~ Hey guys! I can't even begin to say how sorry I am I haven't updated in a while. But I really appreciate your patience and that you continue to read the story. I promise now I'll update quicker and Again, thank you all so much for the reviews and comments! :D Xxx~
After two days of getting Jolene settled into her new home, the news of her arrival spread through the village like wild fire. Given that Berk has had its unfair share of unwelcomed guests, the fact that a beautiful, nice girl has paid a visit is rejuvenating.
According to the Vikings who helped dock her ship, Jolene had been on vacation when a storm caused her to dock the boat. By the time the storm had subsided, her boat was covered in frost and thrown of course. The Vikings recommend they send out a message to her village reporting they have her safe and sound, but Jolene denied. She explained about how her family was looking for new homes for her given that her eighteenth birthday was in a month.
While she remained within the boundaries of her current home, that didn't stop the men of the village from paying her 'welcoming' visits. They would deliver food, clothing, jewelry, weapons and the occasional yak. No doubt it was due to her unworldly beauty. Even Hiccup had to admit, he'd never seen such embossing creature such as Jolene. But as the chief's son, he was obligated to maintain his composure and put his duties before his love life.
Stoick had taken it upon himself to show Jolene around the village, and while it spared Hiccup the oncoming awkward conversation, he had a sense his father was merely trying to break the ice between the two before dumping her on Hiccup. For once Hiccup was grateful for his magic lessons with Grandmamma; gave him reasons to stay away. The feeling he gets with Jolene is beyond strange. She's the most beautiful girl he's undoubtedly seen outside of Berk, and one would think he'd want to spend every quaking moment with her. And yet Hiccup couldn't shake a feeling. But he merely dismissed it as nerves.
By now, the winter cold had settled on Berk and clung the wooden finishes on the house. Layers of white capped the flat tops of evergreen shrubs which glistened like frosted cupcakes. This morning, Hiccup was going to meet up with Grandmamma in the woods for an elemental spellwork for today. Shrugging on his fur vest, he substituted an apple for breakfast and headed downstairs. Toothless purrs as he chomps down an entire trout in one gulp. Turning, Hiccup opened the front door and let in a burst of frigid winter air. Even though the sudden burst of cold should have sent a shiver rattling through him, it didn't. Outside, Hiccup could see that the deep blue darkness had since lightened, evidence that the sawn was doing its best to push back the curtain of light.
Hopping up on Toothless, the two fly off to the woods, and just out of the corner of his eye he can see smoke coming from the chimney of Jolene's house. Bellowing black smoke, it clashes with the falling flakes of snow, mixing into soot. The wind tugs at the sleeves of Hiccup's tunic. It pulled at his hair and clung to his bare skin. But he didn't feel the cold. Only the sandlike sting of the snow as it raked his chapped face. Squinting his eyes, he tries his best to navigate as the flakes would occasionally zip into his eyes. Thankfully, Grandmamma's campfire smoke clashed against the white snow on the mountains. Swooping low, the two landed at her cabin on top the mountain. She had created one just outside her home and she stands there sketching into the snow as the two land.
"Hey Grandmamma." Hiccup said as they slowly approached her.
"Hey honey. How you doing?" she stops rubbing her hands together to brush kisses on both Hiccup's cheek.
"Good. So what are we learning today?" he nervously asks.
"Oh don't you worry honey. This will all be completely safe. Now first we should probably fetch the books from the basement."
"Great." Hiccup complains, not even trying to hide his loath.
Hiccup hurried up the short flight of stairs, twisted the knob, and pulled open the door. As he slipped inside, his skin flared fire hot. The stiff scent of aged paper, dust, and stale air greeted him. He turns to face the door as it closed. With a glance over his shoulder, he saw no one. Making his way through the skull and cobweb ridden spec, he reached the basement door, and with a shot of courage pulled it open and pounded down the flight of stairs. The tired light of torches burned a dull gold, adding little relief to the accumulated shadows. He takes a quick inventory of his familiar surroundings.
"Back here again." He whispers to himself as he walks past a torch on the bracket.
Tall wooden bookcases stood in close proximity to one another. Their shelves, once stuffed to the point of bowing, now seemed to hold a much lighter burden. There were even a few barren spots in between clusters of worn-looing volumes and stacked tomes. The high-reaching shelves stretched long across the floor, halfway blocking the copper- colored light that struggled to illuminate the aisles in between. To his right a bin of old novels with a handwritten sign on the side. Hiccup slunk between two of the tallest shelves. He placed one foot in front of the other as though walking a tightrope and trailed close to the shelf at his right.
After pulling out a dark purple and gold-striped volume, he runs back up the stairs; the book tucked under one arm. Pulling the door shut behind him, he trots back out to Grandmamma who's now pulled a hood over her head. Wisps of silver gray hair floating as he smiles. Hiccup hands her the book and she places it on the frail wooden podium. As she flips through the pages, Hiccup peers over her shoulder and notices tracings in the snow. Hiccup swerves around Grandmamma and stands on his toes in an attempt to get a better angle.
"It's called a Wiccan Pentagram." Grandmamma suddenly says, startling Hiccup.
He turns and sees her smiling, so he tries to slow his spike-shot heartbeat. For a moment he acted like he'd been caught, like a child doing something sneaky and got caught in the act.
"The five points of the star each represent different elements." Grandmamma explains as she rounds the podium. Starting from the top of the star, then working clockwise she names each point. "Spirit, Water, Fire, Earth, and Air. Now each have their own purpose and meaning, and it will be difficult since we're dealing with opposites, but we'll take it slow."
With a quick pat on Hiccup's shoulder, she brings him back to the podium where she left the page open, depicting foreign and yet familiar words. They were mainly words Hiccup didn't recognize, then he'd get a word here and there that he'd understand. Honestly, things would've been easier if there were pictures. It was made clear later that Hiccup was more of a visual learner given that he made most of the pictures in the Book of Dragons.
"What is this?" he asks.
"This language is something the ancients used back in the old days. These are just simple spells we'll work on." Grandmamma explains.
"Spells?" Hiccup's voice rises in concern. "Grandmamma I don't know about this. Witchcraft isn't something that's well, respected around Berk." Hiccup explains.
"Oh don't worry honey. These are simple spells of the Wicca. And Wicca is a form of witchcraft, but mostly benevolent. They're mainly nature-oriented practices." Grandmamma comforts, and then with a clap of her hands, her mood jumps a hundred percent. "Now, to start, a simple Air spell should be good."
She steps back and looked up. She stared at the countless specks that rained down around them, each white flake highlighted against the black backdrop of morning, like a thousand falling starts in a dead sky.
"First, we'll have to clear the clouds." She says.
"And how do I do that?" Hiccup asks.
Grandmamma simply points to the book and Hiccup peers back and finds a small marking next to a sentence of words.
"H-how do I-"
"Sound it out." Grandmamma cuts him off.
A cloud floated into the darkening grey-blue. Hiccup takes a deep breath and sighs in annoyance as he glances back at the page. "Belum Hoecoro Mazura"
He holds up his hand and waved it. The cloud swirled in the direction his hand as moving. Hiccup's eyes widen and he glances back to Grandmamma who only gestures him to focus. With a rotation motion, the cloud was now a circle. Hiccup's mouth widened into a smile at the unexplainable yet incredible moment in front of him. He waves his hand again. Now the cloud looked more like a slightly dented circle, and then a moon.
"Alright, finished it. We need to keep going." Grandmamma interjects.
Hiccup waves his hand and the moon blows away.
"Now, let's try fire." Hiccup looks to her in worry. "Don't worry, again, simple steps. We're going to melt the snow inside the pentagram." Grandmamma steps forward and flips through the pages until she stops at a different page with a fire logo at the top. "Read this, and picture the pentagram in your mind."
Facing the snow circle, Hiccup takes another deep breath and closes his eyes. He peeks at the page to read the words, then repeats them in his head. Then he says it out loud. "Watara Lucario"
Hiccup could feel his hands grow warm as he tries to picture the star just as Grandmamma instructed. His hands grow warmer, radiating the same warmth as a fire at night in the summer. Hiccup didn't dare open his eyes in fear of losing focus.
"Excellent work Hiccup, you're halfway there." Grandmamma encourages.
Hiccup squeezes his eyes tighter and feels his hands flare fire hot as the late morning sun painted crimson swirls against his closed eyelids. He can hear Grandmamma encouraging him, but suddenly her voice slowly fades off.
"Grandmamma?" Hiccup calls, but there's no answer. He opens his eyes and nearly stumbles backward into the snow, or rather ash.
For a moment, Hiccup thought his vision had been altered. Everything, the entire world has been painted in red. Like someone had taken Hiccup's eyes and added drops of pure red into them. Everything was gone. Grandmamma, the pentagram, the white snow.
The sky was on fire. The flames reached into the sky, pushing forth massive fists of smoke, swallowing everything in their path. Even the moon. Hiccup screamed, stumbling back and onto the ashen ground. He coughs as clouds billow up around him. They shift and shape in grey swirls, looking like hands desperately clawing at him to pull him under. The ground had turned to swamp. Burned ashen ground that has been drenched by the rains that preceded the fire. If only it had rained today.
"Grandmamma?" Hiccup called, but his voice was hoarse. He pushes himself to his feet, his legs caked in ash. "Grandmamma!" Hiccup choked back the smoke that burned his throat so badly it hurt to breathe. "What's happening?" he whispers to himself.
The sound of an oncoming projectile forces Hiccup to leap into the skeletal remains of shrubs. More ash surrounds him and he pulls the collar of his tunic over his nose. Mud clung to the bottom of his shoe and the lining of his tunic. Another shot sends sparks arching into the air, nearly missing Hiccup. He needed to move. He needed to get to the village. He may not know what's going on, but he was about to find out. He needed to get to the Square and find Toothless. He scrambles to his feet and rushes to the village. He could hear the screams, mixed with the rogue screeching of dragons and the unrelenting roar of the flames.
Hiccup was so taken by the scene before him, he didn't pay attention. The next thing he knew, he was past the Square, and at the Plaza. Everything was burning, everything ablaze. Hiccup drops to his knees in front of his house. The screams of people piercing his ears, even greater than the Screaming Death, and more traumatizing. Hiccup rotates in a circle, taking in the world around him. He wanted to call out, call Toothless, Astrid, his father, anyone. But somehow he'd lost his voice; and was unsure whether it was due to the suffocating smoke or the horror. One by one, Hiccup watched the homes of his neighbors, of his friends and family, surrender to the flames. And in the worst of circumstances, many of those friends and relatives surrendered as well, eaten alive by the flames in the very home where he was born.
A shout catches his attentions and he turns to find his father, still alive; his clothes singed and scared from his face down.
"Dad!" Hiccup screamed, but his father kept his back to him; aiding a woman and her newborn child. He must not hear him, he needed to get closer.
Hiccup rushes to his father, but a sudden fire shot nearly misses him. Hiccup ends up sliding to a stop from this sudden attack. The firewall blocking his view from his father, and yet even with the flames and the screaming, Hiccup could still hear the unbearable scream of his father.
"DAD!" Pushing himself to up, he looks around and tries to find a way around.
There was no way.
Facing the flames, he closes his eyes and with a sudden burst of courage, he sprints into the flames. Running, into the smoke, toward the fire – right into the mouth of the beast. He had to get to his father. He pushed off his prostatic foot and dived into the flames. Coming out of the other side, he ducked and rolled up onto one knee. Looking at his hands, he was unharmed, not even a scratch. No burns, no scars, no cuts.
No time to wonder why, Hiccup gets up and looks around. As he takes cautious steps forward, he nearly slips when his prostatic foot steps into something slippery. Looking down, bile rise at the back of his throat.
It was blood.
Dragon's blood.
Following the puddle, it snakes its way under a black and blue mass; small white spots dotted across its torso. Hiccup's heart tripled in speed. "No." he pleads. Running up he rounds his way up to the front, and feels a scream clawing at the back of his throat.
Thornado lies in his own puddle of blood. His mouth still widely agape, as if he was struck in the middle of a scream. A deep pine-green colored shard was embedded through both his eyes sockets, the tip poking into the ground. His wings tattered and worn like peasant clothing. His throat felt tight, crammed with the scream and wailing of grief. Hiccup covers his mouth as the bile surges forward. He force himself to swallow it, the dire need to find his father the only thing keeping him rooted.
Looking around, he weaves his way wearily through the flames until he hears his father's deafening howl. Rushing through the smoke, he comes to find his Dad on the ground, propped on his elbow.
"Dad I'm coming!"
As he was about to reach out to his Dad, he suddenly stops as his Dad says something. "How could you do this?!" he shouts into the smoke.
"Dad! Dad I'm here! What's going on?!"
The flames shot higher. The fire spread like it had a will of its own until the flames surrounded Stoick. His father didn't even look at him as he yelled again. "I never thought you'd become this!"
"Dad I'm right here!" Hiccup's hands reached out to jostle him.
His hands swept cleanly through him, and he jerked back.
A maniacal laughter echoed through the flames. A chill ran through his spine as he slowly turned his head to face the direction of his father. A silhouette floated behind the smoke. He wasn't imagining it. The figure was floating. Above the flames.
"Never say never old man." The voice cooed.
The flames rose higher. Spiking and jolting to the sky. As the outline of the apparition became clearer, it raised its hands above its head and a small hole opened in the middle of the flames, then expanding and growing larger until the figure floated through. Once he was through they retracted.
Hiccup's heart hitched in his throat.
It was him.
But he was different.
His eyes were devoid of color. Two black pits bore into him, causing his breath to catch in his throat. He swallows hard, it felt like drowning. He looked like he was from another world.
He now wears a black tunic with a red ribbon around his waist. A high collar reached up to his ears, falling into a cape at the back. Gold straps crossed into an X across his chest, embezzled with studs. At their intersection, a badge with a mysterious symbol catches the light and winks like a diamond. A black crown rested on his head, in addition to his black gloves. At the top of his tunic, he has a cerise green gem with a golden border, as he also wears tight black leggings and black shoes.
Slowly, Hiccup reached backward and thrust one hand into the flames. He didn't wince, but remained completely expressionless. Then stuck his other hand into the blaze. He lifted his hands above his head and held the fire as if it were a ball. Then he chucks the flames as hard as he could. Right at himself. Fire smashed into the oak behind him, igniting and racing down the trunk.
Hiccup laughs. A dark laugh, like Hadrian's but it wasn't Hadrian, and that's what gave Hiccup the shivers.
"No." Hiccup comes undone. "No, no, no, no, no, no." he fists his hair in his hands and falls to his knees. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening."
He looks up and sees himself brings his hands together – a small gap left between – and a small spark ignited, then grew into a ball of pure lightning. Small bolts twitching and growing larger as he raises it to the sky. The ball shoots an iridescent white beacon into the sky, and it ripped open. An unworldly, powerful bolt striking the remaining rubble of houses. The crack of the lighting ripping though Hiccup's ears.
He looks back to his Dad. "Dad, Dad please. I'm right here!"
Looking back to himself, he watches as he laughs. He fisted his hands and raises them up. Out of nowhere, thin spines materialize. Black and looking like icicles. If Hiccup squinted, he could see swirls of violet wisps waving around inside. There had to have been at least twenty. Hiccup scoots back, leveled with his father. With a flick of the wrist, they all point directly at his father.
"Time to hand over the throne old man." Hiccup growls.
Then swinging his hands forward, the shards launched with whiplash speed. They rained down like outstretched claws.
"No!" Hiccup wails.
He closed his eyes and blocked his face. The pain never came. He opened his eyes to see the world whir into an indefinite blur. Instead, he felt lighter. He was slipping backward, falling away. Dissolving.
The snap came like a punch to his gut.
Then his eyes flew open for a second time - his real eyes. He gasped, sucking in air as though he'd been drowning. He looked up and saw the clear blue sky poised above his head and he knew he was back in his body. Back at home.
He jerked up to a sitting position, the world spinning. He held his head as he found himself on a wooden table, soaking wet, drenched in his own sweat. The pain in his body came first, an intense surge of fire that raged like lave through his veins.
But it could not compare with what followed after.
A wail rose up from his depths. It felt like an inhuman cry.
'Hiccup!" Hiccup turns to find his dad, alive and clean, running towards him. "Are you all right?" he asks.
Hiccup's lip trembles, and he whimpers. "Dad?"
He brought his hand up to caress the rough, unsinged hairs of his father's beard. Stoick looked into Hiccup's eyes. A green abyss that looked like it went somewhere so far away he could never reach it. Stoick place a hand on Hiccup's shoulder. He could feel the bone beneath his tunic, and in that moment, he seemed like such a fragile thing.
Before Stoick could reply, Hiccup rushes out of the home and into the Square.
Everything was there.
Clean, bright, happy. Hiccup could hear Stoick call behind him. But he doesn't move.
Hiccup had barely turned around before falling to his knees, releasing his fear in petrified tears.