Another surprise update! Thank you for the awesome reviews, I'm glad you enjoy Snowdrop as much as I do!
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Traitors
"I'm sorry, I can't do it," the man stammered as Rose stared at him with an annoyed glance.
"Why not?" Rose asked. "Berk is in dire need of supplies. Our people have been taken from us, and our trader is no where to be found."
"I already told you!" replied the little fat bald man sitting across from her. "Dagur and Alvin have strictly forbidden any of our people to travel north within alliance borders. He told us nothing was up there, it would just be a waste of our own resources."
"Why do you think you have been forbidden to travel to a place you think is abandoned?" Rose stared at the man accusingly. "I'm living proof it wasn't entirely abandoned. There are young mothers with babies on that island with little food or water!"
"P-Please don't use women and children to guilt me into helping you, I already told you I won't! I have my own people to protect!"
"How many of those were already taken?"
The man opened his mouth to reply, but made no sound. She had hit a nerve. She leaned forward and took a deep breath, her makeshift riding suit creaking gently.
"My mother is there. She's been there for fifteen years. Hiccup's wife, the woman who will bear the heir to the alliance, has been there for almost three moons. So who did you lose?"
"I'm sorry?" the man replied.
"You lost someone. Your wife? Your son? Your daughter?"
The man looked away and swallowed painfully. "Well, I don't think that is any of your business."
Rose stood, shoving her chair into the wall behind her legs. "It is my business!" she yelled at him. He jumped and cowered as she sneered at him. "I am the one flying in there to get them out before the next moon, I'm gonna be the one who get that special someone out of that hellhole! So unless you want me to save him or her, you're gonna send one of your hundreds of ships north to Berk under the protection of two of our dragon riders."
The man looked up slowly and glowered up at Rose. "My niece. She was seven. They didn't take her, they slaughtered her."
"Then help me avenge her death," Rose encouraged. "I ask for something small in return for something huge. Food, water, leather, weapons, and soldiers. I have ample payment and protection."
"And what about Hiccup? You claim he is alive and yet I have not seen proof."
"The only way this works is if Dagur and Alvin believe Hiccup is dead. If they were to ask you about him, you can say you never saw him. You'd be telling the truth. But I can assure you, Hiccup and his Night Fury are, indeed, alive and willing to fight."
"And how many people do you have supporting you on this insane venture?"
"We have about two-hundred, actually," Rose replied, thinking the numbers in her head. The man raised both his eyebrows in surprise, and for the first time in their conversation, he leaned forward, intrigued. "Most are from small fishing villages, but all of them are willing to fight for the cause. If we can take Dagur and Alvin out, the trade routes will be free, along with all the people they have taken and kept as slaves."
The man pondered the idea reluctantly. But after a few more questions and answers, he accepted Rose's offer, taking a large pouch of coin she had taken from the Great Hall chests. He agreed to send supplies along with any soldier who wanted to fight, while swearing under a new alliance, an alliance purely catered towards the overthrowing of the Berserkers and the Outcasts. After two weeks of flying and rounding up supporters, they were ready to return home.
Rose left the hall, nodding to various people as she did so. Stingbreath waited outside for her, and when she mounted her and took off, she heard the villagers gasp in awe. It was a clear message: dragon riders were still alive, and were willing to fight for them. Rose flew onwards behind the village towards the empty forest behind. Hiccup, Snotlout, Cauli, Netmug, and Fishlegs waved to her as she landed.
"He's accepted, that's the last of them!" she exclaimed as she hopped off her Changewing.
"Great," Hiccup replied happily. "The ships should be arriving in a few days' time. If we go now, we can beat them and greet them at the docks."
He mounted Toothless quickly and the riders took off, ascending straight up into the protection of the clouds.
We are one step closer to getting our Astrid back, Toothless thought proudly as he spun and twirled in the sky. The gods are on our side in this battle, I can feel it.
Blurry shadows, visions made out of loose shapes and muffled sounds, slowly brought Barb back to consciousness. Mouth dry and head pounding, she groaned and tried to open her eyes. What happened? She had been flying her Scauldron in the storm, she was right behind Netmug when they had been separated by flashes of lightning. Rose told her to fly home, but…
Barb craned her neck to look at her surroundings, her head aching and her wrists throbbing. When she tried to pull her hands towards her face, her hands were stopped. Metal chains sang out a terrifying song when she tried again. Her wrists were secured with bloody iron shackles that dug into her skin. She blinked and looked back and forth frantically, pulling against the chains again.
She was on a ship, she realized with dismay. Captured and trapped beneath the deck of a very large warship. She tried to stand but cried out when she tried to stand on her leg. Her knee was swollen, violet and navy swirls encircling it. Desperate, she pulled against the chains again and again, trying to break the chain from the wall to no avail.
A small, pathetic croak from behind made her looked over her shoulder fearfully. Her Scauldron was in the trap with her, chains around her body and mouth. She was looking a sickly shade of grey, the need for water clear upon her tortured face.
"Wavebreaker," Barb whimpered. The Scaldron huffed and groaned again. "Hey!" she screamed up through the trap's grid door. "My dragon needs water!"
No one responded. But she heard dozens of pairs of heavily clad feet stomp above her. None came to her aid as she huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth, praying to the gods as the ship sailed north.
It took what felt like days for the ship to reach its destination. In that time, Barb had been thrown a tiny skin of water an a single hunk of stale bread. They gave a bucket of rain water to Wavebreaker, just enough to stanch her thirst, if that. When the ship stopped, men opened the trap doors fully and jumped down, grabbing Barb and attaching Wavebreaker to a pulley as they dragged Barb onto the docks. She screamed and kicked as they did so, but a swift punch to the gut shut her up. When she was doubled over in agony, she looked over and saw the painted Skrill upon one man's leather jerkin. She blanched as they shoved her forward. Her knee gave out and she tumbled into the wood of the docks.
"Get up!" one Berserker ordered.
The man wrenched her up with one hand and dragged her off the docks and towards the main hall. She hobbled to keep up, but the soldier half-dragged her down a series of halls. People parted, and she did a double-take whenever she saw a familiar face, someone from her village, but the soldier never stopped. He marched her up a main hallway towards a large set of wooden doors furnished with iron casting. Outcast guards opened the doors, and Alvin greeted Barb with a sly grin.
Her eyes widened and she struggled against the soldier, who shoved her forward one more time. She fell in a heap at Alvin's feet, who leaned forward from his chair with a sly grin upon his scarred face, his missing teeth sending Barb into a state of panic. Her eyes flicked over to Dagur, who was sharpening a knife on a whetstone beside Alvin, and she shakily looked over to the woman on the other side of Alvin. The woman waved the soldier who had brought Barb in away and the guards shut the doors behind him. Barb trembled as she looked up at the three leaders in front of her.
"Barb of the southern tribes within the alliance," the woman stated coldly. "Welcome to the Underground."
Barb didn't say anything. She merely vibrated like a dry leaf in the wind. Alvin licked his chapped lips and gave a small grunt in thought. Dagur peered over to Alvin with a disgusted look in his face.
"You told me you dealt with the alliance," he growled. "Why is the leader of one of the tribes still alive?"
"My men claim she was caught in the storm," the woman replied. "She was riding a Scauldron."
"A dragon rider?!" Dagur hissed. Alvin hushed him with a hand.
"I want to make a deal with you," he told Barb with another horrible grin. "You see, when I culled your pathetic alliance and purged the lands of you traitorous filth, I thought for sure that everyone would have starved by now. But here you are. I trust your father enjoyed the gift I sent him?"
Barb looked up, clenching her teeth. The memory of her father choking to death as the poison burned his insides was still scorched on the backs of her eyelids.
"You bastard," she spat.
Alvin laughed a long, wheeze-riddled laugh. He clapped and pretended to wipe a tear with his index finger. Barb's eyes burned with hateful tears as Alvin calmed himself down.
"What were you doing in the storm?" he asked, still tittering.
Barb didn't say anything. She seethed slowly, her hair covering her face and her green eyes fixed on the stones in front of her. Her head throbbed as terror, anger, hatred, damnation filled every crevice of her small, frail body.
"Alvin asked you a question!" the woman barked.
"You'll just kill me," Barb whispered.
"Well, if you tell me everything I need to know, I won't," Alvin simply said. "How about that?"
Barb hid behind her curly brown hair, and kept her mouth clamped shut. She didn't want to die. She was a coward. She didn't want to die.
"Nothing?" Alvin asked. "Birdsong, throw her into the Sun Sap. Maybe after her legs have been melted off, she'll reconsider talking."
"No, no, wait!" Barb cried. "I-I don't want to die, I'll… I'll talk."
"What were you doing in the storm?" Alvin asked, firmer this time.
"I-I was flying to the south!"
"From where?" Birdsong interjected.
"…Berk. I left Berk. I was trying to find my way back, I don't remember anything else."
"Are there other survivors?" Dagur asked, standing, fists clenched. Barb cowered even harder, shrill breaths burning her throat.
"Yes…"
"Who?"
"They have most of their riders except for the two girls."
Dagur glared over at Alvin, who was doing the math in his head. "And Hiccup. We killed him, too."
Barb's eyes widened again and she averted her gaze. Dagur descended the steps and grabbed Barb by the throat, lifting her. She choked and clawed at his hand as he spat in her face.
"What about Hiccup?" he growled, giving her a shake. "The poison we planted on the island, it killed him!"
"N-No!" Barb gasped. Dagur howled out in rage and hurled Barb like a rag doll into the steps. There was a loud crack, and Barb curled up in a ball, air barely able to reach her lungs. Birdsong ran between her and Dagur.
"That's enough!" Birdsong barked.
"You told me you killed him!" Dagur screamed at Alvin. "You assured me he wouldn't be an issue!"
Barb coughed and spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone.
"There was a wake," Alvin growled. "A huge wake!" He rolled Barb over and gave her a little shake. She whimpered as blood trickled from her mouth. She couldn't breathe, her right side aching. "Who did the poison kill, then? Stoick?"
"A-Astrid," she wheezed. "Stoick lives."
"That's impossible," Birdsong interjected. "Astrid is alive and is our prisoner. Alvin, this girl is rattling nonsense, she's wasting our time."
Alvin hushed Birdsong with a shake of his hand. "How? No one survives our Outcast Orchid."
"She – she was bonded to her dragon. Someone did some ritual, she woke up after the wake."
"Nonsense!" Birdsong sneered. "She is sputtering nothing but fairytales, probably disillusioned by lack of water."
"I'm telling the truth!" Barb struggled to say. "It saved her, she can even hear her dragon in her mind. Hiccup has the same thing! He can hear his Night Fury in his mind, he – he can heal faster than anything I have ever seen!"
"Enough!" Alvin yelled. "Guards, get this lunatic out of my sight! I want her thrown into the Pit, I want her culled before any of her people discover her existence!"
"Wait, no!" Barb begged. "I'm telling the truth! You have to believe me!"
The doors swung open and the guards stepped around Dagur, grabbing Barb by the arms.
"You promised!" she shrieked, blood framing her teeth. "You promised!"
"I promised that if you told me the truth, I would spare you."
"He's gonna kill you all!" she cried as the guards carried her out. "The Saviour is coming for you!" Her screams eventually gargled off as her lung began filling with blood again, and the doors slammed shut. Alvin threw his helmet across the room and Dagur seethed at him while Birdsong peered between the two.
"Great job, Alvin!" Dagur yelled. "I agreed to help you only after you promised me you would deal with Hiccup!"
"I thought I had," Alvin replied. "That damned name, again! Saviour! Every night I find the words written in blood, Saviour this and Saviour that! I'm worried about a rebellion, now Hiccup is alive?! And he's the Saviour?!"
"If I may," Birdsong interjected. Dagur made a face, but Alvin acknowledged her. "If Hiccup is indeed alive, then he would have tried to infiltrate us by now. He must think we still have his wife; word has not leaked from the Underground that we have already killed her."
"What do you suggest I do? The sea is too treacherous for the Berserker ships, how do you expect us to stop him?!"
Alvin wrinkled his nose. "They were trying to fly south. Probably trying to round up supplies or resources. Which is not good news for us."
"I'm not finished," Birdsong interrupted. She pursed her lips, thinking about Ruffnut. After sailing out weeks ago with no word back about her arrival, she assumed the worst. "Dagur, for once, is right. The sea is too dangerous this time of year. Our dragon trappers all know this; their ships are the only ones equipped for something like that and Dagur's ships are too cumbersome for a journey. But our trappers were sent out weeks ago and are not due to arrive for another few weeks. However, I don't think a boat is necessary."
Alvin closed the distance between them. "What are you saying?"
Birdsong smirked. "I have been working close with Wildling, learning her secrets. I think after fourteen years in the Hatch, I'd know a thing or two myself about dragons. Let me ride to Berk and scout it out. No middle-man, and I know the area well. I can get there and back in a week's time."
"If there was a problem, they'd shoot you out of the sky," Alvin retorted.
"Not the dragon I'll be riding. I can stay above the clouds. This is just a preemptive step; you'd of course want to send out troops as soon as the storm season passes. The sailors and traders believe there will be quiet seas once the moon turns. That will be more than enough time for me to go there and return, and for you to properly prepare to attack once more, to purge the rest of the Berkians before the snow sets in."
"You really think this woman is capable?" Dagur snorted towards Alvin.
Birdsong scoffed at him and looked him up and down. "You two wouldn't get close to a dragon without it killing you. These creatures do, in fact, trust people, so I think after fifteen years in the Hatch, I'm a step ahead of you."
Alvin stepped between them and grabbed Birdsong's arms. He looked into her eyes. "You really think think this is the right thing to do?" he asked her quietly, cutting Dagur out of the conversation.
"I don't think there is another way," she replied gently.
"You won't let your past cloud your judgement?"
Birdsong smiled gently and she rested a hand on Alvin's cheek, but the memory came back to her mind as clear as the night it had happened:
It was dark. Clouds hung over Berk, and fire reflected off the heavy clouds sinisterly. Valka ran up the hill as fast as she could; Stoick had run off to defend the villagers. She rushed into her house, knowing she was being followed. She threw the door shut behind her and found Hiccup trying to look out the window.
"Hiccup!"
He jumped violently and a little shrill gasp whistled into his tiny body. Valka wrapped her long fingers around his wrist and pulled him to the stairs. He tripped as he tried to keep up.
"Mama, what's going on?" Hiccup asked her. She didn't say anything as she ran up the stairs two at a time. She flew into the bedroom and let go of Hiccup, waving to the wall.
"Go to the bed," she barked. She grabbed the heavy door and slammed it shut. Hiccup backed away towards the wall, his heart racing. Valka whirled from the door and ran to the bed, beckoning Hiccup to follow her. She grabbed the bed frame and pulled back, grunting and straining against the weight. It scraped against the floor as it moved away from the wall. Something crashed against the door and Valka snapped her head around at the startling crash. Hiccup huddled behind her. "Mama?"
Valka turned quickly, grabbing Hiccup again. "Hush now my darling," she said quickly. "Get behind the bed, move!"
Hiccup whimpered. "Why?"
"To keep you safe," she said, pushing him into the space. Hiccup crawled under the bed and looked up at her tearfully.
"I'm scared," he admitted. Valka grabbed her sword from her belt and unsheathed it, looking to the door. She looked back at him.
"Don't be, my sweet. Everything will be alright. Just – just stay behind the bed and don't let anyone see you."
"Are there dragons?" Hiccup asked. Valka shook her head quickly, her wide green eyes looking into his identical ones, her breaths ragged and quick.
"No, they're people, mean and evil people."
Hiccup didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
The thing smashed against the door again and Valka tore away from Hiccup. Hiccup reached after her.
"Wait mama!" he cried.
The door flew open and Hiccup cowered back, peeking under the bed as he shook like a leaf.
He didn't recognize the man he saw standing there, panting and sweating, grinning through his broken teeth.
"Alvin," Valka breathed. She backed away, sneering and putting herself between the bed and the enemy.
"Did you miss me?" he asked. Valka spat at his feet. Alvin frowned. "Now why would you do that?"
"Should I start with the raid or something else?" Valka asked coldly. Alvin scoffed.
"Trivial things," he said with a shrug. "Stoick would understand." He glared at Valka and wrinkled his nose.
"Is this what this is all about?!" Valka shrieked.
"I don't know what you mean, love," Alvin sighed. "If you mean being exiled to a hostile wasteland with nothing but a pair of boots, then yes. If you mean being exiled because I raised my voice against your marriage, then yes."
"You didn't raise your voice, you started killing people," Valka retorted. "And I'll remind you that I didn't choose Stoick and I didn't choose you. It was written and it will never change."
Alvin growled. "It was my right!"
"Your right?!" Valka gasped. "You lost any right to any claim when you betrayed our people and threatened their lives. Give it up."
"No!" Alvin roared. Valka jumped back and Hiccup covered his ears. Alvin stormed forward. "I will never give it up! I will always come back, I will always remind you of what you've done to me, of what he's done to me!"
Valka put up her sword and Alvin knocked it out of her hands with the back of a gloved fist. He grabbed her wrist and wrenched it over. She cried out and Alvin turned her body around and wrenched her arm up. She grunted as he pulled harder and harder, breathing into her ear.
"You can tell me all you want to give it up, but I have no intention to," he rumbled. Hiccup looked up at his mother from under the bed, who locked eyes with him. She tried to motion to him to conceal himself, but Alvin paused. He was looking at Hiccup.
He threw Valka to the side and hoisted the bed up. Valka screamed as Alvin grabbed Hiccup's hair and pulled him into the air. Hiccup shrieked and kicked and Alvin stared at him wriggling in his hands. Valka cried, covering her mouth, dropping to her knees.
"Is this… yours?" Alvin asked slowly. He turned to Valka, who refused to look away.
"Put him down, please put him down!"
"Your son?" Alvin asked hoarsely. "You have a son?"
Valka gritted her teeth. "He has nothing to do with this, please put him down!"
"Mama!" Hiccup shrieked. Something in Alvin's eyes flickered – hatred, rage – and he stared at Valka with a furious torment behind his face.
"Funny how you've suddenly gone so soft," Alvin grunted. He tightened his grip in Hiccup's hair, and he sobbed and kicked. Valka gasped and scrambled to her feet. Alvin grabbed a dagger from his belt and brandished it under Hiccup's throat. Hiccup squirmed and Valka froze.
"Baby, don't move!" she screamed. Hiccup stopped the best he could, sobbing and neck throbbing. Alvin smiled.
"I have… your whole world in the palm of my hand, don't I?" he asked. Valka didn't take her eyes off Hiccup. "I could destroy you… right now."
"No, please!" she cried. Alvin shook his head and pressed the knife against Hiccup's skin. Valka tensed and jumped forward.
"Take me!"
Alvin stopped and looked at her. He blinked and scowled. "What?"
Valka broke down slowly, breathing deeply and face contorting into miserable pain. "I'll go with you. I'll go wherever you go, I'll be with you for all eternity, just let him go!"
The Outcast leader stared at her. Valka pleaded with him, a hand over her belly and the other reaching out to him.
"I promise, I'll never run from you, I'll be with you always."
Alvin paused. He looked at Hiccup and Valka a couple times before tilting his chin at her. "You give me your word?"
"Every word I know, I'll give," she promised.
"And you're mine?" he asked.
Valka sobbed and bit her lip, tears falling over her cheeks. "Yes."
Alvin dropped Hiccup. His knees buckled and his face smashed into the wood of the floor, his chin bouncing off the wood violently. Valka screamed and ran over to him, but Alvin grabbed her waist and threw her over his shoulder. The room began spinning around Hiccup, pain ebbing from a small cut on his chin to the back of his head, darkness crawling over him like a spider crawling over its prey.
"Hiccup!" Valka screamed. "Hiccup!"
Birdsong didn't waver as she smiled affectionately into Alvin's eyes. "My past is dead. I hardly remember. You saved me from Stoick. You saved me from the responsibility I had never wanted. I've always wanted to repay you for saving me, and this is the way I want to do it."
Alvin smiled into her hand and kissed it, holding against his scarred face.
"I love you," Birdsong continued. She softly kissed him and Dagur groaned, turning his back to the couple. "I'll be back before you know it, and I'll return your queen."
Alvin nodded and held Birdsong against him. "Be quick. I can hardly last a day without you."
Birdsong pulled away and gave him a nod before spinning on her heel and leaving the room. When the door was shut behind her, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, vowing to herself that she would never let that man touch her again.
In the Hatch, she found Astrid and dragged her into Stargazer's chambers, away from everyone except the three of them.
"The Scauldron they brought in had a saddle!" Astrid said after Valka shut the door. She ran up to Valka, but she was rummaging through cupboards and chests. "Did you catch a rider?"
"She almost ruined everything!" Valka hissed as she she stuffed a water skin into her satchel. "Barb told them everything about Hiccup and the bond. They're preparing another attack."
Stargazer and Astrid quieted as Valka rubbed her forehead. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing her braid.
"They caught Barb as she was heading to the southern tribes. She told them about the bond, about the poison – they're going to send more troops to scout the island. I managed to convince them to let me fly ahead."
Astrid helped Valka gather supplies. "Take me with you," she said quickly.
"No. If they see me smuggling you out, they'll send the ships out early. I managed to convince them to hold out for a little while, but that's nothing –"
"But why are they letting you go?" Astrid asked.
Valka sighed angrily and grabbed Astrid's arms. Panting, she looked at each of Astrid's eyes, trying to find the right words to say. She growled and shook her head.
"I have spent my entire fourteen years here posing as Alvin's lover," she confessed. Astrid lips parted as she tried to understand, disgust making the corners of her mouth twitch. "Fourteen shameful years that I am not proud of, all getting ready for this moment. But Alvin trusts me more than any other person, and I am not above betraying that man's trust. I have to warn Hiccup and Rose before Alvin makes the first strike. I will send Hiccup and Rose to the dreamland, as you told me about, when I get there. You three will make a plan."
She snatched the last of the supplies she needed and opened the door roughly. Astrid flew after her, trying to keep up, as Valka ran back towards the Hatch.
"What am I supposed to do?" Astrid asked, her voice breaking.
Valka marched through the main hall of the Hatch. "Stay in the Hatch. Stay out of sight. Do not continue spreading word about the Saviour. Alvin knows who the Saviour is and I can't risk your life when I can't be here to protect you if you were to be caught. Barb only said you had the bond, not about your ties. Luckily, the idea of the bond is so ridiculous, Dagur and Alvin immediately rejected it."
"So we're just gonna stop trying?" Astrid asked through a strained whisper as they passed the other slaves of the Hatch. "I've barely regained my weight, I'm no where near ready!"
"Everyone, evacuate to your cells!" Valka commanded. "I'm bringing a rogue through here!"
Valka pulled her hood over her head as she and Astrid entered the hall leading to the male breeding dragons. Deprived of light, food, and water, the tortured creatures hissed and groaned as they passed. No women of child-bearing age were permitted around the male dragons, an insane rule enforced by Dagur to build up the creatures' angst before a Pit fight. Astrid followed hesitantly as Valka stormed forward, muttering under her breath.
"We shouldn't be down here," Astrid murmured quickly as she peered fearfully into the cells holding broken, injured, and hyper male dragons in chains.
"No," Valka responded sardonically. "Only Dagur's men and myself are allowed down here, because apparently, women set the male dragons into a frenzy." She turned around and walked backwards while looking at the ceiling. "Look at these rooms! The walls, the floors, the fire rooms, everything! You think Dagur and Alvin chose to spend time making the stone smooth?"
"You keep bringing this up!" Astrid remarked. "I'm trying to understand, but –"
Valka turned once more and continued her way down the hall, shaking her head and throwing her hands in the air in frustration.
"Tell me! What is it about this place that concerns you so much?"
Look harder.
Astrid stumbled and grabbed the wall next to her for support. A sudden wave of nausea battered her gut and she gasped for a breath. The voice reverberated through her mind from back to front, make her vision flip onto itself. She grabbed her belly and a sweat began to bead on her forehead. Her blood grew hot.
You are blind… to our world?
Astrid slowly, shakily, looked into the cell across the hall from her. Her hair fell into her face, and she closed her eyes, wincing. Visions of Whispering Deaths chained up behind the walls that surrounded her. They were all trying to speak to her, but their minds, fragmented, were too weak. The sound, the connection, disappeared.
"Come along, keep up!" Valka exclaimed. Astrid took a deep breath and push onwards, the halls spinning around her.
They made it to the last cell of the hall. Valka pulled her keys from her belt and deftly unlocked it. She heaved the door open and revealed the dragon. Astrid had never seen the kind before, but she marvelled at its strange beauty. Valka's face had let go of all her stress. It had been replaced by a gentle expression. She clicked her tongue, and the dragon opened its huge, yellow eyes, framed by the horns that protruded from its forehead. It looked like an owl, and it cocked its head to either side as Valka handed the keys to Astrid.
"Unlock his chains. He will not harm you."
Astrid hesitated, but she moved towards the mysterious dragon and unlocked the huge iron lock that connected every chain together. The lock popped open and the chains fell the floor with a liberating song of metal against stone, and the dragon unfurled his wings.
"This is a Stormcutter, the last of his kind," Valka mused as she raised a hand to him. He rested his face in her hand and blew air through his throat. "We found each other just after Rose was born, a hostage of Alvin when he first began trapping dragons. I have been taking care of him since then.
The Stormcutter glared up at Astrid, who stared back in amazement. "You… trained a dragon?"
"I trusted him," she replied. "Back on Berk, I always felt the hunt for the nest's queen was foolish. I always knew the killing of dragons was unnecessary, something Stoick and I always disagreed upon. I run the Hatch because of this creature, and I have tried to protect as many as I can since then." She raised an eyebrow and smiled slyly at Astrid. "Finding out my son and daughter both took after me… well, I suppose Stoick can afford to be the black sheep in one aspect of his life."
She looked back up to her dragon. "Cloudjumper, we're leaving. I must fly to my family to warn them of what's coming."
The sky… I haven't seen it… in years.
Astrid repeated him for Valka, who nodded slowly. "Let us escape. Together."
She grabbed one of Cloudjumper's horns and the beast lifted her off the floor, swinging her onto his back. She looked to Astrid and thought for a moment.
"The Underground was not built by man, Astrid," she said slowly. Astrid blinked, her heart beginning to beat faster. "It was here thousands of years before we sailed here and claimed it as our own. Every hall. Every room. Smoothed over time, far away from the selfishness of man."
Astrid looked behind Valka to the rest of the cell, and as if smoke were being blown away by a strong wind, the truth became clear, clear and horrifying. Valka nodded coldly and sternly as Astrid's lips parted with the realization. The halls were too grand to have been built by Dagur and Alvin, even with their men and slaves, like the smoothed rocks at the bottom of the Berkian cliffside.
"Wait, you mean –"
"A nest," Valka said bleakly. "We are living as trespassers in one of the largest known dragon nests in the world. And it makes me wonder… if this is indeed a nest, then where is its queen?"