set down, the tension in the air had mostly lifted, though the storm had not lifted in the slightest.
Beryl gave in first, dropping to land in front of a large hill, squinting in the rain. "I can't go any further."
"Neither can I." Actually, Hiccup felt he could go for a couple more hours, but Beryl hadn't flown in months. It made sense his wing muscles would be a little underdeveloped after that long mostly unused. No need to bring that up.
"Doesn't look like we're getting any shelter." Beryl glanced around, taking in the rolling hills and solitary pines, completely useless for protection from the driving rain. "We're sitting ducks anyway."
"Nope." Hiccup purred softly, eyeing the hill they were standing at the base of. "I've done this before." It would be a bit gross and not exactly dry, but much better than sitting out in the open. He began digging into the soft hillside, powerful claws and front legs shifting dirt at an astonishing rate.
Beryl spluttered, shaking his head to dislodge a clump of grass and dirt. He joined Hiccup after a moment, widening and deepening the growing hole in the hillside.
After a few minutes, Hiccup stopped, tapping Beryl with his wing. "That's as far as we can go."
"Why? We haven't hit rock yet." Beryl backed up a bit.
"No, but I'd rather not be buried alive." Hiccup turned around in the depression, his wings sliding along the dirt roof. "It can collapse, and any further in might make such an event deadly. We rest here."
"We're still kind of sitting ducks." Beryl cast a glance behind them.
"Scoot forward." Hiccup backed up a bit, letting Beryl settle down in the back of the shallow depression. The hole was just deep enough for Hiccup to curl up with his back to Beryl, looking out into the descending gloom that heralded the end of a day of storms.
O-O-O-O-O
The night passed slowly. Hiccup kept watch through the dark hours, resisting sleep in order to test a theory he had developed. Which was why he was keeping watch in his human form. Night vision was pointless in the driving storm, as was that odd way of seeing by sound. His human eyes were just as likely to see Vithvarandi coming. Not at all likely, to be entirely honest.
He didn't wake Beryl or get any sleep of his own. That was the first part of his theory. One that had been lurking in the back of his mind since discovering that wounds didn't heal unless the wounded body was inhabited long enough to heal naturally.
When dawn broke, the sheet of clouds diffusing the light so that it was almost indistinguishable from night, Hiccup shifted back to his other body.
It was an astonishing change. His mind sped up, the lethargy of sleep deprivation vanishing, though not entirely. His draconic form had flown a full day's flight already... and gotten no rest. But it also hadn't stayed up all night.
He had been correct. When not in use, the bodies were entirely frozen in the state they had been left in. That included personal possessions, wounds, age, and apparently energy level. There was a trade-off to this particular case though. Both of his forms would be sleep-deprived by nightfall, and he could only rest one of them. Managing two bodies was going to be tricky.
How did Vithvarandi manage with so many bodies at her disposal? Probably by not using most of them. Just keeping them as insurance, or for when she needed a specific ability, like turning invisible.
It didn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. He only had two bodies. Well, two he was willing to use. That was more than enough.
His mind slowly shifted to consider the future. If they did end Vithvarandi, as impossible as that goal seemed, what then? Berk was not really an option. They didn't have anywhere to go, or anything to do.
That was a problem for later. He poked Beryl with his snout, nudging the other dragon up.
Beryl groaned, his eyes slowly sliding open, glaring at Hiccup. "You watched all night." It was almost an accusation.
"Yes. But not in this form. I'll be fine for now." Hiccup left the hole, shaking the mud and dirt off of his back and wings. Beryl followed, growling as mud slid down his head from the back of his neck. Neither complained. It was a small price to pay for a safe night when being hunted.
O-O-O-O-O
They journeyed on, reaching the coast at about midday, the swath of yellow sand dividing the forest and boundless sea in front of them.
"Now what?" Beryl looked down the coast in both directions, circling over the beach below. "Endless forest and plains in both directions, or whatever might be that way." He motioned toward the ocean. "Or, there might be nothing out there."
Hiccup set down, pawing at the sand idly, staring out at the ocean. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his head, one he was familiar with. A sense of recognition. But he couldn't place it. He ignored it and focused on the issue at hand. Paw. Whatever.
"She'll follow. Doesn't matter where we go." His claws sunk into the sand as he padded towards the waterline, leaving footprints behind, stark and obvious against the smooth beach and rolling dunes. Obvious...
Hiccup grinned, turning to face Beryl. "So we stop running. Make our stand here." He nodded at his footprints. "No way for her to sneak up by land. No cover to protect her. The ocean at our backs, and clear skies." The storm was breaking up, so the skies would indeed be clear soon.
"I am tired of running." Beryl considered the proposition. "We end it here? What if she tries to leave?"
"Come on, you didn't think I was just planning on a fair fight, did you?" Hiccup grinned widely, purring with suppressed excitement and just a hint of dark malice. "Vithvarandi will come for us. We seem to have time to prepare. And I've got a few ideas..."
Hiccup elaborated quickly. Who knew how much time they had.
Beryl was purring smugly by the time his friend was done explaining. "We'll do it."
They both sprung into action, preparing the battlefield. The time for fleeing was over. Vithvarandi was coming, and they would be prepared when she arrived.