Thanks for all of the well wishes - I appreciated it immensely! I'm getting a new cast next week so I'll be able to type a little easier, which means faster updates! Thank you with being patient with me - I'm trying my best. :)

Also, 300 review kiriban is almost here! More details at the end of this chapter!

Finally, no more playing around! The action is about to begin!

HORIZONS

Arc III : We Are Skuld

Chapter III

Hiccup breathed in deeply, staring at nothing in particular. He let his hands hang loosely at his sides as he stepped closer to the brink of a cliff some hundreds of feet above the crashing tides. The harsh winds tousled his auburn hair, forcing it to fall into his eyes; his outermost layer billowed out in a particularly abrasive squall. The salt stung his skin.

His eyes were trained on the horizon, watching from the highest point of the island. The clouds were churning dangerously, as if the weather was reflecting his innermost thoughts. He smiled bitterly, realizing that there was a word for that kind of thing, and that Fishlegs would have let him know what it was had he been around to tell it.

He brushed his bangs away from his eyes with a wave of his hand, only for them to fall back into his face again. He pursed his lips and, recognizing a fruitless venture when he saw one, closed his eyes to provoke some sort of patience from within him. He was exhausted – no thanks to his newfound status as a play toy – especially since the snake had thought it prudent to continuously wake him up at all hours of the evening. Sure, he supposed he had gained a great deal of knowledge concerning the snake from the reoccurring images splattered all throughout his dreams and nightmares, but it had been at the price of his sanity. How was he supposed to face this creature without any sleep?

He felt the heavy weight of his companion at his side and his question was nearly answered immediately. Hiccup nodded in agreement as the response became obvious; they couldn't think properly if they were both thoroughly exhausted, dulling their only asset in what would most likely be a one sided fight. Hiccup sighed but resisted the urge to slump, unwilling to look quite as defeated as he felt.

Surely there had to be some hope left.

There was no beam of sunlight that shone down from the heights of Valhalla. There were no signs. Just the sounds of the tumultuous ocean filled his ears as he closed his eyes again for the umpteenth, accepting what would inevitably become of him. A flash of a foreign memory sung through his mind as Hiccup took a deep breath; the image was faded from the passage of time, but the subjects of the memory were obvious.

Hiccup had often wondered as to his companion's past, but, having no other way to communicate with Toothless except through body language, he had never been able to ask. He didn't want to pry, but he wasn't able to stop the errant thought in time before he felt the dragon stiffen beside him.

Toothless stalked away before his hatchling could even consider continuing their conversation, if you could even call it that. He settled a few hundred paces away and sat back down on his haunches, glaring moodily down at the frothing whitecaps as they sprayed against the rocky sediments by the shore. The clarity of the situation was making it harder for him to accept the truth; he'd likely never see his brethren again and even though he had left them long ago, he had still always held a belief that some time before he passed on, he would find them again.

He'd never felt so restricted, so predictable.

So vulnerable.

Toothless couldn't ignore the call any longer, and made eye contact with his hatchling from across the snowy rock face. He didn't ask any questions, but something told him that the young human had already gathered his answers.

Minutes passed in silence. The thundering breakers against the side of the precipice was the only thing that accompanied the drone of their respective inner soliloquies until the tell-tale sounds of footsteps crunching through the snow alerted them of a third and fourth party. Astrid came up beside Hiccup as her Nadder made her way towards Toothless, shaking the snow from her wings in an attempt to get her blood circulating.

Astrid brushed her shoulder against his as she stood along the edge next to him, following his gaze. A storm was coming, and she had a feeling that she was standing on the brink of it.

"What's the plan?"

Hiccup shrugged his shoulders in what could have been mistaken as a sigh, his gaze still trained on the tumultuous horizon, "Still working on it."

Astrid pursed her lips, but didn't offer a retort. As much as she was yearning for a confrontation – if only to release some of her pent up tension – this wasn't the time or the venue to do it, "Well…let's brainstorm then," she tapped her gloved fingers against her chin, "Sometime before that snake tried to eat us, I remember seeing a volcano island on the Southern horizon."

"So do I actually. It kind of looked like the Nest."

"Yeah, that one," she dropped her hand from her face and started fiddling idly with the belt around her waist, "It would be as good a place as any from a defense standpoint. The higher we are away from it, the more chance we have of defeating it."

Hiccup noddle solemnly, mashing his lips together in a somewhat obvious attempt to silence what had crossed his mind at her words. Astrid noticed this of course, but patiently chose to ignore it.

"It's at least two hours south east of here, so as long as we stay as high in the sky as we can, we'll make it. We've been lucky so far."

"I think lucky is a strong word for it," Hiccup countered flatly, throwing her a look that spoke volumes. Astrid parted her lips in reply, but realized that she had absolutely nothing to say in rebuttal.

"Anyway," she muttered, changing the subject quickly, "Point is, we'll get there and we'll make camp near the top until something happens."

"And what if it never shows up?" Hiccup asked, his voice taking on some of the anxious rage welling up inside of him, "Live at the top of a possibly volatile volcano for a month?"

"You and I both know that's not going to happen," she rebuked, crossing her arms over her chest, "Either way, there's got to be a way to draw him out. You keep complaining about your snake-induced headache – is there any way you can think of something and maybe the snake will hear it?"

Hiccup's expression was thoughtful for a moment as he mulled her suggestion over, "I never thought about it before. It's a longshot, but..."

With the nightmares from the night previous still fresh in his mind, Hiccup sat down on top of a boulder a few paces away and rested his chin in his hands, staring out into space. He focused on an image and watched as Toothless immediately looked his way from across the expanse, his expression questioning. Hiccup smiled slightly in triumph as his realization came into context; if he thought hard enough, perhaps he could relay a message to the snake in the same way he had just done with Toothless. He'd been doing it unconsciously for days now without truly realizing the potential it could have.

And he knew exactly what to use as bait.

The way the wind whistled through the shards of obsidian like a moaning draugr was setting Hiccup's teeth on edge. The whole vista was unnerving, and Hiccup hugged his arms close to his body in order to try and stave off the cold that wouldn't go away.

They had landed on a small plane on the upper regions of the volcano, clasped close to the grade by the surrounding rocks that reminded Toothless of teeth. A wave of unwelcome nostalgia washed over him as a flashback of the Red Death appeared in his mind, and he turned himself away from the edge before it got any worse.

Astrid put her arm loosely around one of the splinters of stone and scanned the horizon in anticipation. Hiccup may not have noticed the obvious disturbances in the water during their voyage to the volcano, but she had. Jormungand, as she had finally decided to call him in her head, had followed them all the way to their current spot of refuge. She clenched her fingers as she resigned herself to the fact that she was now an indisposed player in their waiting game, and she tried not to think about it.

She glanced over her shoulder to where Hiccup was sitting, fiddling mindlessly with one of the springs on his prosthetic. She was surprised that he was even acknowledging the device in her presence, considering his predisposition to pretending that it wasn't even there. But, she supposed, perhaps he had gotten over his hatred for the "battle scar", especially after her lecture however long it was ago. Honestly, she was starting to lose track of the days.

He caught her eyes from across the small ledge and stopped fidgeting for a moment, before looking away again and resuming his impatient squirming. Astrid let out a small burst of breath and walked over to join him, sitting down beside him a few inches away.

"He's around here somewhere…" Hiccup mumbled absentmindedly, tangling his glove in one of the tightly knit springs and gently pulling the fabric back out.

"You noticed then," she replied quietly, watching him play with the metal appendage.

"Of course I did," he muttered in reply, "Kind of hard to miss it when it's practically breathing down your neck."

Astrid wanted to point out the biting sting to his tone of voice, but realized that he needed to get his aggression out somehow. She was willing to be his scapegoat to an extent, so long as he didn't get too out of hand.

"Has it said anything yet?" she asked tentatively, unsure of how to handle such a ridiculous question. She would never have believed that he was hearing voices in his head at first, but seeing the consequences first hand shortly after she had caught up with him had changed her outlook significantly.

"Trust me," he grunted, "You'd know."

They dissolved into silence for a while, and Astrid alternated between scrutinizing Hiccup from the corner of her eye, and watching Toothless pace back and forth. Her Nadder was somewhere at the base of the volcano fishing for her dinner, but she kind of hoped that she would gather some fish for Toothless too. He was looking worse for wear, but then again, so was his rider.

The sky was covered in a canopy of clouds, but it was getting dark, so Astrid safely assumed that dusk had just about fallen. She stood up and started to unravel her sleeping gear in the most sheltered part of the shelf, nibbling on some dried meat as she did so. It disturbed her that she wasn't as hungry as she usually would be in a normal situation; she could see her ribs easily through her skin, but at least she wasn't consuming her food at a normal rate.

There would be just enough left for the voyage home.

She walked back over to Hiccup and took his gloved hand in hers, pulling him up onto his feet, "Come on. You have to get some sleep."

Hiccup nodded in reply and allowed her to lead him over to where she had set up her own camp. He started pulling out his own sleeping bag as if he were in a trance, and laid it down beside her. He stripped off his boot and crawled in, watching blankly as Astrid mirrored his movements and buried her face into the skins. She was asleep within minutes, but sleep was fleeting for him.

He watched her abdomen rise and fall, drinking in as much of the image as he could. Considering the series of events that was pressing on him, just waiting for him to crack, he figured he could be allowed that one small reprieve. He had wanted to show her just how much she meant to him – the company, and the constancy, the reliability – but he hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. She shifted in her sleep, her lips parting as she took a shaky breath. Gods, he wanted to kiss her.

He hoisted himself onto his elbow and leant over, his bangs just brushing her forehead, and lightly pressed his lips to hers. Then, with one last sad smile, he collapsed again on his own set of furs and resigned himself to what he had to do, once and for all.

His eyes snapped open, interrupted part way through his repetitive dreams by the pattering of loose stones falling down around him. A small pebble hit him in the forehead as he pushed himself upright; his heart thumped against his chest, shrill and bruising.

"Astrid," he hissed, squinting against the pitch black of night in the direction where he assumed she was, "Astrid!"

"What the Hel is going on?" he heard her murmur, and seconds later he felt her gloved hand against his shoulder. Blindly, he reached around and placed his hand on her waist so that they were both standing side by side, sightless to the world in front of them.

"I don't know," he whispered. His grip on her tightened as the shaking continued to exacerbate, and larger pieces of rock started to tumble down around them. She tugged them backwards so that they were more or less sheltered against the wall of the shelf, but if the earthquake endured…

"Where are the dragons?" Astrid had to raise her voice over the creaking of the rocks.

Hiccup closed his eyes for a moment, "They're fine. They're hovering just off of the ledge."

Astrid was confused, "But—"

"She's got him by the leg," Hiccup smirked, sensing the Night Fury's mortification, "She yanked him off just in time."

He could hear the mirth in her voice, "Poor guy."

The tremor that nearly threw them off of their feet quickly put an end to their amusement, and Astrid wrapped both of her arms around the boy beside her to keep him from losing his footing. The prosthetic creaked as it caught an awkward angle, but the noise went unheard as Hiccup's heart throbbed even louder in his ears, amplified by the combination of the danger and the two arms wrapped around his torso.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her lips grazing the tip of his ear. He fought to catch his balance as another quake seized the volcano.

"Yeah," he breathed, planting his prosthetic into a crack in the stone, "What's going on?"

"I don't know. It just started out of the blue," she was silent for a beat, "Do you think it's…"

"Yeah." A pause, "He's here."

The finality in his voice clenched something inside of her. She turned her head suddenly and buried her face in the crook of his neck, "Are you sure?"

Her body was a terse line against him, hard and unyielding and the lack of vision wasn't helping. Astrid hated being in the dark figuratively, but she was beginning to think that being surrounded in darkness literally was far worse.

"I'm sure," he murmured, squeezing her hand reassuringly, hoping that it would take away some of her obvious worry. She scanned the skies blindly above her, searching for any sign of light from the moon, but there was nothing there, nothing to help her see something, anything.

The ground quavered violently and this time it was Hiccup who kept Astrid on her feet, having had wedged his prosthetic solidly in the ground. He pushed her against his chest as they waited the seism out.

"The seas are churning," he said quietly, trying to gather from Toothless what little the dragon could see, "Whatever's causing this, it's below the ocean."

"You don't think—"

"What else could it be?"

They were thrown to the left, hard enough that even Hiccup was uprooted and smashed into the rocks. He absorbed most of the blow, having had landed with Astrid on top of him, and he groaned as his grip on her waist loosened.

"Are you alright?" she asked frantically, searching with her hands until she found his face. She braced herself with one hand and felt around with her other, finally finding his cheek and resting her palm there.

"Yeah, I'm good," he replied with a grunt, bending his arm at the elbow to reassure himself that it wasn't injured. He slowly propped himself up on his forearm so as to not knock foreheads with Astrid, and found her waist with his other arm, "You?"

"Yeah," she whispered, both relieved and worried at the same time as the tremors began to slow. She shifted off of him so that they were sitting beside each other, "Why is it attacking now?" she thought out loud.

"Well for one, we're blind. Its vision is probably terrible since it's a sea creature."

"Makes sense," she muttered, glancing around her. Things had suddenly become deathly quiet.

"That, and I was trying to provoke it."

Astrid snapped her head towards him, "What? How?"

"You told me to try and outsmart it," Hiccup explained quietly, "So that's what I tried to do."

"By making it mad?" she hissed, clenching her hand painfully around his.

"Not mad – I was trying it inflate its ego."

"What? That doesn't even make sense!"

"Yes it does; listen to me. It's so egotistical – it's never been beat! So I focused my dreams on giving up to it, and I think that's why it's so excited. If it's distracted enough by its big head, then maybe – just maybe – you might get out of this alive."

"What do you mean, I'll get out of this alive?" her voice was on the verge of hysterics. His plan made perfect sense, but the only thing she could focus on was his last words and the way he had said them, as if he had already accepted it.

"You don't honestly think we're both going to make it out of this do you?"

"What? Of course I do!"

She heard him sigh beside her, "Astrid…you've got to think this through."

"No! Listen to me—"

"Astrid," he cut her off tersely, "Calm down please, and for just one second, listen to me. The only way we're going to beat this is if you trust me. Can you do that?"

Astrid was about to open her mouth and offer a vicious retort, but she realized that dawn was coming. It was still almost pitch black, but just that little speck of lightness in all of that darkness was enough to calm her quailing heart for the moment and she swallowed her frightened pride.

It was enough to give her hope.

"Yes," she replied shakily.

"I have a plan, but I can't do it without you," he continued softly, "You're going to have to trust me."

"I'll…" she trailed off, the images of the aftermath of the Red Death skittering through her mind, "I'll try my best."

"That's all I ask."

The darkness was slowly fading, and within a few minutes Astrid was able to barely make out the distinction between the rock face and the sky. She turned towards Hiccup and could only just picture the upturned tip of his nose, the pressed line of his lips. He was so rigid, practically frozen at her side.

It was as if the only thing holding him together…was hope.

He could feel her gaze on him and turned, capturing her lips without even thinking about it, crushing her body to his. She was stunned for a moment, but quickly returned the gesture eagerly, burying her fingers in his hair and tugging at the strands. He kissed her almost frantically, engorging his every sense with her as if she were already fleeting, already lost to him.

She pulled back for a moment, pressing her forehead to his as she took a harrowing breath. Then she kissed him again, eyes squeezed shut to keep her tears from falling. She tried to keep it together, she really did, but everything was suddenly becoming so overwhelming. The crushing oppression of the dark combined with the strain and pressure of knowing that they were pretty much flying to their respective deaths, even if she didn't want to admit it. She knew Hiccup had – it was evident in his raw emotions as he clutched her as close to him as he could. She just didn't want it to be true, it was catching up, everything was catching up to her all at once, and she was starting to crumble again, the façade was breaking, falling, shattering, dissolving in his arms…

The world tilted on its axis, and they broke apart with matching cries, scrabbling to catch their balance. Toothless and her Nadder shrieked in tandem as the volcano began to keel over, its base destroyed deep in the depths of the ocean. Hiccup snatched his sword from beside his bedding and grabbed Astrid's hand, making a run for it to the edge of the shelf. They stopped at the very brink and grappled for their footing, panicking as they tried to time their jump.

"Go go go!" Hiccup cried, leaping off of the ledge. Astrid followed suite with a scream and managed to land on the base of the Nadder's neck, wrapping her hands and feet around her to keep from falling off. Hiccup landed similarly near the blue dragon's rear and clambered to stay on, sliding up towards the saddle for something to hold onto. Toothless roared as Hiccup leapt down onto the Night Fury's back, just barely holding on, and strapped himself onto the seat as fast as his fingers could manage. He clipped his prosthetic into the stirrup and the Nadder let go of the ebony dragon's foreleg, allowing Toothless and Hiccup to hover on their own.

They watched as the volcano collapsed at the base, crumbling like a watchtower set aflame by a neighbouring tribe. All of their items, their sleeping equipment, their food…everything fell with it as the mountain capsized into the ocean, creating a huge tidal wave in its wake. The two dragons and their riders raced upwards to keep from drowning in the huge splash, and were able to evade it for the most part. Astrid and the Nadder, being the slowest of the pair, got the brunt of it.

They hovered some hundreds of feet above the thrashing ocean, watching the aftermath with matching expressions of dread. The seas tossed and writhed as the fallen volcano wreaked havoc on the waves, sloshing unnaturally high. Hiccup swallowed as the light of dawn began to lessen the monochromatic vista, washing everything in sight in a wash of grey. He rammed his eyes closed and bored down as the buzz in his mind grew into a catastrophic dissonance so loud he could have sworn the whole world around him was shaking, throbbing, pulsating.

There was a booming eruption as something burst from the confines of the ocean, and Hiccup didn't have to open his eyes to know what had happened next.

"I'll write you a oneshot" Kiriban! The 300th reviewer must a) have an account and b) write a legitimate review. If the 300th reviewer is one of those two things, I'll move to the next reviewer. You give me three plot bunnies, and I'll chose one and write it. :) I'm due for a oneshot anyway - all this novella stuff is hard!

Please leave me a review! I'd love to hear from you! I also love my reviewers - you guys are the best!

Thanks Sir Nick!

Brontë