Chosen of the Wind (Version 2)
[DISCLAIMER]
[I do not own Moana or How to Train Your Dragon.]
-CONTENT NOTES-
I need to let y'all know something. I thought that Hidden World was set five years after the second movie; the same way HTTYD2 is five years after HTTYD1. I put this story over a year after Stoick's death, 'cuz some people fight through grief a LOT slower than others, and I personally believe Hiccup/Toothless are the 'bottle things up' type. Good and bad feelings alike. Anyway, I'm just bootin' the events of Hidden World forward in time.
–FORMAT NOTES–
Tell me if anything is confusing! One day I'll staple the rules for punctuation and tense onto my forehead.
MY NOTES
The countdown to the new chapper has me so excited! I hope everyone enjoys the expounded and refined trash in store until then! -artisticRadifyer
Extended Summary:
After fighting the Red Death and a murderous tyrant by the name of Drago Bludvist, Hiccup wouldn't think he would have any more outstanding adventures as big as those. Yet, he must set off to try and stop this 'Darkness' that is spreading across the Barbaric Archipelago to save his village. Njord chose just him, a runaway heiress, and the demigod that triggered the decay, to fix things. But there is no 'team' in 'chosen,' and the mentally challenged chicken that might be food, can't change that.
Chapter 3.2 - Storms Collide
"We really appreciate how much you are helping us, Njord, but could you let up for now?"
The Wind that was rocketing them forward settled to a regular updraft.
"Thanks." Hiccup sat up properly from the flat, efficient, streamlining position he'd kept for the insane speeds they had been traveling at, and now stretched his body slowly to remove the stiffness that had settled in his bones. "Agh. We can start up again in one last burst if we're as close as I'm beginning to gather."
After around an hour of normal flight with full, proper wing movement rather than the stiff, banking-forever-forward position they were holding earlier, the sky darkened with a storm of great measure.
Hiccup lifted the face guard of his helmet to observe it better. "That looks nasty... Do we have to go in there?"
The Wind gave no indication that they should change direction.
"Well, hopefully a God wouldn't have their champions face this without a get-through-it-alive charm; if he still wants them to do the original task, that is." Toothless rumbled nervously in agreement as they both scanned the lightning arcing through the sky. "...Let's go."
The storm tossed and tumbled the two relentlessly, and they went down together; more or less as a controlled crash into the water. Toothless was able to keep his rider close when something had come loose on the way down.
Hiccup worked his way around Toothless before the flier lost what little buoyancy he had, and then clambered onto his back to maneuver the saddle's parts into the necessary positions for them to swim. Once a stable pace was set in the direction they thought they needed to go, Hiccup tied back together the two frayed ends that caused him to fall off on the way down.
Without an ability to see in the brutal storm, Hiccup is surprised to hear grumbles from his ride that were more happy in tone than the effort-filled ones he'd heard for some time now. Then when Toothless began to walk instead of swim, the difference was vast enough that Hiccup would have fallen off if not for the repaired harness he was in.
They bore the rest of the rough weather in between two boulders and each other's body heat. Once it came to a close, both man and beast left the small space and relaxed for a moment. Hiccup checked the entire ensemble of their flight gear again before they set off to search the island for the 'source of darkness' on foot. Njord again gave no input to the champions' inquiries, and they could only assume they were in the correct spot.
The exploring duo picked up the pace once they heard rhythmic sounds of a song or chant start and end, and, now curious, they kept an eye out for the source. The pair reached the opposite side of the island; which showcased a girl launching herself off a small, rocky cliff to land in the water but just a foot away from a sophisticated raft with a sail.
A man as big as Hiccup's Father opened up the sail and began to speed away. Before Hiccup could make up his mind to help the stranded girl, the ocean shifted unnaturally and propelled her up to it.
"Uh…?" Hiccup spoke softly, surprised to see what must be another of Njord's forms, "...I… guess we found the right people."
Toothless gave the speaker an unimpressed look.
"You're right," Hiccup nodded, and banished his unease as he watched the raft drift out to sea, "we'll watch them for a bit longer; just to make sure."
Njord disagreed, and proceeded to give a continuous gale in their direction that sped the raft even faster away.
"Okay, okay! We're going!" Hiccup mounted his other's back, and didn't bother to pull out his helmet for the miniscule flight. The two easily caught up and landed besides two startled people.
"..."
"..."
The first person to speak was the huge, tattooed man, "Are you riding a dragon?"
"Yes." Hiccup shrugged. "It's… normal where I'm from."
The girl exclaimed something in another language, and the man responded dryly, "What? Can you not hear? I know you keep repeating yourself, but just because you think I can't hear, doesn't mean I'm going to prattle uselessly."
She exasperatingly turned her attention to the viking and said a length of words expectantly.
"...I think she asked a question, but it sounds more like she's proving a point to you."
The man sighed, "Neither of you can understand each other, can you?"
As the hulking man rammed his head into the main mast of the raft, the air pressure immediately surrounding Hiccup and Toothless dropped significantly. In the same moment, the raft is tipped just so to send the teenage girl into the water, and a much higher pressure formed around her. She is deposited back onto the raft after her ears have popped, just as the air pressure returned to normal for the northerners' own altered ears.
"Great. The Wind and Sea fixed the problem. You must be here for the same reasons she is."
The rider grimaced as he massaged his aching ears. "To help my Tribe, yes."
"Hey! You aren't talking crazy anymore!" the girl realized, also trying to relieve her own discomfort.
"Your Tribe must be pretty isolated to not know another language when you hear it." Hiccup observed.
"I know! We're not even allowed past the reef."
"'Reef?' How far south are we?"
"How are you dressed like that and not dying?"
"Actually, I am. But there are more pressing matters right now."
"Like what?"
"Do you have a plan to stop this 'darkness?'"
"We have to bring the Heart back to Te Fiti, and he's the one that needs to do it."
"So, eh..." Hiccup trailed off, leaving an opening for the other humans to introduce themselves.
"M-" the man began.
"We are not doing that again! His name is Maui, he's a demigod, and I'm Moana of Motunui." the teenage girl, Moana, introduced.
Hiccup placed a hand on his dragon's head, and then moved it to his chest as he introduced themselves. "This is Toothless. My name's Hiccup. We're a viking and dragon of Berk."
"'Viking?'" Moana echoed in curiosity.
"Really loud, violent, territorial humans who took three hundred years to make peace with dragons, and regularly drink themselves to sleep. You?"
"My Tribe used to be voyagers, but they stopped a few generations ago. Now I'm on an illegal mission to get rid of the darkness; illegal because of my father's long-standing order for no one to cross the reef."
"Your father...?"
"Chief."
"Mine was too."
"Was?"
"I'm the Chief these days. My people voted for me to come."
"-"
"Well, since you now have a babysitter:" Maui smoothly interrupted the conversation and threw Moana off the raft. "Go get her, and leave me alone."
"We can't-" Hiccup cut himself off as he saw the ocean in action again.
"Aaaand she's back." Maui said at large.
"You will-Ah!" she fell off again as Maui sharply tipped the raft this time.
"Hey! Don't tip us off!" Hiccup indicated the dragon he was clinging to. "Neither of us are very good at swimming!"
"Then take her and that blasted Heart!"
"I'm pretty sure Njord will restrict me from leaving as well." Hiccup thumbed the return of a panting Moana. He stood fully since Maui seemed done rocking the raft. "I'm hearing a lot about a 'heart?'"
"You mean THIS Heart? The one that he needs to restore Te Fiti?" Moana presented a smooth, small, green stone for everyone to see.
Maui snatched it from Moana and threw it far, only for the Wind to launch it straight back into the man's forehead with enough force to knock him over. "Alright. I'm out." He tried to swim away, but was replaced onto the raft by the Ocean on his bottom. "Oh, come on!" A stream of water flew into his face.
"What is your problem, Maui?" Moana accused.
"..."
"Are...you afraid of it?"
"No! No. I'm not afraid." Everyone noticed Maui's tattoo cower as he bit his fingernails, ran around 'screaming,' and then leant on a hook pretending his actions didn't happen.
"Do all of your tattoos move?" Hiccup asked as he and Toothless tilted their heads in interest.
"Stay out of it, or you're sleeping in my armpit." Maui addressed his Little Maui tattoo, then Hiccup, "You: Yes." then Moana. "You: Stop it. That," Maui pointed at a green rock in Moana's hand, "is not a 'Heart.' It's a curse. The second I took it, I got blasted out of the Sky and lost mY HOOK! Get it away from me...!"
"So, you're responsible for this." Hiccup confirmed to himself.
"Get this, away?" Moana teased.
"Hey, hey, hey! I'm a demigod, okay? Stop that! I will SMITE you! You wanna get s-smote? Smotten?"
"Smitten." Hiccup supplied and then snorted at the implications.
"Agh! Listen, that thing doesn't give you 'the power to create life,' it's a homing beacon of death. If you don't put it away," Maui searched around them, paranoid, "bad things are gonna come for it."
"Come for this? The Heart?! -" Moana backed away to the edge of the small vessel.
"'Create life?' But..." Hiccup muttered to himself, "women can do that."
"-You mean this Heart, right here?! -" Moana raised it above her head.
"Don't! You can't raise your voice like that!" Maui fruitlessly tried to make Moana shut up.
She was waving her arms and jumping about the raft at this point. "-COME AND GET IIIT!"
"SHHHH! You're gonna get us killed!"
"No. I'm gonna get us to Te Fiti, so you can put it back. Thank you." The teen bowed mockingly and sang the next two words. "~You're welcome!~"
An arrow narrowly missed Moana's head. If she hadn't bowed slightly, it would've gotten her.
Hiccup, bewildered, noticed it landed between a chicken's feet. "There's a chicken on the raft?"
Maui plucked the arrow out of the wood of the raft and inspected it. "Kakamora."
"Kaka-what?" Moana attempted to repeat the name.
"Murdering little pirates."
"Wish I could say any of the ones I've fought were 'little.' Ey, Bud?" The dragon sniggers, and Hiccup sobered up quickly. "Though, I'm concerned about how that was a kill shot instead of a warning one."
"Wonder what they're here for..." Maui glared at Moana and the Heart still in her hand.
They all inspect the coconut people. At Moana's comment about them being 'cute,' they draw on the husks of their armor to make themselves more menacing.
"Looks are almost always deceiving." Hiccup said. He pulled his helmet out of the saddle and onto his head; leaving the face guard up for the moment. "...Although the music they're making is amazing. Gotta fighting feel to it."
"Ocean!" Moana kneeled on the side of the raft. "Do something! Help us!"
"The Ocean doesn't help you! You help yourself!" Maui grabbed a rope near the back and pulled it taut. "Tighten the halyard! Bind the stays!"
"..."
"You can't sail?!" Maui mostly accused Moana.
"I, uh... I am self-taught." The girl nervously admitted.
"I know what those are," Hiccup tried to justify his own lack of inaction, "but I don't think we have time for a tour of the-I can't even call this a boat."
Maui launched the raft forward.
"Can't you shapeshift or something?!" Moana asked.
"Do you see my Hook?" Maui backtalked. "No magic Hook: no magic powers!"
"I'm gonna get off." Hiccup closed his helmet, "You'll go faster." The two took off from the back, which lurched the raft forward, and rope tethered arrows pelt the raft immediately afterward. "I'm glad we left when we did. That is not a very big-uh, raft."
The raft now connected to the ship, the Kakamora split their ship's two extensions off, aiming to surround it, and began sliding down the length of the binds.
"Whoa! Their ship is turning into more ships! Isn't that cool?" Hiccup scanned the area to see where he'd be the most helpful. "Toothless, let's get those lines off of them." The dragon blasts the middle of the ropes, but not all are removed and the raft is jostled badly. "Uh. We'll use my sword next."
Some of the Kakamora were able to board, having not been blasted away, and were scurrying all over the place.
The humans on the raft removed the last few arrows themselves.
"Or not."
A new arrow is shot to retrieve the remaining little being that got ahold of the chicken.
"Okay, lost one source of food, and our group is almost surrounded! Tooth, aim for the..." The viking quieted as he observed new movements from the vessel he was trying to protect.
The raft swiftly turns to the main ship and then turns further to a strategic exit.
"Nevermind. Wait, is she...?"
Moana jumped from the raft onto the ship.
Armed with the new circumstance, the two fliers identifed a spot they could help with, "Let's aim for the coconuts then, Bud." Hiccup saw darts suddenly flying all over the place. "...Especially the ones with darts."
Moana retrieved the stolen chicken and managed to get back to the raft.
Hiccup wondered if the animal was more of a pet, and not food as he originally thought. "Surrounded again. Blast them," he directed. And Toothless hit the two smaller ships closing in on the raft.
The coconuts flew off with their inertia as the raft sped the rest of the way between them.
"Wonder if any of that's salvageable..." Hiccup mused as he watched the damage commence; remembering the small size of the raft.
The base boat crashed into the other two.
Hiccup frowned disappointedly at the extent of the wreckage, and sighed. "I guess none of it is." The two glided down to the boat where both Maui and Moana were in the midst of a conversation.