Happy Friday, everybody! I hope you've had a great week. There is fanart up at if you wanna take a peak (some Hiccup and Astrid, some Astrid and Snowdrop) and some I have yet to post. Tell me your favourite part and I will see if I can draw it! Unfortunately, the boyfriend lost my sketchbook at a Walmart so I've had to restart most, but there are some I managed to redo. See you next Friday!

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Outcasts

Astrid stirred long after the ships had docked, the back of her head pulsing painfully. Her cheek was cold against a hard slab of stone, and the walls echoed with sounds of droplets of water smacking the ground. Her body was sore, but not as sore as it should have been. She felt complete, yet unrested, and weakly pushed her body off the ground, bringing her knees under herself. She touched the back of her head, remembering the sound the rock made when Alvin cracked it over her skull, and found nothing there. She looked around herself slowly.

She was in a cell. At least, that what she thought it was at first glance. Stone walls met a stone ceiling, which hung over a stone floor. The door was a small hole in one of the walls, low to the ground, with a grate bolted around it. But water dripped down the walls onto the floor loudly, and dead vines clung to the stone dryly, crumbling to dust at Astrid's touch. It was a small pocket-cave within a cave, like a room within a house, and it had a small hole up high for sunlight to leak in. And she was trapped inside. She sat on the ground heavily, looking around her, the only light coming from the tiny door. She crawled towards it, dry-mouthed and hungry. She peered through it carefully. She didn't see anything but more stone, possibly to another room or a hallway, but there was no easy way to tell for sure.

"Don't get too close," a voice grunted. Astrid jumped and gasped, spinning around and wrenching a stiff muscle in her leg. Ruffnut was sitting in a dark nook of the cell, holding her arm with a pale hand, bags of blue under her eyes and her hair out of sorts. Her helmet was missing and bits of her armour were gone, her clothes underneath covered in what was dry and brown. She sported a huge bruise on her left cheek, red and purple and swollen. "They'll kick you if your face is too close to their boot."

Astrid crawled over to her, her hands slapping over frigid rock wet with musty water. Ruffnut's lips quivered as Astrid put a hand to her face, touching the uninjured cheek. "You're alright," she sighed gratefully.

"No, I'm not," Ruffnut scoffed. She moved her hand away from her arm to reveal a raw and ferocious gash – the one made by the hook that had captured her – and it continued to bleed slowly. Astrid wrinkled her nose. She looked down at herself, noticing the bandaged tied around her shoulder from Gobber.

"Here."

She untied it with stiff fingers and pulled it from herself. Ruffnut didn't say anything as Astrid wrapped the already-blood-covered fabric around her arm to stanch the bleeding. She only hissed as more pressure was tied around it. Astrid sat back and looked at her own shoulder, peeking through the hole in her shirt. The skin was clean and uninjured. At least she had that benefit. She looked around again, lips pursed.

"How long have we been here?" Astrid asked quietly.

"I lost count after three days," the twin replied. "You can't count by the sun because it gets too dark when it rains, and they don't feed you often enough to count the plates."

Astrid wrapped her arms around herself. She rested her forehead on her elbows and swallowed with difficulty. More than three days since Berk, where the village had been burned. She thought of Snowdrop waiting for her again, Hiccup realizing she was gone again, Stormfly's wing burnt and broken… And with her mind thinking of horrible things, it trailed off to her belly, where the baby should have been if nothing had happened. She never felt so empty. She couldn't even cry. She sat in silence with her eyes burning and her chest throbbing and her stomach flipping.

Ruffnut and Astrid sat in silence as they thought about their situations over and over before noise echoed up the hall. The two women straightened themselves upright as voices bellowed and gates opened, the squeal of metal on stone hurting their ears.

"Get up!" a man bellowed to the cell down the hall. Astrid and Ruffnut helped each other to their feet as their gate was unlocked and opened. "Out!" a burly man barked at them. He had to lean over to be seen through the tiny door. The tribal tattoos and the leanness of his legs showed he was a Berserker. Astrid didn't move and Ruffnut avoided eye contact. The man glared. "Are you deaf?"

Ruffnut shuddered. "Just go."

Astrid looked back and reluctantly stepped to the door, remembering she didn't have any weapons to protect herself with. They had been very careful in stripping the two of them of any sharp and hard objects. All Astrid had left was her riding suit stripped bare. Her pauldrons, her armoured skirt, everything else was gone. She swallowed and licked her bottom lip, feeling the poke of the Night Fury scale against her breast, tied under the safety of her suit. Ruffnut went first ahead of Astrid, crouching down and crawling out, struggling to get back to her feet once she made it into the hall. The Berserker made no move to help her out, and Astrid followed.

The moment she made it out of the cell, the soldier grabbed her and shoved her into the wall across of him. She hit the wall with her shoulder and grunted, and the man spat at her feet.

"Don't waste my time," the man growled. "Or you'll be out of it."

Astrid grimaced and held her shoulder, refusing to look at him before she joined the line of hostages forming in the hall. Each of them stood still as their ankles were cuffed and attached to a single line of heavy chain to keep them together. Anyone who stepped out of line would be seen as dozen of soldiers watched while they shuffled forward. Astrid wrinkled her nose and kept her head down. She focused on Ruffnut's back as they filed down the hall, noticing her surroundings.

The hall was wide and naturally made. The stone was smooth and worn, the walls high. The cells were all nestled in the hall, where the smell was foul and the cries of other prisoners were muffled and hushed. They walked on, poked and prodded to stay in pace, until the hall funneled into a massive cavern.

The cavern was one of the largest Astrid had been inside. Hundreds of dragons were trudging about, dragging wagons or carrying too many people through crowds of soldiers. The soldiers stayed in platoons, eyeing the new bunch of prisoners with sneers or grins as they made their way towards the back of the cavern. Some eyed them with a certain amount of fear. Astrid only flicked her eyes in a certain direction once, and she saw the face of someone she thought she recognized. It wasn't a recognition that came with a name, but it certainly came with a face, as if she had walked by them down a Berk path at some point or another. And she thought, if people from Berk – as Rose had said – were here, what stopped them from using them as soldiers against their own village? It wouldn't be beyond the Outcasts to do that. She found herself wondering if any Berk soldiers had killed their own long lost family members. She pushed that thought aside.

The line began to slow at the back of the cavern, where they walked down another hallway and far from the deafening rumble in the main cavern. The sheer size of this place, Astrid thought, was too much for them to make. It would have had to have been scavenged, and they were still installing torches and doors to the other caverns as they walked by. They were settling, preparing, she noted.

The line stopped at the mouth of the second hallway, where the line squeezed into a large round room. On one side of the room, Astrid and the other prisoners lined next to each other by the order of an angry and tired soldier. On the other side were the faces of their captors, and the sight of them made her skin crawl.

Alvin sat in a great wooden chair, slouching in it as if he was bored, poking at a hot meal and slurping at a horn of ale while Dagur picked at his teeth with his nail. Next to them was another handful of people Astrid didn't recognize. A woman with a stern face, eyes stormy and jaw clenched, stood away from the table with a hand on a shortsword at her hip and a plate of armour covering her breast. Then, a broad beast of a man stood close to Dagur, watching the hostages with a very suspicious eye.

Alvin perked up at the sight of Astrid and raised his hands.

"Ah! I've been waiting for this moment for a while now!" he mused. "Behold, my most prized collection. Dragon riders of Berk – along with some bakers and whatever – and some of the feistiest soldiers we've fought in a long time!"

He grinned even harder and stood, scanning the line thoroughly. "Oh aye… have we got some jobs for you."

Astrid looked down again. She didn't dare shift.

"So. Business," Alvin stated simply. "You folks are here to make a deal with me. You see, Outcast Island was too small a rock for us, and a little too… how would you say… oh, I don't know, the long and short of it is we lit it on fire and left it behind for a new home. A place where we wouldn't be Outcasts, a place of discipline and standard, a place where the power is brought back to our people."

Dagur rolled his eyes and slumped back, bored out of his mind.

"This little… alliance of yours failed in protecting you, and what I'm offering is protection in return for service. We have hundreds of people to feed, so we need people to hunt. We have dragons to raise for our soldiers, and people –" Alvin eyed Astrid, grazing her body with her eyes gently – "to raise them. I just don't have the time for that. We need boats, armies for protection, food, and we need people to do that for us."

Alvin nodded to himself and looked to the woman. "Birdsong here is who runs this place. She will sort you to your duties."

Alvin sat back down with a huff, returning to his food. The prisoners all eyed it enviously as Birdsong paced in front of them. She looked at each of them for a few moments before moving onto the next. She peered over Astrid with stoic curiosity, nodding to herself once before looking over Ruffnut. Her eyes lingered on the bandage around her arm.

"Alright," she murmured quietly. She stepped back and addressed the group. "There are many jobs to in this hellhole, and they need to be done right. Do them, and I feed you. Fail, and you die. It's a simple life here, keep that in mind."

Astrid bit the inside of her cheek, her aggression rising. Birdsong rolled her shoulders and counted on her fingers. "One, we need hunters for food. Two, soldiers for warfare. Three, labourers for our home. The jobs are much more specific, but you get the point. So… who are the dragon riders among you?"

There was a haunting silence from the other side of the room, the clink of the chain the only thing heard. No one wanted to step forward or reveal Astrid and Ruffnut, who stayed still and quiet. Birdsong glared and walked down the line again. Alvin sighed and Dagur rolled his eyes again. "The two blonde ones in the middle," Alvin growled, annoyed. Birdsong's eyes flicked over like an owl, locking onto Astrid and Ruffnut as if they were prey. She went to Astrid and grabbed her chin. Astrid hissed slightly as her face was wrenched into the torchlight, meeting Birdsong's eyes with a hateful stare. Birdsong's mouth twitched.

"Nice suit," Birdsong noted. "Dragon skin. Something I wouldn't expect from a Berkian."

"I didn't harvest it, if that's what you're implying," Astrid spat. Birdsong scoffed as the other prisoners shifted nervously.

"Did you make it?" Birdsong inquired.

"No," Astrid replied simply.

"Then who did?" she retorted sharply.

Astrid sneered, remembering how Alvin thought Hiccup was the one who took the Outcast Orchid instead of her. "Doesn't matter, you fucking poisoned him."

Birdsong pulled her hand away and slapped Astrid across the face. She gasped and stumbled, and Birdsong looked at her with a wrinkled nose. "You watch that mouth of yours, girl, or it'll be the Pit for you."

Astrid put a hand to her cheek gently and sucked in a breath. Birdsong looked to the rest. "Take this girl here as an example! For anyone who talks back, fights back, or insubordinates in anyway, you'll be thrown down to the Pit. I don't think I need to exaggerate when I say that no one comes back once they're sent."

Alvin and Dagur laughed at each other as Astrid's face burned. Dagur murmured something about the Pit with a smile on his mouth and his eyes thinking of seemingly pleasant thoughts. It made Astrid squirm to think that something like the Pit would bring him so much joy. Birdsong wiped her hand on her pants and snickered. "However… I know when to be wise in the face of immaturity. Hatchery for this one," Birdsong stated. "Need someone around here who knows dragons with how hard we've been working them. Don't make me regret it."

Alvin grunted. "This girl can fight," he interjected.

"Then it's good that she was stripped of her weapons, hmm?" Birdsong replied. Alvin nodded in agreement, muttering to Dagur who also nodded. Astrid hung her head sheepishly as Birdsong moved on, separating everyone to different areas. Many were sent to labour while others were soldiers. No one else was noted for the hatchery she noticed, and Ruffnut was left until last. Astrid looked over as Birdsong chewed her mouth in thought.

"Another dragon rider… What kind?" she asked.

"Zippleback," Ruffnut sniffed. Birdsong raised her eyebrows.

"A mischievous beast," Birdsong muttered. "Two heads. How?"

Ruffnut gulped. "My brother took the other half."

"And your brother…?"

Ruffnut didn't respond. Astrid felt cold as Ruffnut swallowed again, a bead of sweat trickling down her temple. Birdsong put a hand on her shoulder, at first to comfort, but then to inspect the wet bandage. "You're hurt," she noticed. "Probably infected by the look of it."

Alvin straightened his back. "We're not wasting any more medical supplies on rats, Birdsong."

Birdsong looked back to him. "She's a dragon rider," she argued. "Not a terribly disposable person."

"Don't care," Alvin barked. "Save it for my troops. Some of them took a beating and I don't want an Outcast to die in place of a Berkian."

Birdsong turned slowly, staring Alvin down. "Then what do you suggest we do with her?"

Dagur cleared his throat. "I'd be open to an arrangement."

Ruffnut stiffened and the chain around her ankles scraped along the floor horrendously. Astrid jumped and grabbed onto her, partly to steady her and partly to protect her. Birdsong looked back at them and gave them a look.

"I need a shieldmaiden," he continued. "And if she can find the herbs herself for her arm, she can have them."

"No," Ruffnut spat. "No way."

Dagur smiled and Alvin shrugged again. Birdsong pursed her lips painfully and opened them to speak. Alvin raised his hand to her. "Done. If you can find a use, then do it. I don't care."

Dagur chuckled and gestured to the man next to him, who stepped over to Ruffnut. She scrambled back, Astrid crying out as the man grabbed the chain around her feet, pulling it from under her. She fell to the ground and the man hoisted her up. He unclamped the chain from her ankles and pulled her free. Other soldiers grabbed onto other prisoners, dragging them into various hallways. Birdsong grabbed onto Astrid and tore her from Ruffnut.

"No!" Astrid shrieked, kicking up and wriggling in Birdsong's arms. Ruffnut tried to twist out of the bodyguard's grip, looking back to Astrid with wide, red eyes. "Ruffnut!"

"Astrid!" she screamed back. Birdsong hauled Astrid out of the room with surprising strength, dragging her down the hallway and away from Ruffnut.

"Let me go, you bitch!" Astrid screamed. Birdsong clamped a hand over her mouth. The hallway they walked down became darker and darker, and Astrid became weaker and weaker, sobbing and growling as Birdsong pulled her deeper into the caverns. She opened another cell, this one devoid of any light with a thick wooden door, and shoved Astrid inside. Astrid stumbled to her knees. Birdsong entered the cell with her and slammed the door shut. Astrid turned to her and scurried back. Birdsong drew her sword and pointed it at her. Astrid glared.

"The suit," Birdsong muttered. "Take it off."

"Fuck you," Astrid spat. "And Alvin, and Dagur, and all you murderers!"

Birdsong rumbled in her chest and closed the distance between them faster than a falcon, pushing Astrid against the wall and gnashing her teeth in her face.

"Shut. Up," she whispered. Astrid stared at her with defiance. Birdsong was so close to her face now, her grip like iron. "Forget about your friend. Forget about Berk. Forget about your dragon. It won't help you. This place will eat you whole if you aren't careful. Choose your enemies wisely, or you'll join your friend. And I'm sure you would rather work beside a man than under him, so take this as a warning. Either take the suit off and give it to me or I'll get someone else to do it for you."

She stepped away and Astrid huddled by the wall, unmoving at first as tears spilled over her face. She almost didn't do it, almost spat in her face, but the cold in her belly made her break. She shakily unbuckled her belt and threw it at Birdsong's boots, the buckles scraping across the floor loudly. Then, the buckles that closed over her chest were pulled open one by one, revealing a stained shirt underneath. Her vest, her slacks, and her boots were soon at Birdsong's feet, Astrid wearing nothing but her shirt an a pair of loose shorts. She shivered in the dark as Birdsong collected the pieces. Astrid remembered the time Hiccup had spent building it and sewing it to fit her, hilariously forgetting to leave room for her breasts the first time. And now Birdsong had it in her fist, a smirk on her face.

Birdsong left the cell, shutting the door and locking it. Astrid felt her blood burn.

Ruffnut was gone. It had been days, she had no way of telling, since she had seen Hiccup. She ran to the door and she pushed against it, then pulled. It was locked too tight to move. She screamed, slamming into the door over and over as the hall grew too silent for sanity.

"You'll never win!" Astrid screamed. "They will come after us! They will make you pay!"

She slammed her fists into the door over and over, screaming and crying until her hands grew sore. She pressed her forehead to the door and slid down it, falling into a pile on the cold dark stone. She wrapped her arms around herself and found herself thinking about different ways to tear people apart, sobbing to herself, clutching at the Night Fury scale around her throat.

"I'm sorry," she cried to the scale in her fist. "I'm sorry I fought with you, I'm sorry I argued. I didn't know it would be the last time –"

She choked on the words and curled onto herself even tighter, as if she would disappear into the floor if she tried hard enough.

Hours later – or maybe years – Astrid was surrounded by flowers. A meadow bright and fertile, smelling of life and flowers. She sat up in the field and looked around. She noticed dragons walking around as if dazed, curling up among the flowers and snoozing and rolling around. She felt a flutter in her chest at the sight of something so happy, so safe. She looked up and saw an endless sky, day turning into night and night turning into stars. She walked through the flowers, feeling the long grass as she combed through it with her fingers.

She wouldn't remember this place when she woke up, but it didn't matter at the time. Her dragonblood warmed her endlessly as she walked onward in the field, walking towards something and nothing all at once, her dreamland offering her a moment of peace.