When they touched down, dragons in the nearby vicinity rushed over to inform them, quietly and fearfully, about what had transpired.
The night fury tried his best to look surprised.
...
The next day passed in one long, dragging eternity, filled with terror, despair, and hopelessness. The Red Death made no appearance, but her presence was felt more strongly than ever before. The tension that hung in the air remained there like a permanent addition, and the night fury could stand it no longer. The next morning, he slipped out and spread his wings against the blood-red dawn. A long flight was exactly the escape he needed.
Escape... For a moment, the idea of running planted itself neatly in the night fury's mind. He could just leave. Fly away, and never look back. Be free of the Red Death's tyranny, and the high costs of war, and the utter strangeness of this twisted universe. He folded his wings and dived toward the salty sea, pulling up at the last minute to let his wings skim the water. It felt good, and for a moment the dragon imagined himself just continuing on, heading in that same straight line against the ocean's horizon. But that's all it was - a moment's imagination, a dream. He couldn't leave, not really. He was not sure exactly what it was, but something held him here. A sense of loyalty to the other dragons, maybe. Or an odd inkling of a duty that needed to be done. Or perhaps it was simple morbid curiosity - an inexplicable but undeniable compulsion to watch - to know how exactly the world would end.
10 hours, 49 minutes, 31 seconds.
What would the others do, he wondered, if they knew they had only hours left? Really, he didn't even know what he himself was going to do. Just stand by and wait for the end to come? It's not like there was anything he could do. Was there?
Yearning for some sort of guidance - or comfort or instruction - the night fury turned and headed toward the rocky cliff where he had last seen Hiccup. If he could meet him there again, perhaps the viking could give him some sort of clue. After a minute, the cliff came into view, and the night fury approached it with increasing speed. He scanned the landscape eagerly, searching. A wide grin - the first in what felt like an eternity - flashed across the night fury's face as he was rewarded with the familiar image of the small cloaked viking. He touched down silently next to his human friend.
"Hiccup," he greeted.
"Hey, there," Hiccup responded, a smile in his voice. But he did not look up; he was busy doing something with his hands.
"What are you doing?" the night fury asked curiously, watching the boy's hand move in lines and arches along the dirt. He was holding a small stick in his hand, and was using it to make odd marks in the ground. The dragon tilted his head to a few different angles, trying to understand what Hiccup was drawing, but the symbols were completely foreign to him. After a few seconds, Hiccup finished what he was doing and tossed the stick off to the side, looking down pensively at his finished work. The night fury moved behind him and looked at it, too. And he realized, in a moment of clarity, what Hiccup had been drawing. They were viking symbols - the way the vikings communicated to each other through writing. The night fury, completely unfamiliar, could only guess at the meaning.
"What is that?" the night fury asked, looking from the words to Hiccup, and back again.
"A famous linguist once said that out of all the combinations of words in our language, the most beautiful of all was 'pebbled shore'." Hiccup's explanation was infused with a heavy kind of gravity - a deep meaningfulness that the night fury could not grasp. He looked down again at the words upon the ground.
Pebbled shore.
The dragon was about to ask Hiccup exactly what he meant in telling him about 'pebbled shore', but he was distracted as Hiccup stood up abruptly and sighed. It was a sad sigh, drenched in melancholy, with a strange note of finality that unsettled the night fury.
"What's wrong?" the dragon asked, concern and worry tightening his insides with an iron grip. It was probably nothing, but the night fury could not shake the feeling that something terrible was fast approaching. That would be the end of the world, he reminded himself. But somehow that didn't seem to be the answer.
"I'm leaving now," Hiccup replied, and the night fury was surprised out of his thoughts.
"What? Now? But I-"
"For good," the viking finished solemnly. For a moment, the night fury could do nothing but stare.
"For... good?" he repeated. His voice was low and soft, as if afraid the words would become true if spoken too loud. Hiccup bowed his head in silence, demeanor echoing the sadness that began to crash over the night fury in waves.
"Ten hours are all that remains for this universe," Hiccup began quietly.
"Then tell me what to do," the night fury pleaded. "There's got to be something I can do. Please, help me stop this."
"You have everything you need," was Hiccup's only response. "And you need me no longer." The night fury could think of nothing to say, merely watched the viking, open-mouthed. He wanted to protest this - to persuade, to plead, to beg. The end of the world was coming fast, and he didn't want to face it alone. Couldn't face it alone.
"No," the night fury managed finally, a last, desperate mumble that could do nothing to stop the future from unfolding. As he watched, Hiccup raised a slender hand to his head and pulled off the hood of the cloak. His head was revealed, face a little smudged with black, but otherwise un-indicative of the damage the dragon knew was beneath. His kind, freckled face lit up in a small, sad smile, and his emerald eyes looked upon the night fury with fondness.
"Good luck, bud," he whispered, and then he was gone.
...
The flutter of wings signaled someone's approach, and the night fury looked up reluctantly from his sad contemplation of pebbled shore engraved into the dirt before him. It was the blue Nadder, and she touched down lightly next to him.
"There you are," she remarked, smiling a little. She was trying to be cheerful, but the night fury could hear the weariness in her tone. "Where have you been?" she asked. The night fury turned to her, met her eyes, and tried to say something - anything that sounded like a normal conversation. But his thoughts were filled with everything but the normal - time travel, pebbled shore, the eight hours remaining in this world, and the final disappearance of a young viking boy. He found he had nothing to say at all, so he turned and looked out over the ocean instead.
"What's the matter?" the Nadder asked immediately, concerned. "Is it the Red Death?" The night fury sighed, shook his head sadly.
"It's bigger than that," he said.
"Tell me."
"You'd never believe me. I wouldn't believe me." At this, the Nadder nodded, and the night fury thought the subject was dropped. But she spoke up once more, undeterred.
"If I told my past self that the Red Death was an evil, villainous tyrant, I wouldn't have believed myself either," she said. The night fury looked at her, surprised. "So are you gonna tell me this crazy story of yours?"
...
By the time he finished telling her everything, only seven hours remained.
"7 hours, 19 minutes, and 51 seconds," he reiterated. "That's all the time that's left. And then the world will end."
"Okay," she said calmly, and he looked at her in surprise yet again. The Nadder had a positive, persistent spirit that refused to give in. "We've got seven hours. So what are you gonna do about it?" Her confidence in him stunned him for a moment, before the fire of hope re-ignited suddenly within him. She looked to him for his answer, utterly sure that there was something that could be done to change the grim course that their world was currently on. And, the night fury realized, Hiccup had been just as sure. You have everything you need, Hiccup had said. There was a good clue, the dragon recognized. So, what did he have?
"The elder," he said out loud, as the epiphany fanned the flame of hope that began to blaze brighter still. "The old viking woman," he told the Nadder. "We need to find her. If anyone knows how to stop this, she does." The blue Nadder nodded at him, reading the conviction in his eyes.
"Good," she pronounced, tensing to take flight. "But we need to hurry."
"Agreed." The night fury prepared to take off as well.
"Oh, and one more thing." The night fury looked over at the Nadder as she spoke, tilting his head in curiosity.
"What?" he asked.
"I'm going to beat you there," she smirked, and she shot into the air before he could so much as blink.
...
They took the shortest route, and got to Berk in record time. The Nadder followed the night fury to the elderly woman's hut, and together they landed silently upon her roof. They crept up quietly, and peered eagerly over the edge.
No one was there.
A seed of panic beginning to plant itself inside the night fury, the black dragon lifted off and flew a quick circle around the hut. The woman was not there. The place was empty. But that was not the only thing strange, the night fury realized. The whole village seemed... off. He motioned for the Nadder to follow him, and together they flew stealthily around the village, a cursory examination. And the night fury realized what was weird.
It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet so unnatural that it practically screamed danger. The dragons zoomed around a few of the houses again, and then vaulted up into the sky, above the clouds.
"They're gone," the night fury explained, bewildered.
"The vikings?" the Nadder asked, unsettled. "What do you mean they're gone?" she asked. "Where did they go?" Yes, that was the question, wasn't it? If there was a chance at righting the universe, the key to it lay with the viking elder; the night fury had no doubt. But where was she? Where did they go? What place...?
Place. The word sparked a memory within the dragon, and his expression cleared in a moment of incredible enlightenment. This tangent universe was sheer, utter madness - but perhaps the madness had a meaning after all. Was it possible that there were no coincidences?
A famous linguist once said that out of all the combinations of words in our language, the most beautiful of all was 'pebbled shore'.
Images of all the places he knew flipped through his mind in rapid succession. It had to be somewhere - that pebbled shore. And then, the answer hit him like a bolt of lightning. He could see it now - the millions of pebbles that made up the cold island shore, icy water rippling over them in dying waves. The shore of the island on which the dragons' nest sat. Pebbled shore.
"Come on," he told the Nadder. "I know where we need to go."
...
The fog began to set in with ominous thickness, but still the two dragons pressed on. They were getting closer. And then, they could hear it - the sound of dragons. For a second, the two flew on like normal, until the sound they were hearing finally registered with them.
They were hearing the sound of other dragons, which would be normal if they were at the nest. But although they were close, they hadn't reached the island - not yet. They shouldn't be able to hear the dragons from here, unless... the dragons were out of the nest, too. Exchanging questioning glances, the two of them flew faster, toward the noise, and soon caught up to a slow-flying Monstrous Nightmare, who acknowledged them with a grim nod.
"What's going on here?" the Nadder asked him.
"You weren't with the raid?" the Nightmare returned.
"There was a raid?" The night fury and the Nadder exchanged worried glances.
"Aye," the Nightmare acknowledged. "The Red Death ordered us on another raid to Berk. But we've had enough of her orders," he said, and he grinned at them darkly. "We flew to Berk," he explained, "and then took the time to plot against the Red Death. She's evil; she has too much power; and she must be destroyed." At these words, they caught up with several other dragons flying ahead of them, and many of them growled in agreement. The heavy fog melted away as they drew closer to the island, and now the night fury and the blue Nadder could see. A large swarm of dragons flew just before them, spread out in a defensive formation, obviously ready for war. But not against the vikings this time. This time, they would fight the Red Death.
Growls and roars filled the air around them, and the righteous anger and bloodlust were radiating off of the dragons in waves. They flew steadily toward the dragons' nest, intent on their uprising.
"Down with the Red Death," one growled viciously.
"Death to the bloody tyrant."