A/N: I'm glad everyone seemed to like (or at least felt intrigued by) the first chapter. Here's the second installment, which is about half talking and half doing, and divided up in that order. My intention with this chapter is not only to continue the plot but expand on some of what might've been troubled about the last, so I hope it answers questions. Also, I want to caution that there's what we would call an ableist slur used in this chapter. Just fair warning, as I believe in preparing readers for that sort of thing.
Across the dark bay, to where Hiccup and Astrid sat chained in the prow of a Berserker longboat, came the excruciating cries of a panicked Night Fury.
It was a sound Astrid had heard before, but never with this intensity, and familiarity did nothing to ease the churning of her gut. For Hiccup she knew the long minutes they listened to Toothless crying were nothing short of agony, as he coiled against the side of the boat, his face screwed up with the effort of blocking it out. The sound grew fainter but no less fervent as the fleet sailed from Berk, screams occasionally descending into splashes as the dragon launched failed attempts to follow. He couldn't make it in the open sea swimming, she guessed. It was too deep, the currents were too strong; there was no way he'd catch up to them. Moreover, he likely knew Hiccup wouldn't have wanted him to try.
Finally, around minute twenty-two, it stopped. There was only the litany of the waves and the rustling of Berserks at rest; Toothless had given up. Hiccup's shoulders fell away from his ears.
After a heavy moment, she broke the silence with a tentative question. "Do you think he'll sound the alarm?"
Even by the poor light of the moon she could see Hiccup's nausea. He replied, straining to sound levelheaded, "He'll try. We'll see how much my dad understands. Worst case scenario, they don't know we're gone until morning."
"And Fishlegs, with the tracking dragons, how long…"
"More than enough time for us to get really settled into our prison pit on Berserker Island. Hang a few drapes. I like red, what do you think?" Another time she might've been irritated by his insistence on humor under pressure, but here she found it oriented her. It was comforting. It was better than being captured alone.
But she still rolled her eyes at him. Force of habit.
"And Stormfly," he asked, "is there any chance…"
Astrid shook her head. "She'll have gone back to her stall when it got dark. Too well trained, probably." She gave Hiccup a meager smile, but he didn't return the expression.
Most of the Berserks on board the ship slept soundly, unfazed by the sound of dragon anguish or the tenants of attentive soldiering. In their defense, even Dagur had been thoroughly knackered by his day of deranging, and he snored, slumped over a barrel not too far from Hiccup and Astrid. Only the Helmsman stayed awake, and he stood at the opposite end of the boat, eyes trained on the horizon. The prow was so narrow her boots brushed Hiccup's as they sat opposite one another. Their chains didn't secure them to the deck, presumably because they'd be too weighted down to swim if they jumped. But if they could get loose somehow, it was only November, and the sea would be warm after a sunny summer.
"I take it you're mad at me," Hiccup broached casually.
"We should check our chains for weak or rusted spots," Astrid said, steamrolling past his comment. "We can swim if we hurry, it's doable. Even if we can't get them off, I've trained with chains as weight sometimes—"
"Astrid."
She squinted into the night, searching for the village lights. "I could swim to shore and get help. Dagur doesn't need me now that he's got you, he might not even send anyone after me—"
Something rattled and then thunked down beside her—Hiccup had come to sit on her side of the prow.
"Astrid," he said again, unrelenting.
"What are you doing?"
"We're never going to escape if you don't tell me why you're mad at me."
His voice had a kind of knowingness to it that made her gape, like he'd just presented her with a reality she'd never considered, and it seemed clear now how he'd magic'd the whole village into admiration. But then again, Astrid had no fondness for magic; after a moment's pause she considered his statement and her mouth snapped shut. "That's not true. We'll be fine." She could get out of a situation like this blindfolded, so doing it while annoyed at Hiccup might even prove advantageous. She did feel pretty motivated to escape this conversation.
"Yes it is, it's very true, teamwork is… is—it's teamwork, Astrid!"
"You're just mad that I'm mad at you!"
An edge entered his tone that rang older and angrier, and she flinched. "Yeah, I am. I'm mad that you're mad, because I have no idea what I did, or what you think I did, and I just—I mean, as far as I can tell, I've got more of a right to be mad than you have, considering you lied about being attacked when you could've put people in danger—"
"This is not about that," she shot back, riled by the scolding. She did her best to swing to her left and glare at him in spite of the chains, but the gesture lost some drama in her struggling. "Where have you been, Hiccup?"
"Where have I… is that what—"
"Our Saturday flights, every week for a year and a half and then nothing, and you don't stay after at the Academy like you used to, you just come and tell us all what to do and then leave—which isn't helpful, by the way, Fishlegs is a more useful teacher at this point—but you wouldn't know that because you've heard him, what, one time? But at least you're not showing up at the Great Hall when we drink anymore, because I'm really enjoying the lack of sanctimonious lectures on our bad conduct." Hiccup's face had fallen into shadow under the moonlight. She slowed slightly, out of breath, pressing into each word. "So I apologize to you, my future chief, for endangering the village, since that's all you are to me, and that's the only reason you're upset. Right, sir?"
Hiccup, possibly for the first time in a long time, had no reply. It was strangely frightening to speak to him and not hear his odd little voice croak out a response right away. She didn't care to posit what that fear meant.
Eventually there came a small-sounding answer. "I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd care."
"You didn't think I'd care?" she repeated, with a softness that she realized too late seemed more hurt than angry.
"Well, I don't exactly…" Hiccup appeared to lose the thought and his gaze drifted away from her, toward home. Then he said, with some difficulty, as if this were a revealing explanation, "My dad started calling me the Pride of Berk."
Astrid waited for the rest, but nothing came. Not at first, anyway. Hiccup just stared off into space, his mouth twitching occasionally like it wanted to form words but couldn't quite remember how. She knew Hiccup's relationship with his father was not unlike the relationship she had with her own single parent—fraught, clouded by expectations, strained but ultimately loving. She sometimes wondered how they'd ended up so different, what with the similarity in their upbringings, but blood had to count for something.
"I got a lot taller," he said finally.
"I've noticed." He smiled at her, and she had to lift her chin up a bit to smile back. Which she hadn't meant to do in the first place—she was supposed to be mad, still.
"Have you also noticed that people tend to treat you differently based on the way you look?"
Astrid laughed, because she didn't think he could fathom the permanence of this fact in her life. "Yeah, Hiccup. I've noticed that too."
"Hm. Well. I noticed it before, definitely, I just didn't really think it could make such a quick turn around." He sighed; she could sense the real explanation on its way. "You know, even after the Red Death, I didn't feel lost at all. I felt like I'd just figured something out about myself, and I could look at my reflection and still see someone I recognized. I had some confidence for the first time in my life. It was good—it was great, even."
"And now you look different," she filled in.
He nodded. "Now I'm the Pride of Berk. People look at me like… like I'm going to be chief someday. What is that? What does that mean for me? What do I do with all of this?" he asked, gesturing to his newly stretched frame.
"Practice with your sword when everyone else is asleep, maybe?" Hiccup looked at her sharply, and Astrid grinned. "You're not the only one who can keep tabs."
"I wasn't keeping tabs, I was… I was concerned, is all."
"So was I," she said without thinking, though she had never considered the possibility before. Hiccup had shut her out at a time when he was changing himself; she'd been worried all along. The thought frightened her—her anger had made its exit, sure, but with it went a safe sense of injustice. It was easier for her to be mad at Hiccup, it always had been. She had to preface kisses with punches, just so he wouldn't think he'd won her over completely.
"I needed to think, I guess. To be alone. I was cooking," he reasoned, and she snorted softly. The easy, friendly moment in the conversation made Hiccup feel bold, apparently, because he added, "And you… you really didn't seem as, uh—"
"What?" demanded Astrid, alert at the prospect of being blamed.
"Well, you hadn't kissed me in a while, so I assumed..." Blood rushed to her face—a combination of embarrassment and fury.
"So we can only be friends if I kiss you? Seriously, Hiccup?" He was shaking his head and trying to wave his chain-encumbered arms before she'd even got out her question.
"No, no, it—it was wrong, that's not—listen, it was very easy to trick myself into thinking I had to become someone else before you'd want to see me again."
Astrid sat back. She was still blushing. Maybe even more, now. Gods, she really knew how to pick 'em, didn't she? Not that she'd picked Hiccup. Or that there was a thing to pick him for in the first place. She coughed, and then replied offhandedly, "Doesn't really matter who you are if I never see you, does it?"
She could hear him smile when he said, "You're right. Absolutely. I should listen to you more, Astrid."
"I've been saying that for years."
Hiccup laughed loud enough to stir a nearby brute, and they both fell silent as the big guy sneezed twice, then rolled over and went back to sleep. Hiccup sighed and started fiddling with the lock on his chains.
"Anyway, I don't think any amount of secret practice or exploring or anything is going to make me the Pride of Berk. So far all it's done is make you mad at me."
Astrid glanced at her lap. Revision: it was easier to be mad at Hiccup, but only when he wasn't around. Sitting together like this in uncomplicated proximity, while he gave her a glimpse into himself, she could only feel sort of privileged to know him, and hope he'd say the same thing of her. "Your swordsmanship has gotten better, though," she offered.
His head snapped up. "Really?"
"Yeah." She'd distracted herself from Toothless's pain by replaying everything that had happened that night in her head, and Hiccup's improvement seemed clear to her. "You're halfway decent, now. With that shield I might even say you're kind of good."
Even under the dimness of the moon, she could tell he was beaming, and new shadows bloomed on his cheeks; in the sunlight he'd probably look red. "Thanks, Astrid," he muttered. She decided to breeze by his embarrassment, even though it made her feel sort of squirmy.
"Okay, but what's with the old sword? What kind of smith fights with a secondhand weapon?"
He seemed too distracted by the compliment still to give this question much thought. "It's nothing, just something I'm trying."
"It's weird."
"Sure. So what's with you?"
She shifted awkwardly in her seat. "What do you mean, what's with me?"
"I mean, here I am baring my soul to you with such heartfelt sincerity—" She chortled, knocking into his shoulder. "—the least you could do is, you know, the same thing."
"Oh, that's it? Just bare my soul?"
"It's only fair, Astrid, come on!"
"You're so right, it's only fair," she grinned, but then it slid from her face. She realized she didn't know how to tell Hiccup what was going on with her because she barely knew herself. "I'm not sure. You're better at this look-into-yourself stuff. I never needed to do that before."
"Before what?"
"Before the Red Death. Before I thought you were ignoring me."
Hiccup sat up and turned to see her more directly, which again gave Astrid that squirmy feeling. Weird. She didn't know what it was. He asked intently, "What's so bad about them thinking you're my girlfriend that you'd lie about it?"
Astrid flushed angrily. "What, are you shocked that I'm not itching to be mistaken for your girlfriend?"
"No, no, I just… you know it's not true, I know it's not true," (he added this second statement with a rather pitiful note in his voice), "so why should it matter what anyone else thinks?"
"Well, when they think it makes me a good target—"
"I mean, why wouldn't you tell my dad or someone that's what it was? Even if you wouldn't tell me?"
She gulped and turned away from him, trying not to let the glare on her face give anything away. Was it possible to lose a conversation? She certainly didn't feel like she was winning.
"Do you ever feel like we're going to do something really important, like for Berk, and for the tribe, but we just don't know what it is yet?" Astrid glanced quickly at him. "I mean, you've already done that, but…"
"You did it too," he added softly, and when she only shrugged, he pressed on, "No, really. I couldn't have done it without you."
"You know," she began after a pause, "before you started showing promise, I was going to be the Pride of Berk. I was on the fast track to Viking #1, or whatever you call it. It wasn't going to be Snotlout, no matter what he thinks." In the corner of her eye, Hiccup grinned. "I guess what I'm saying is, I'll take it if you don't want it. "
"Viking #1," he repeated, obviously trying not to laugh, and she jammed an elbow into his side. "Sorry! Sorry."
"Well, sorry I don't just want to be your girlfriend, I've got other things going on."
His movements stalled. "What was that?"
"I don't want to remembered as a chief's mother," Astrid continued, not really understanding what he'd found to be confused about, or why his blushing had started up again with a vengeance. "I guess I know there's more to do, and I want to be a part of it, and I know you're going to be a part of it." As her understanding grew clearer she started to speak faster, growing increasingly excited at this burst of self-awareness. "So when I felt like I wasn't going to be in your life anymore, I felt like my chance to be remembered was slipping away, and then—and then it also upsets me to be included as your girlfriend, see, because then that's just another way I get remembered for being a girl and not for being a warrior!" She swung to face Hiccup with the glow of discovery buffing her face. "That's it."
Hiccup took a moment, and she felt him staring at her, a smile on his face that someone other than Astrid might've called adoring, but she didn't have such words in her vocabulary. "Can I make you a proposition, Astrid?" Astrid's mother, like a good many mothers in the day and age, had trained her to balk at that word; she gave him an open-mouthed, wide-eyed look, and he quickly realized his mistake. "Not like—it's just a proposal!" Worse. She started trying to crawl away from him. "Oh, whoops, uh, I just have an idea, it's not like that, come back!"
She did come back, if cautiously. "What idea?"
"When I'm chief—" She groaned but he shook his head. "Listen, when I'm chief, it won't be like that. So I propose," he offered her a hand to shake. "Partners."
"Partners?" she echoed, assessing the manacle around his wrist.
"Partners. Equals. You and me. You'll be co-chief."
Her eyes narrowed. "What about now?"
"Equals now, too."
"You're giving up a lot of your power," she pointed out.
He shrugged. "I don't really care about power."
It hadn't always been clear to Astrid what was different about Hiccup, and she still didn't know whether that difference constituted strength or weakness, but she was beginning to understand that maybe the flaw she saw in Hiccup, his un-Viking-ness, existed not in him but in the standard to which she held him. Hiccup's difference was a fundamental one: he would change things, like he said, like he already had. And yet Astrid was a Viking of the old order, at heart. If their world changed, she would have to change with it.
She bit her lip, then shook the proffered hand. "Just promise me you won't make us all become peaceable farmers."
"What?"
"Nevermind. You're the weirdest Viking I know, Hiccup Haddock." Astrid waved him away and started trying to adjust her chains in such a way that sleep might actually be possible. Meanwhile, Hiccup kicked up a little fuss, shaking his shoulders in that way he did when feeling especially defensive.
"I'm weird, oh, yeah, right, when you're making about as much sense as Gothi after a few meads—"
"Don't worry about it!"
"That is not fair." When she gestured for him to scram, he put a hand on her arm—a instinct, she knew, to still her, but they were getting to the age when touching gained different associations—and Astrid froze. Hiccup stared her down, a curious expression on his face, too nuanced for her to parse. Was he upset? They'd been arguing in near confines but she'd only just realized how close he really was, so that she could see nothing else, only green eyes and freckles. It made her a little dizzy. "Before," he said slowly, almost carefully, "you said you didn't just want to be my girlfriend."
"So?" she replied, suddenly whispering.
"So." He was whispering too, now. "Just, Astrid? You don't just want to be my girlfriend?"
"Stop saying 'my girlfriend'," she heard herself say. Was he getting closer? Could he even get closer without—oh, but Hiccup would never, had never, in all the years she'd known him… And if their noses hadn't been an inch apart, and if she hadn't felt the sticky-sweetness of his breath on her cheeks, she wouldn't have believed it.
Unfortunately for the both of them (or fortunately, again, depending on what you consider the real danger of the situation), there was ultimately nothing further to believe, because a shadow crossed over their heads, and a figure appeared above them.
"No fraternizing," grunted the helmsman. He stood slumped over, his body an odd assortment of angles hurriedly held together, with a patch concealing one eye (or lack thereof). It seemed challenging for him to glare at them with only half his face, so he started hobbling back to the longboat's rudder, taking the mood with him. Hiccup, maybe self-conscious, scooted away from her.
"We should try to sleep," she said quickly.
"Sounds good," he croaked.
"Great."
"Goodnight, Astrid."
"'Night."
As they dozed, a shadow sailed far overhead, and the longboat did not continue to Berserker Island alone.
It was pretty nice, for a prison pit. Roomy.
Despite the threats, they shared a cell, and Dagur must've found the helmsman's two twin brothers to do the day and night watches, because the two guards were equally one-eyed and uncommunicative.
Dagur did not have a plan for his prisoners. What he did have was some rough ideas about humiliating and frightening Hooligans, specifically Hiccup—he took great pleasure in making Hiccup retrieve thrown boots from the dangerous peaks of houses, and recite sexually explicit poetry to a crowd of whooping Berserks, and do their dirtiest laundry while half-naked, with Astrid playing horrified (and occasionally amused, and occasionally something-elsed) audience to all of it. He took the harassment with a passivity she found disquieting, but she'd never known Hiccup for a quitter. He was joking all the way, at least, to the exacerbated fury of Dagur and his army.
As it turned out, Astrid had been right about Dagur's lack of interest in her. She spent her captivity, like everything nowadays, on the sidelines. The realization infuriated and indebted her. But at least she had ample time to plot their escape, and observe her old friend in his new age.
And, when he wasn't being thrown off a small cliff into Berserker Bay because the idiots thought it would be funny to see if he could swim with his leg like that—Hiccup and Astrid had time to talk, something that they hadn't done in many months. Astrid considered herself more the strong and silent type than any sort of conversationalist, but Hiccup was always interested in discussing Nadders, or improvements in axecraft, or strategic defense plans—the kinds of things she found worth talking about. She didn't know if he'd feigned that interest in pursuit of her affection, like so many idiot boys had in her life, but unlike the majority of them, Hiccup knew his dragons and axes, and he had a good head for strategy. If he'd changed himself to appeal to her, he'd done a good job of it; but she had a feeling that after months of their being apart, this was only the natural order of things coming back into play.
And Astrid dreamed about escape. She dreamed about their one-eyed guards, about the short sprint from the prison to the water if they could only get unbound. She imagined how they might assist a rescue party, should one come, by some miracle.
The third day began like the other two had: they were hauled from their cell into the center of the Berserker prison's large stone arena, and Hiccup was made to stand before a sizable number of Dagur's men while Astrid got shoved off to the side (though, she noted with some disgust, many of the Berserks still seemed to be paying more attention to her).
But today, it seemed, Dagur had figured out his plan.
"I've figured out my plan," he boasted to Hiccup and the crowd excitedly, and waited for a response from his victim, as though he expected some terror or fainting.
Hiccup only cracked, "I've heard in some parts of the archipelago three days for a comeback is considered quick-witted."
This provoked a small tantrum from Dagur, which involved stomping his feet and the spraying of enough saliva that Astrid saw Hiccup trying to mop his face with his sleeve. "MY PLAN," he shouted, "IS TO DEFEAT YOU IN ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT." Hiccup shrunk back slightly, and Dagur, now pleased, went on talking and pacing the stage. "The combat will be hand-to-hand, a test of our most basic abilities. If you win, I let you go free. If you lose, you become my slave. I'll use you to bring me wine and cheese and things, it'll be great. Anyway, in this fight, there will be no weapons, no gadgets," he turned back to Hiccup, "no metalwork of any kind."
Astrid's stomach dropped. The color drained from Hiccup's face, his body went rigid as his eyes slipped downwards.
His prosthetic.
"That's right," Dagur grinned. "We shall fight as what we are: a man, and a cripple—"
"Or you could fight me, instead!" Astrid roared. She rushed the arena's center and the one-eyed guard who'd been in charge of her made a rather feeble attempt to catch up, but she was fast even with her hands bound, and face-to-face with Dagur before he had time to draw a weapon.
"You?" spit Dagur.
"Unless you're afraid to fight a girl." His face contorted at this rather obvious but apparently effective taunt, and Astrid kept going, an exaggerated swagger in her tone. "Just think how worried Hiccup would be for me, all in danger—did you know I'm the only person he's ever had a terror-based crush on?"
Dagur looked quickly to Hiccup, who didn't seem to be following this particular line of manipulation but nodded anyway. Dagur's face went purple with jealousy. Bingo.
"It is a great act of cowardiceto have a woman fight in one's place," he argued, voice trembling. "If Hiccup consents—"
"I consent!" Hiccup cried. "I consent to the act of cowardice. I consent so, so much. I am just, bursting with consent—"
"Shut up," Astrid muttered in his direction.
Dagur, whose sense of control was crumbling before him, glanced back and forth between Hiccup and Astrid. Finally, he drew himself up to his full, deranged height, and seethed, "We fight here. One hour. If you lose, Hiccup is still my slave, but you die."
Delightful, though Astrid. Hiccup's face fell. The Berserk chief swung on his heel and stomped off, ordering a couple of thugs to take them back to the cell. As soon as Dagur was out of earshot and they were being marched away, Hiccup careened frantically toward her.
"My consent does not extend to you dying, Astrid!"
"You really need to work on your aggression," she said simply. She was feeling determined, focused. Good about this. Nervous, yes, but only enough to energize her adequately.
Hiccup shook his head. "You're underestimating him. He can be stupid but he's got instincts, and he's strong, he used to pummel me as a kid—"
"I'm strong too."
The guard tossed them back in the cell, with instructions to prepare for the fight. Astrid took a seat and started working on loosening her shoulder pads.
"I just think you're being a little rash, is all." He slumped against the wall. "He'd only rough me up a little bit, but you can actually fight back, you're a threat. You're getting between him and me, and he hates it. Let me call the guard, there might still be time—"
She looked up at him, unmoved. "Hiccup, I know more about defending myself against powerful unarmed men with rage issues than you, or your dad, or anyone of your gender, would ever understand. I'm going to be fine. Just say thank you."
The digestion of her assurance crossed his face in frowns and twitchy eyebrows, until at last he glanced at the ground, and then flopped down beside her. "Okay. Thank you. That was sort of my nightmare."
"I know, mine too." Hiccup gave her a puzzled smile. "Well. I mean. One of them. Not that I care about you, or anything," she coughed awkwardly. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him shaking with silent laughter, and after a beat she laughed too, and they spent the next three-quarters of an hour brainstorming tricky hand combat strategies.
The guard returned and in a few minutes they were back in the arena, only this time Astrid stood centrally before the Berserker forces, and it was Hiccup pushed to the side. She had shed what metal armor remained on her, and as Dagur entered the circle created by spectators (the lumbering, sinister members of the Berserk army), she could see he too came helmetless, bare-shoulder, and without gauntlets. For the first time Dagur's youth was visible to Astrid; he was not three years she and Hiccup's senior, and his manic persona struck her as more skittish and pathetic now that he stood here, stripped of weapons, just a foolish young man entering into an ill-advised fight for reasons of pride and stupidity.
"Okay, girl," he grunted, cracking his knuckles.
"Astrid," she corrected.
Dagur ignored her, and put on his leader-voice, turning to the assembled. "No weapons, gear, or assistance of any kind. This will be a fight to the surrender, or more likely, a fight to the death." He tossed Astrid an unsettling grin; the disillusionment caused by his lack of armor dissipated, and she saw again a boy who'd killed his father for the sake of power. "If the girl wins, she and the Dragon Master go free. If I win, I get a new toy to play with," he said gleefully, eyeing Hiccup (who looked as though he grew less clueless about Dagur's interest in him by the second), and then he spoke to Astrid again. "May the best man win. Do you think you can fight like a man?"
She replied pleasantly, "I don't know why I'd want to when a man's about to lose."
"GO," Dagur screeched, and launched himself at her like a flying brick. Reflexes, however, were a point of pride for Astrid, and she sidestepped the attack thoughtlessly, sending the Berserk boy stumbling to recover his balance and reorient himself. When Dagur was sure-footed again, he made an identical pass at her, but swung to the right just as she dodged the charge. He barreled into her and they hit the ground hard—Astrid tasted metal and felt the stone floor on her back, then quickly kneed him in the groin, earning a squeal from her opponent. She scrambled to extract herself from beneath Dagur in the precious seconds of his distraction, and then fled to the other side of the circle, crouched in anticipation of his next move.
The voice in her head chanted, Move defensively. Move a lot. Demand exertion. Conserve strength. She focused on catching her breath.
"Running away," wheezed Dagur, glaring at her as he got to his feet. "Don't want to fight anymore?"
But Astrid only gestured for him to come at her.
On his third charge, he wrapped his arms around Astrid's torso and lifted her, and she hollered in surprise. She spent some time suspended off the ground, pounding on Dagur's back, like a disobedient child at the mercy of her father, until she had rather a bright idea and bit him hard on the soft skin beneath his armpit. Another scream, and she found herself on her feet again, dodging punches that came each with grunts of effort. Demand exertion. Go for the eyes.
So she shoved her fingers in his eye as hard as she could, feeling the collision of gummy flesh with her nails, and Dagur stumbled back shrieking. Here was her chance.
Astrid hooked her foot around his ankle and pulled as he floundered, and with a thud Dagur landed writhing on his back. She pounced on him, her foot across his windpipe, pressing down. His wriggling arms attempted to pry her off at first, then slowed as she increased pressure, big hateful eyes drilling into her own, the left still red and half-shut. Blood pounded in her ears, almost drowning out the sound of the Berserks who watched, though for the first time in several minutes she could hear the panicked shouts of onlookers.
"What's my name?" she demanded of Dagur, though he could barely speak. He had his weak hands around her ankle and pawed at it, spluttering dumbly. She applied another half-inch of pressure, and the look in his eyes grew frantic, scared. "My name," she said again, and his lips started trying to form something. Another half-inch. He squirmed harder beneath her, her foot grew heavier on his throat, and she wanted to throw her whole weight on it, to leave him bleeding in the dirt. She did not understand why this desire consumed her in that moment, only that she saw clearly the future in which no one ever called her girl or Hiccup cripple.
"Astrid!" came a scream from far off, not the cry of a Berserk, but the plea of a voice she knew well, a weird tenor. Startled, she scanned the crowd, and found Hiccup staring at the scene in dismay. After a moment, it occurred to her—he did not want her to kill Dagur. Her head began to spin, and she eased some of her weight off her foot. Astrid was a Viking of the old order. Now able to speak, Dagur choked, "Astrid—mercy."
But there was little time for her to make an important philosophical decision, because not a second after Dagur's plea, a ball of light streaked over their heads and the great wooden door to the arena—the only exit—burst into flames.
The Berserk army started yelling all at once, and before Astrid knew it, Dagur was gone from beneath her feet and she was being pushed around by a crowd of stampeding Berserks, and then she was—flying, the familiar sensation of a dragon's talons supporting her arms. When she was brought back down away from the fray, it was Stormfly who landed beside her.
She didn't have time to be surprised, or appreciative, or impressed; she threw herself on the dragon's back and declared, "Let's get Hiccup, girl."
Said Hiccup was at that moment trying to talk down a bunch of fighters trampling the ground near him in panic, explaining in an agitated tone, "See, guys, the fire isn't going to spread because the arena is made of stone, so if you'd just take a couple deep breaths—" Alas, he didn't get to tell them what would come after those deep breaths, because he was then in air, carried by Stormfly and Astrid, who fled the Berserk arena through an opening in its barred roof. Wide wings lifted them well above the island, though to Astrid's surprise and disappointment, they didn't start toward Berk. But as Stormfly descended toward a side of the island distant from the Berserk camp, she realized she would not have to wait for a reunion. From below Stormfly, she heard Hiccup whooping.
Moored there in the snug safety of an inlet sat the entirety of the Hooligan fleet, and circling above them were three (or three-and-a-half, depending on who you asked) dragons and their four waving riders.
A/N: Just a heads up that if I don't respond to your comment, I'm fully appreciative of whatever you have to say—I am reading all of them, but I'm swamped right now with the start of the semester; every precious free moment I have is spent writing, and it still took me two weeks to do this chapter… so I hope to get to more comments this weekend, and please expect the next chapter in 1-2 weeks!