A/N: Big thanks to Feste the Fool for being my beta!
When Astrid and Rædwit finally made it down to the cells, Hiccup was unsteadily pulling the door shut on the unconscious guards he'd left inside.
"Astrid!" He looked extremely relieved as he turned toward them and tried to take a step. He promptly fell on his face.
Rædwit rushed forward and helped pry him up.
"Idiot," Astrid said fondly, and helped him up on the night fury's back. "What did they do with your leg?" She asked, and more alarmed: "Why are you covered in blood? Are you hurt?"
"No, it's not mine, and I have no idea," He told her. "They took the leg after… after they killed Toothless."
"But I thought he was alive!" Astrid said, suddenly alarmed. Rædwit nudged her up as she climbed back up on his neck.
"He is," Rædwit explained.
"But… just now he said that they killed him!"
"They did. It was a rather complicated feat, really," Rædwit chuckled uneasily.
Astrid looked at Hiccup, confused. He shrugged. Supposing they'd have time to discuss the details later, Hiccup changed the subject. "Where is Toothless? My dad?"
"Stoick is taking care of the guards. Well, some of them," Astrid told him. "I think he was headed toward the deck."
Hiccup nodded. "And Toothless?"
"I did not see Toðleas. He could be anywhere on the ship."
It was hardly ideal, not knowing where anyone was, but then, Hiccup was used to coming up with stupid plans on the fly. "Alright, well, we need to release the rest of the dragons, cause some confusion." An explosion sounded from somewhere above their heads. "Well, more confusion."
"What?" Astrid looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "Hiccup, those dragons are wild - you can't tame them all with a snap of your fingers."
"I know. That's why I was hoping…" He glanced down at the night fury they rode one. "Rædwit, am I wrong in thinking that night furies have some sort of command over dragons in general?"
"Not entirely wrong, no. Night furies are quite powerful, we enjoy a certain level of… persuasiveness for the fact. We can even become alphas, or so our lore tells us. Why?"
At this point in his life, Hiccup was not sure what an alpha was. He did, however, know that it sounded powerful and they would need that sort of power to get out of here with any semblance of order. He glanced up at the rows of dragon cells as the approached. "Because I'm going to need you to be pretty bossy in a minute."
A few decks above, Stoick was squabbling with the other guards. It really was a squabble, not an actual fight. Even with five mates by his side, the strongest of Lech's guards wasn't a match for an angry, vengeful, and protective Viking chief. There was one man left. The rest were lying around them, either unconscious or dead, and Stoick had a forearm braced underneath the chin of the last guard.
"Where are our weapons?" He asked. The guard knew that this was hopeless, but shook his head anyway. Stoick pressed harder. "You're going to fall asleep on that floor in about five seconds. If you tell me where you've put our weapons, you'll be able to get up again. Where?"
The guard swallowed and glared and glanced at his fallen colleagues. He lifted a finger and pointed. Stoick glanced in the same direction, noting the cells of cargo down the corridor, similar to the one in which he and Astrid had been imprisoned. "Thanks," he growled sarcastically, drew back a fist, and punched. The guard slumped unconscious to the ground. Stoick paused long enough to bind his hands behind his back before crossing the room to the cargo holds.
He found a ring of keys on the belt of one of the incapacitated guards and dug through each of the cargo cells until he found what he was looking for. His sword, Astrid's axe, Toothless' pack, and… oh no. Stoick retrieved Hiccup's prosthetic leg from the heap and frowned. It was covered in blood.
"Hiccup!" Stoick charged down the hall, shouting. He shouted down hallways, around corners. Hauling weapons and packs on his back, Stoick searched every dark hallway for his son, for Astrid, anyone he knew.
Then he came upon the cell block, and was slightly alarmed to see that every last dragon cell door hung ajar. As if on cue, a cacophony of shrieks, growls, and yells. The dragons. Every last one of them was loose on the ship. Even with two friendly dragons and two teens who spoke dragonese, Stoick couldn't help it.
"Oh, hel," He cursed.
Toothless was having an interesting time of it above deck. Lech hadn't been this mad since Toothless had turned up. He was spitting and baring teeth and gripping his sword so the veins in his arms popped, but he was not stupid enough to face a Night Fury on his own. His men were too terrified to do his dirty work, so there they all stood, facing off like a bunch of terrors over a scrap of fish. Ru had been more or less forgotten as he hung a few meters off the deck, chained and watching Toothless with interest.
"Attack it! Take it down!" Yelled Lech to his men. The sailors shuffled awkwardly, brandishing their swords with unenthusiastic bravado.
Toothless growled.
"Go! Fight it! Get the robes, take him down!"
"That one burned all the ropes, sir," one man said to Lech, gesturing to Ru. Lech growled in frustration, and glared at Ru. He looked back at his stock still, terrified men. They wouldn't do anything. He looked at Toothless, who could do whatever he wished, but was gloating his enemies' cowardice by playing coy. Lech snarled.
"Attack!" He yelled, at his men, at Toothless. "ATTACK!" When no one did anything, he turned and marched toward Ru, sword drawn, drew back, and stabbed. The dragon roared in pain, and Toothless shrieked. Of course, in his anger, Toothless did the one thing that Lech actually wanted him to do: he attacked.
Soon enough, Toothless had blood trailing from an axe graze on his shoulder, but he was too busy blasting fire to notice. Lech had, intelligently and infuriatingly, run away from the scene, leaving his terrified men to face Toothless' wrath without him.
"Are you alright, Ru?" The fury shouted above the fray. The chained eastern was bleeding profusely from the stab wound in his side, but sounded only mildly affected when he replied,
"It's a lot of blood, I'll give, but he's missed all the important bits." Ru said, somehow mustering humor.
"Good!" Toothless roared and rounded anyway, shooting hotter flame at the ones who had nets in their hands.
Suddenly, a great roar sounded from below deck, and screaming. In a burst, the hatches exploded, and out poured dragons of every sort. Among them, human guards were running in terror, hands over their heads, screaming. Some of the dragons flew straight up and away from the ship, never to be seen again. Others limped to the sides because they were too weak to attack. And then, last of all, a great dark mass shot up in a rage, throat glowing blue.
"Uncle!" Toothless shouted.
"Gicpa!" Said Ru.
"Look out!" Yelled Astrid. Rædwit ducked just in time, and Astrid helped him shake off the rest of the metal bola net, which scattered across the deck.
"What?" On the top of the ship, taking refuge up on the quarterdeck and pacing like a vulture, Lech whipped his head around to look first at Toothless, and then to Rædwit. "Two- two?" He cursed, and watched the dragons closely. He had one night fury. One. But then why were there..?
"Toothless!" Hiccup cried, and the smaller of the two night furies turned his head and roared. The boy replied in a weird, unintelligible language, and the fury turned and ran for where the huge eastern dragon hung in chains.
"Toothless," Lech whispered. But… no. The human dragon? But he was dead. How was he alive? How was he back? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his first mate appear from below deck. He rounded. "What happened?" he yelled.
"It just charged us, sir!" the mate yelled, batting away a baby nadder. He kicked it off deck. "It just charged straight out, it wasn't wearing chains or nothin'!"
"What did?"
"The fury! That small one, there! I didn't even know we had two, sir!"
"We don't," Lech growled, glaring at Toothless. No chains. Of course not. He wouldn't, he'd been dead. How it'd happened, Lech had no idea. He would never say he did not believe in magic, but he had no respect or fear for it. He narrowed his eyes on Toothless, where the fury was biting at Ru's chains. He was the reason for all this madness. He was the reason there were dragons killing his men. He was the reason he'd lost thousands – millions – in cargo. Lech took his fist mate's sword in one hand and drew his own sword with the other. Vision growing red, he marched down to the main deck. A monstrous nightmare attempted to attack him, but he stuck out one sword and drew away red. The dragon slumped to the deck.
"Toðléas, look out!" Ru cried, and Toothless turned just in time to dive away from Lech's sword as it fell hard. It grazed the chains that bound Ru, and sparks flew.
"Devil!" Lech screamed, advancing, "How did you live? How are you here?!"
Of course, Toothless couldn't answer in Norse, so Lech could only wonder at the answer. He yelled again, advancing, swooping with his blades. Toothless dodged and blasted back, but Lech only dodged as well. At one point, Toothless' tail came around to the side, and Lech saw that he was missing his left tailfin. He smiled.
Up on the quaterdeck, where the now unarmed first mate was cowering behind the binnacle, a hatch flipped open on the deck. Two massive horns rose up out of the door, and after them, two equally as massive eyebrows. A nose, a frown, and a very, very angry red beard. Stoick took in the scene before him like a tactician. Rædwit was yelling to and fro over the deck, ordering the dragons into some slapdash order as they phalanxed in the air, those who could fly protecting those who could not. He noted that Ru was immobile in chains. The massive dragon would be invaluable in a fight – they had to release him, first priority. Stoick's eyes followed the chain up to the crane that held Ru above the cargo bay, and back down to the locked winch at the bottom of the quarterdeck. He glanced at the cowering man near the wheel and growled. In a swift movement, Stoick took the straps on Toothless' pack, wrapped them around the man's neck, and yanked. He couldn't cry out as Stoick dragged him backwards and tossed him below deck. A fellow crew member fell from the jaws of a timberjack above, and as he crumpled unconscious to the floor, his sword clattered over to the chief, who grunted in appreciation before wedging the blade into to the hinge of the hatch, locking it shut.
No one seemed to see Stoick, horned, armed, and huge as he was. Not until he slammed his axe clean through the latch that held the cargo crane in place, that is. Sparks flew and gears whirred, and Ru fell solidly onto the deck. His chains went slack, and with a great, angry roar, the eastern threw the links in all directions. Crewmembers screamed and ran, and all the dragons – Hiccup and Astrid, too – cheered.
"Put them all in the sea!" Ru yelled. Rædwit turned and looked his soldiers in the eye.
"Well? You heard him! Into the sea, lads!" And dragons scattered everywhere, yelling orders and instructions to each other as they dove for the crewmembers pouring out from below deck. Some were shot down, and some were killed. But for every dragon that went down, five soldiers fell splashing into the ocean.
Stoick was yelling over the crowd to reach his son, but it wasn't until Ru roared, "Rædwit!" at full force that anyone noticed. Rædwit turned, and Hiccup actually saw the horned helmet first.
"Dad!" Hiccup yelled. Stoick saw them and looked relieved for the fact.
"Hiccup!" He called, and held up the boy's leg, beckoning him over. There were even more pirates pouring on deck now. Between dragons landing and breathing fire, crewmembers screaming and slashing swords and axes, and the metal echo of the deck below all the pounding feet, it was truly pandemonium.
"Get to my dad, he's got my leg," Hiccup said.
"He's got my axe too," Astrid noticed. "Rædwit, could you get us any closer?"
"I can try," the dragon said uneasily, and began picking his way through the blades and claws, calling out orders to other dragons as he went. The teens on his back grabbed on as tight as they could, ducking under axes and wings and fire. Across the deck, Stoick turned away from the teens and used his son's prosthetic as a weapon to clobber an attacker.
Ru was cursing, slamming people this way and that with his wings and tail but unable to actually make much progress around the ship. For every dragon that stayed to help them fight for the ship, there were two more men than came pouring out of the massive ship's distant decks. Heavens above, how many were there? Ru turned in a giant semicircle to wipe a good half dozen guards clear off the deck and into the sea. He tried to lift off of the ship, but found that one of his wings was caught in a rope lasso. He growled and turned to face the nuisance, but, as he turned, he caught sight of Toothless.
"Toðléas!" He screamed in alarm. Toothless was facing Lech and blasting everything he had, but it was clear he was having trouble. The metal floor was slippery on dragon claws, and Ru wondered if Toothless wasn't feeling a bit clumsy in his newly-reacquired body. Whatever it was, the fury was losing ground quickly, cornered and ignored by the other occupied dragons. And, although Ru wasn't sure he realized it, his hind legs were only a few short steps from the edge of the ship. With his missing tailfin, he wouldn't be able to recover were he to land in the water. And if the mad grin on Lech's face was anything to go by, the man knew exactly what he was doing. Ru roared again, "TOÐLÉAS!"
This time, Hiccup turned and looked, too. He took it in quickly – Lech, Toothless reaching his shot limit, the water, the drop. He panicked. "Toothless," He breathed. Without thinking, he jumped of Rædwit.
"Hiccup!" Astrid shouted, her hand just missing him by an inch. "What are you doing?"
"Keep going! Help my dad – I have to get to Toothless!" He yelled back at the fury.
This seemed rather counter-intuitive, what with Hiccup only having one leg, but Rædwit wasn't in a position to protest. He was boxed in on all sides by humans and dragons alike, so he only gave an uneasy, "Good luck, Æðelin!" and turned back to pressing his way towards Stoick.
Hiccup used the cramped quarters and his small size to his advantage, using nearby dragons and at times other people as props as he hobbled across the deck, ducking under swords and rolling over wings. "Toðléas, look out!" he shouted, and Toothless yelled helplessly back at him. Toothless was suffering as much as any of them for the lack of room to move. The only direction he had open to him was back, back, back, and down, down, down.
"Stop!" Hiccup screamed. A guard blocked his way and Hiccup dived for his legs. The man came tumbling down. As Hiccup righted himself, he grabbed the man's sword and used it as a cane to help him hobble over. Lech was advancing on Toothless, swords drawn. He began swiping. Toothless deflected the blows with his hard wings joints, which both suffered nasty cuts for their trouble. The dragon screamed, and Lech was drawing back for more. "Toothless!" Hiccup cried. As Lech's swords arched back down, Hiccup dove and landed in front of Toothless.
For a moment, it was if the world was moving in slow motion. Toothless felt a horrible, sick rage roaring up in his throat. It was like the previous night all over again, except now the roles were reversed. Instead of Toothless saving Hiccup's life, Hiccup was trying to do the same for him. But Hiccup was only human. He did not have another body to save him when he fell. If he died. If he died. Toothless glared at Lech.
Not on his life.
As Lech stepped forward into the strike, Toothless whipped his tail around in a last-ditch effort to guard Hiccup. Fin spread, it came just a second later than it ought to have, so instead of blocking Lech's blow entirely, it clipped him at the hip and the man spun and fell from his own momentum. In a flash quicker than anyone's reflexes could have altered, Hiccup shut his eyes, raised his arms up around his head, and Lech fell.
But as it so happened, Hiccup was still holding the sword. And, as it happened, Lech fell right onto it.
When Hiccup opened his eyes, it was because a heavy weight had fallen on top of him. He saw Lech's shocked, dead expression, and screamed. He dropped the sword, which stuck in Lech's chest with a gut-turning stiffness. Hiccup scrambled crab-like away from the body, and Toothless grabbed him and hid the boy beneath him.
The battle raged on around them, but to Hiccup, it seemed oddly quiet, now. Ru had finally sprung free of the ship, and now circled above, calling out shots for Rædwit and the others on the ship. Astrid had reached Stoick, and now fought back-to-back with the chief, her axe wild and deadly despite her inexperience in battle. The chief himself was living up to every legend in his name, and despite the language barrier was able to direct dragons to the positions of best advantage. Bodies, both dragon and human, splashed loudly onto the water, and some hit so heavily on the metal deck, Hiccup could feel the reverberations from where he was curled beneath his dragon.
Hiccup peered out at it all in a very odd haze. He looked back at Lech's body, and wrapped his arms more tightly around Toothless' legs to reassure himself that the dragon really was there with him. He turned his eyes back up and, curiously enough, met the gaze of another person.
A guard had seen Lech's body, and was now standing stock-still, staring. He glanced at Hiccup, covered in blood, and at Toothless, who hissed menacingly. He dropped his sword, turned, and yelled at his comrades.
The news rippled through the crowd, and one by one, the guards's fighting faltered. One of them dropped his weapon, and another. Rædwit turned to find where Toothless was, and saw him standing still in front of a group of guards who were, apparently, no longer fighting.
"N-nephew?" He faltered. Astrid caught the word, and turned to look as well. Stoick kept on fighting, but soon Ru saw the change from above, and came to land on the deck. By the time he did, only half the ship was still fighting. Isn't it curious, Hiccup thought, how so many men are willing to fight for a lost cause, so long as the man who was paying them was still alive. But once the man and his coinpurse were gone… well. Every time he blinked, Hiccup opened his eyes to see a new pair of empty, surrendering hands. The last human left wielding a weapon was Stoick, who looked around in confusion. He was used to fighting Vikings and berserks, not an army of cowarding mercenaries.
Confused, the dragons who fought them looked around for an explanation. Toothless spoke up and told them to cease their fire, that the day had been won. By now, all of the human guards were holding their hands up in surrender, some eyeing Lech's motionless body. Slowly, eerily, the commotion wore down until the only sound was the lapping of the waves on the ship's metal hull.
Astrid and Stoick both lowered their weapons, and Rædwit beside them drew back the remaining plasma in his throat. They all looked to Toothless and Hiccup across the deck.
Their actions now oddly loud in the quiet after the battle, Toothless scooped up Hiccup on his head, and the boy scrambled back on top of the place where the saddle should have been. Finally, six long months later, tackless, bloodied, cut, and bruised, dragon and rider were properly together again.
"Thanks, Toothless," Hiccup muttered against the dragon's scales, still shaken. He'd never killed anyone before. He didn't want to again. Toothless only hummed back up at him and carried him over to where Stoick and Astrid stood with Rædwit and Ru.
"Are you alright?" Stoick asked anxiously, "Is he hurt?"
Toothless shook his head, and nudged Hiccup off his back. Stoick grabbed him, bloody clothes and all, and hugged him close. He helped him into his leg, and then it was the six of them standing together in a sea of surrendered hands and uneasy glances. Stoick looked around, and huffed out a weary breath. "Well," He said a matter-of-factly, "First things first."
Once all the guards had been tied up and put safely in the cellblock down below, once all the bodies were cleared off deck and the dragons told that the remaining humans meant them no harm, they gathered on the top deck.
"Well what now?" Astrid asked, glancing around. They were well and truly in the middle of nowhere, likely in the middle of the North Sea. The ship's steam-based propulsion system was useless now - all the dragons that had powered it had flown off during the fight, and none of the crewmembers were around to operate it. Ru had flown as high as he could, and couldn't see land in any direction. He and Rædwit both admitted that it would be impossible for them to fly to land if they really were so isolated. So, there they sat, eating food they'd pillaged from the galley and warming their feet by a fire lit on a broken chair. No one was quite ready to solve the rest of their problems because they were all rather (understandably) worn out.
Hiccup appeared from the hatches below, dressed rather sloppily in an over-sized (but now bloodless) shirt. He'd scrubbed the blood from his face, hands, and hair, though there was still some that had set into the wood of his prosthetic. He walked over to the dragon and human team and sat with them, taking some bread that Astrid offered him.
"Any ideas?" He asked at length.
"We could send out a scouting party," Astrid said, "for another ship, an island."
"We've already looked," Rædwit said, "we'll have to let the winds guide us back. Or else tow it, somehow." It wasn't an appealing prospect. They let the topic die. Stoick took a long drink of second-rate ale and said,
"Aye, but… you know…" he had a glint in his eye. "we could take a second look." His eyes had landed on Toothless, and the night fury perked up suddenly. Hiccup glanced between them, confused.
"Can't believe you remembered this," Stoick grunted a little, turning around and digging in the crate of supplies and food they'd brought up on deck. "But, lucky you did." He glanced at Hiccup and reached into the box. "You've both missed this, I think." He reached behind him and took out the pack that Toothless had brought with them when they'd first set out. Hiccup gasped.
"My flying gear? And… and Toothless' tail?" He laughed, "Where on earth did you-"
"Toothless brought it with him, when we came to find you."
"Just a feeling I had," Toothless told him. Hiccup smiled at him.
"Well," he laughed, taking the gear from his father, "I guess your feelings were right about something." He ran his hands over the saddle, ropes, and fin. They hadn't used it for over half a year. He glanced over at Toothless.
"Do you want to…?"
"Is that even a question?" Toothless yelled, and charged his human, who ended up backwards on Toothless's back as the dragon bounded around happily. The others laughed at their antics until Toothless stopped and let Hiccup get off (still giggling) and put on the saddle and tail. Rædwit came over and examined the gear.
"So that's how it works…" Rædwit circled the duo as Hiccup did up all the buckles and straps. He asked questions and sniffed at the leather, the canvas tail. He noted how flimsy it looked, and Hiccup looked a bit miffed at that. Toothless explained the pedal controls while Hiccup tightened the straps on the girth, testing the ropes and making sure Toothless was comfortable. By the end of it, Toothless was bouncing where he stood, impatiently licking his lips as Hiccup suited up.
"Now this," Rædwit said softly, looking Toothless up and down and almost sounding like he wanted to cry, "This I've waited to see for a very long time." Toothless sent his uncle a kind smile, and nudged Hiccup's back as he climbed up into the saddle. He strapped himself in, and when his metal foot clicked into place, it was like everything they'd learned, everything they'd gone through the past six months finally clicked back into place with it. They'd all waited a long time for this.
"You ready?" Hiccup asked, as per tradition. For the first time, Toothless got to answer.
"You'd better believe it, Gicpa."
And with a running jump and a flick of that bright red tail, they were finally, finally back in the skies.