Should you take to the horizon,
Where beginning meets the end...

HORIZONS

Arc III : We Are Skuld

Chapter VII

A day passed.

Astrid dug Hiccup's dagger into the mostly frozen ground and stared blankly at the metal as the blade toppled over, falling onto the soil with a dull thud.

She blinked. Dusk was falling.

She followed the shadow of the hilt of the knife eastward with her eyes and glanced over at the dying embers of their pathetic excuse for a knew she should have gotten up to stoke it, but she was just too cold to move or care.

She coughed loudly. Toothless' huddled form winced slightly at the sound.

The two dragons had disappeared sometime during the middle of the night after Astrid had finally managed to pass out, and she couldn't help but feel somewhat slighted by their sudden desertion. After all, if she had stumbled upon another human in need on this Thor-forsaken misadventure, she knew that she would have gone out of her way to see if there was anything she could do to help. Their lack of compassion had been a constant source of her annoyance since she had first woken up.

She picked up the dagger and squeezed the handle, digging her nails into the leather bindings of the hilt; that snow dragon hadn't done a thing to help Hiccup, or even Toothless for that matter. Astrid gritted her teeth as she slammed the dagger back into the hard earth with enough force to make it stand on its own, seething as she remembered how the female did nothing but watch as if it were some sort of spectacle. She supposed she could excuse the little mangy one considering the fact that it had tried to lend a hand, but that was beside the point – they were still beyond reprieve. In her culture, one did not simply abandon those in need.

The anger running through her veins did nothing to warm her and Astrid resigned herself to the fact that if she did not get up and add some extra kindling to the fire, the three of them would probably freeze to death. She pushed herself to her feet and threw the last of the felled wood onto the fire before slumping against Toothless' back and bowing her head.

She steeled herself against the gusts of cold air coming from the coast and pulled her hood up tightly around her head. Her palm brushed against her headband as she adjusted the woolen trim and she breathed out quietly, hooking her gloved fingers around the worn strip of embellished leather.

The headband reminded her of another life, of another, more simple world. She wondered, would she ever get back to Berk at this rate? How far across the ocean were they? How long would it take to get back home? They had never made it to the end of the world, but Astrid suspected that there never really was any sort of abrupt end to begin with. She wondered if there really was a cavernous waterfall that plunged into the very bowels of the underworld, towards the dwellings of Loki's only daughter Hel. She mused that perhaps there was no passage to the underworld, or even Asgard for that matter, after all. Astrid didn't consider herself to be much of an intellectual, but she had a feeling that if they kept on flying westward long enough, they would continue to find only ocean and land for as far as the eye could see.

Her hands fell from her headband and dropped limply onto her lap, half frozen from the cold. She supposed she was more or less used to the gnawing chill in her bones by now and wondered absently when the last time had been since she had been warm and comfortable. She tried to remember what it felt like.

She shivered.

Briefly, she tried to remember the taste of lamb.

She yawned before closing her eyes and shifting slightly in an attempt to get comfortable, wincing as she went. This was a difficult feat to accomplish since she was sitting squarely on the hard soil with her back pressing awkwardly against the sharp, pointed scales of her draconic companion, but it was better than lying on the cold, sodden ground. She tried to remind herself that this kind of physical discomfort was nothing new to her, but she still longed for the comfort of her sleeping furs, now lost in the depths of the ocean.

Slowly, she sunk into a light slumber.

Hiccup returned to consciousness at some point during the course of the next morning, and the early dawn light blinded him as he tried to open his eyes. His head was propped against something soft and although his limbs felt sluggish and sore, he was surprisingly comfortable. He shifted his body slightly and noticed that his prosthetic wasn't attached to his severed leg, but the fact of the matter didn't bother him nearly as much as he would have expected. Something niggled at the back of his mind, a reminder of something that had to do with the amputation, but his thoughts were too foggy to make out what it was.

He felt a rush of hot breath against his face and quickly recognized it for what it was. He'd woken up to the dank smell of fermenting fish before, and smiled faintly as he tried to open his eyes again. The blurry form of Toothless standing over top of him slowly came into focus and Hiccup tried to say something, but his throat felt like he had swallowed nothing but salt water for days.

Within seconds he had a cup of water at his lips. He drank the contents of it greedily, practically drowning himself in his attempt. Once he had drunk his fill, he vaguely became aware of his surroundings.

He was sprawled out on his back, and he immediately spotted his prosthetic resting a few arms lengths away. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and turned his head upwards, drinking in a familiar and welcome sight.

"Morning."

Hiccup rolled the kinks from his shoulders, amazed that he could even move. All in all, he was surprised that he was even still alive.

Astrid, in her own clipped and impassive way, had described more or less what had happened shortly after he had awakened earlier that morning. He knew, though, that she was leaving certain parts of the story blank, but whether it was for her benefit or his own, he couldn't tell.

She hadn't mentioned a word about her own dragon either, but he didn't have to be a genius to guess as to what had happened to the blue and yellow Nadder after she had taken a hit from Jormungand; moreover, she also hadn't said anything about herself or how she was faring since he had woken. He had tried to voice something when she burst into the most violent coughing fit he had ever witnessed, but the loathing stare she had given him kept him frozen in his place. Glancing over at Toothless, Hiccup noticed the same feeble, pitying expression the dragon had often offered him colouring his features, only this time it was directed at Astrid. The Night Fury obviously knew something he didn't – he could tell by the way the dragon refused to look him in the eye every time Astrid started into one of her convulsions.

Eventually she became frustrated with his staring and left under the guise of going to fill their only water skin in the little fresh water pond she had found on the other side of the island. He let her leave without saying anything, but the detached change in her demeanor left him feeling somewhat empty and confused.

He turned and glanced solemnly at his stub, noting the prosthetic to the right in his peripheral vision. She must have taken it off when she had found him, he gathered, and he realized that he wasn't nearly as self-conscious about it as he would have thought he would be. Perhaps he was still adjusting to the fiasco, the complete and utter insanity of it…he wasn't sure how else to describe it. He still couldn't come to terms with it. He couldn't believe it.

He'd finally managed to beat something all on his own, which was nice, he supposed. He'd killed a giant mythical snake single-handedly, which deserved some sort of recognition in its own right. He wondered if anyone would believe him.

He looked down at his body then, noting with unusual vacancy the various bandages covering his skin. Astrid must have dressed his wounds. He'd have to thank her sometime.

Toothless kept a wary eye on his hatchling, just waiting for him to fly off of the deep end. Any minute, the dragon realized, the whole debacle would sink in and his abnormal calmness would collapse into a heap of hysterics. He'd seen this side of him before; it had taken two days for his hatchling's mind to break after waking up from their first heroic deed, and the result of that had led them inevitably here. Toothless heaved a substantial sigh and stretched his legs from his prone position, fearing the worst.

Hiccup still had that blank expression on his face when Astrid returned from her trek across the island a half an hour later and the young shieldmaiden simply couldn't help but want to start yelling and crying and just smack it off of his face. He was obviously in some sort of stunned stupor and it annoyed her because she wasn't, and he wasn't any use to her if he was being catatonic – he might as well still be asleep!

Astrid halted mid step and spun around on her heel, retreating in the direction she had just come from.

Breaking in a run, Astrid tried to calm the strongest upsurge of emotions she had ever felt in her life. She couldn't let anyone see her like this; she had to be strong. But the barrier had finally broken over top of her head and was threatening to drown her as she tripped over an upturned root and collapsed face first onto the snow, crying and coughing and choking for air. Why did everything have to be this hard? Why did her dragon have to go and die? Why did Hiccup have to be so calm to it all when she was so clearly suffering?

Why was she being so damned selfish?

She stayed like that, weeping for what seemed like hours. She didn't want to move. She thought about how much of a coward she was. It was overwhelming.

She continued to cry.

When dusk fell and Astrid still hadn't returned, Toothless knew it was time to go fetch her. Like his hatchling, he figured she had had enough time to adjust. He nudged her with his nose until she finally reacted, and it took another five minutes to get her onto her feet so that she could follow him back to their camp. He dumped her on the other side of the fire and frowned at the two human hatchlings, unsure of how to proceed.

He thought back to a point in time when he had been a hatchling himself, tied with close bonds to his brethren. A shot panged through his chest when he remembered how long ago his memories spanned back, and he tried to smother the pain as quickly as he could before it could spread. He brought his thoughts back to the present, cementing himself in the knowledge that he was the only sentient being of any use out of the three, considering the humans were mentally out for the count.

They both looked so…traumatized.

His mind reeled back to the time when he had been separated – banished – from his brethren after being sucked into the grasps of the Red Death. He tried to remember how he had felt, how he had gotten over it. The memories were inherently blurry; his imprisonment had turned him into an impassive, listless slave and he realized that his grieving period had been practically non-existent.

The truth burned in his throat as his gaze flitted in between the pair. He couldn't relate with them, not really. The only thing they could do was put it behind them and move on.

With another heavy sigh, the dragon went about collecting their things into a pile.

Toothless nudged Astrid as the last of the dying rays sunk below the horizon, waking her from her restless sleep. She was shivering, half alive and miserable and resentful and frustrated with everything as she pulled herself to her feet and gazed listlessly at her counterpart curled into a ball across from her. Frowning, she stoked their measly excuse for a fire and literally stepped over it to get to the other side, where she intended to wake Hiccup.

He jerked violently as she touched his shoulder, lashing out against his perceived enemy and accidently swiping her across the face. She stepped back and recoiled, holding her cheek in her palms as she cried out accusingly. He pulled himself upright at the pitchy sound and took in her hunched figure as she glared, her mood turned acidic.

"Watch it would you?" she exclaimed, checking the fabric of her mittens for blood. Hiccup eyed the angry red line against her cheek for a moment before the sting of her words sunk in.

"Wait, what?" he hissed, disbelief colouring his voice as he got to his knees; his prosthetic was lying just out of his reach.

"You just hit me!" she shouted, throwing her hands around as she accentuated every syllable.

"Like I meant it," he spat, his anger beginning to come to a simmer beneath the surface. She'd been nothing but aloof, impassive and cold ever since he had woken up from this mess. Just once, he'd like a little damned support, especially after what he had just put himself through—

She forcefully cut off his line of thought, "Just shut up!"

"Shut up?" the incredulity was obvious in the way he squinted at her reprovingly, holding his palms upturned in irate confusion.

"Yes! No one gets your stupid sarcasm!"

"In case you haven't noticed," he grinded out, trying to keep his voice even, "We're the only ones out here."

"It doesn't matter!" she sputtered as she stomped her foot, the past few days boiling over until she was drowning in it, "I don't care what you think! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be out here right now!"

"I didn't ask you to follow me!" he shouted suddenly, balling his fists at his sides. He desperately wished that his means of walking wasn't so far away; he would have liked to have been able to tower over her, intimidate her.

"You left me no choice!"

"How does that make any sense Astrid?"

"You were going to get yourself killed!"

"No I wasn't!"

"Yes you were!"

"I had everything under control until you showed up!"

"I'm sorry, pardon?" she shrieked, "If it weren't for me, you would be digesting in that stupid creature's stomach right now!"

"I could have handled it without you," he hissed, his green eyes filled with steel. She shrunk away slightly at his frighteningly cold gaze as it bore holes through her, but she didn't back down.

"Barely. I'm surprised you survived long enough for me to catch you."

"What are you implying?" his voice raised in pitches now, his vehemence so potent it was blistering.

"You're…you're…" the words died in her throat as his gaze darkened. He had told her about his insecurities, his lack of self-confidence, his self-doubt, his pain, and she had almost taken advantage of his trust. She had nearly accused him of the very thing he had been called all his life.

She didn't have to say it though. Hiccup didn't see the flitting of regretful emotions crossing her face as he fumed, the repressed emotions he'd held back his entire life bubbling to the surface in a violent surge. He pushed himself to his feet and used the only object within arm's reach to steady him.

Toothless wanted nothing to do with either of them as the two hatchlings screamed at each other, but suddenly he was being shoved in the middle as Hiccup gripped one of his dorsal fins to steady himself. He tried to turn away as best he could, pressing his ear plates as flat as possible to muffle out the sounds.

"Astrid."

Her eyes widened as the rough baritone of his voice shook her out of her reverie. His entire body stiffened and hunched; his shoulders curled inwards. His eyes turned so dark that she no longer recognized his emerald green gaze. When he went to speak, he turned towards her, advancing slowly until he finally met her gaze.

"Finish your sentence."

His voice was dangerously low. She couldn't say that she'd ever been afraid of Hiccup, but she was then.

"Hiccup, I…I didn't mean that—"

He cut her off ruthlessly, "Finish your sentence."

He stared, his eyes never wavering. Like a statue, motionless. She shivered.

"You're…you're…"

"Say it."

She closed her eyes, exhaustion taking over as her anger began to ebb, "I can't."

"Clearly," he hobbled forwards, his glare never straying from her features, "But I know what you were going to say. Isn't it obvious?" he threw his hands skyward, "For years I was nothing but the laughing stock of Berk. Useless. An embarrassment. My father hated me. My tribe's people shunned me. And that was when I had my leg."

"And then I saved my tribe. I saved our people. And yet here I am again, still completely, utterly useless. I can't even stand up on my own!" he spat, clenching the fist of his free arm repetitively, "I didn't choose to be this way. I didn't choose to be my father's son. I didn't choose to be the one responsible for killing the Red Death. And yet here. I. Am!"

He threw his hand down forcefully, burdened with frustration, "I had to leave. I had to distance myself from everyone else...and here you are, the one person who I thought could understand what I went through, what I'm still going through!" he snarled, "Well, turns out I was wrong about you. I was stupid to miss you, to fool myself into thinking you actually cared."

She bristled at the attack and folded her arms tightly across her chest, "I wouldn't even be out here if I didn't care!"

Hiccup brushed off her rebuttal, "The only thing you care about is the glory of it all! You're so self righteous all the time! You think that you're so much better than everybody else!" he drew his fist back to his side, throwing his head in frustration, "Just once, I'd like you to feel the way I do sometimes!"

"What makes you think I don't feel like I'm worth anything sometimes? Maybe I just handle myself differently than you do!"

He snorted, "That's unlikely."

"How do you know? Just because you had it tough doesn't mean other people don't have problems too. I understand that you had a terrible childhood, I get that, but mine wasn't exactly peaches and cream either!"

A glimpse of familiarity flickered over his face before returning to its stony state, "You had two parents and siblings to back you up. I had nothing."

"You had silence!" she cried, squeezing her eyes shut, "My parents fought all the time until they were blue in the face. They still do! Do you know what it's like to hear your parents tell each other that they hate each other every single day?"

Hiccup didn't reply right away, "Sometimes silence is worse. Living under the pressure of disappointed glares isn't exactly a walk through the village."

Astrid pursed her lips, acknowledging that this conversation wasn't going anywhere, "I'm not going to argue with you about who had the worst childhood. What matters is now. You and I are here. And I still don't understand why you just up and left as if no one cared, when clearly we all did."

He frowned, letting the topic slide for the meantime, "There was no point in staying."

"Why?"

"One day I'd be nothing but a useless runt again. One day, someone would understand dragons more, and I would be obsolete. I was better off gone, before I could know what it's like to…"

She silently beckoned him to continue, but he refused to open his mouth again. He hobbled over to his prosthetic and started strapping it on with vehemence, no longer caring if Astrid saw the raw red stump as he shoved it into the support.

She watched in agonizing limbo as he tore at the belts, wrenching them around his skin with that frightening look still in his eyes.

There was a thick, viscous silence.

The pain in his body was excruciating as he pulled himself upright, having finished tightening the prosthetic to his amputated limb. His breath shook in his lungs as he started to limp around their camp, picking up one of the saddlebags in his arms. He winced, but didn't otherwise betray the agony he felt across his stony expression as he brought it to Toothless, strapping it on as each movement sent shooting pains down every nerve ending in his body.

She grabbed the other one but was unable to ignore the stiff way he carried himself. She knew he was in pain; she was too, but his body had undergone far worse treatment than hers. His skin was littered with injuries, having been washed up on the rocky coast after Loki knows how long. His shoulder had been dislocated when she had found him, and he had been lucky enough to be blissfully unconscious when she had shoved it back in. She had splinted two of his fingers, and the cut across his neck, collarbone and shoulder wasn't healing as fast as she had hoped it would. The sea water had probably been the only thing that had kept him alive.

She caught a fleeting glimpse of his stormy expression, and she could tell that he was still furious. It was becoming harder and harder to keep her tongue in check, to keep herself from breaking the wretched silence. So many words were crawling up her throat, scraping at the backs of her teeth just begging to be released. She only meant to take a deep breath, but the complaint simply passed through her lips on its own accord.

"Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"

She clamped her lips together immediately, but it was already too late. He stiffened and refused to look up as he viciously tied the leather straps to Toothless' saddle.

"I'm not like you Astrid."

She frowned, her fingers faltering, "Obviously."

He glanced up at her, his gaze both resentful and beseeching, "I can't walk around like I don't bleed, like everything is fine. You think you're so above it all, and it annoys me. I just nearly died, again, and you're acting like the only thing that matters is yourself. Once, just once, I would like someone to remember that I have feelings too."

She pursed her lips and tried to quell the surge of anger that was swelling from inside of her. How dare he accuse her of not caring, of not having feelings? She curled her fingers into fists and closed her eyes, willing her breath to even out; enough damage had been done at her hands already.

"I have feelings," she spat, keeping her voice low. He didn't watch her as she finished tying the bag onto the leather and pressed her hands against Toothless' side, thankful for the barrier between them, "I do what I have to do. And if I have to pretend like I don't have a heart just to accomplish something important, then I'll do it."

"Sounds like you're just afraid to say the truth."

He declared this offhandedly as he disappeared below Toothless in order to finish binding the rest of his tack, but the unspoken accusation of cowardliness resounded silently between them. Astrid froze. Her heart seized like a shard of glass in her chest.

"I'm not a coward," her trembling voice belied her statement.

Hiccup glanced up, a reaction finally staining his features. He straightened, barely suppressing a hiss of pain as he did so, and watched as Astrid's face drained of its colour. Her eyes were sunken and glazed and his heart panged traitorously in his chest for causing her more needless distress.

Her hands quaked as she took an unsteady step backwards, her gaze unfocused. She ached to say something to alter his statement, to change his perception. Her mind was racing; adapt yourself to your surroundings – be the woman you have to be.

She screwed her face up as she tried to ignore the steely, battle-ready voice in her head. For so long, she'd been simply changing herself for the needs of others, whether it was her parents, her peers, Hiccup. Couldn't she just be herself for once? No, she couldn't reveal her weakness. No. Yes! She knotted her fingers in her disheveled braid, tugging roughly. She was not a coward. She was not a coward!

"You promised me you would never die," her voice was so incredibly quiet that he could barely hear it; even Toothless had to flick his ears.

"But—"

"Just shut up," she cut him off, raising a quivering hand in protest, "Let me talk."

He nodded once, waiting.

"You promised me you would never die, and then you just left. You left me!" she started to rub her arms unconsciously, her shivers increasing in intensity, "And when you left, I realized what was wrong. You…you make me feel too much!"

She hunched in on herself, shaking her head, "I went after you for two reasons. One was because I didn't want you to die. I wanted to find you and bring you home…" her breath rattled in her chest as she tried to keep from coughing, "And then you disappeared and I thought…I thought you were gone!" she looked up at him, her eyes pleading, "Don't you understand?"

Tears were beginning to form beneath her eyes, and this was honestly one of the first times he had ever seen her so overcome. He wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her – to kiss her – but he repressed the urges and simply stared.

"What was the second reason?" he ground out, his emotions suddenly getting the best of him.

She stiffened again and, before he could comprehend what was happening, she stomped towards him and stopped a hair's breath away. He gasped instinctively at the sudden intimacy but didn't move as she steeled her shoulders and glared at his chest.

"I…I don't know how to say it."

The icy façade broke as she gazed up at him, and that profound feeling in his chest expanded threefold as she clenched her hands, fighting against the ceaseless urge to run. She had gone too far, stepped too deep, treading water in an endless ocean. There was no horizon in these dark waters; she couldn't escape this any longer.

She gripped him by the collar of his coat and dragged him downwards, capturing his lips in hers, crushing him. Her lips bruised as he clutched to her waist desperately, holding her so tightly that the air was practically crushed from their lungs, hard enough to blister.

He responded with equal force, the fury and the rage and the blood boiling passion translating into their lover's punctuation. His mouth was burning against hers, her sharp teeth battling for dominance. She buried her fingers in the roots of his matted hair at the base of his neck and tugged roughly, desperate for a reaction. He groaned in pain and retaliated, scrapping his fingernails against the slivers of exposed flesh around her hips, and she cried into his mouth.

He yanked his lips away and she trembled. Her body was pinned against him and his arm was rubbing against the cut on her bicep but she couldn't bring herself to move, to respond.

They were so lost in one another that they didn't hear the padded footsteps creeping up behind them, but Toothless did, and he turned his head just in time to notice the huge red eyes reflecting in the moonlight.

Hiccup, sensing his dragon's sudden panic without having seen it, tightened his grip on Astrid's waist with impossible strength and hauled her onto Toothless' back. He leapt on behind her and screamed for her to go, having caught a glimpse of the creature launching out of the shadowy forest towards them.

She folded herself in half instinctively and pressed down on the stirrup as hard as she could, perfectly synchronised as Toothless launched himself into the sky with a cry. They narrowly avoided the boulder sized claw that swiped at them during their retreat and Hiccup kept one hand clutched to Astrid's waist and grasped the handles of the saddle with the other, pressing his body into hers as they ascended as fast as they possibly could.

The wolf threw its head back and howled.

They were just coming in for a landing as the sun rose, having been surrounded by nothing but endless water for what seemed like hours.

They hadn't said a word the entire time.

Hiccup had eventually gotten his prosthetic attached to the stirrup, but Astrid remained in front. He never let go of her the entire time.

They found a cave near the middle of the island and started a fire inside, Astrid collecting wood while Hiccup tended to the damp logs. She returned with the last load, piling them to the side before pressing a hand against the cold wall of rock, steeling herself. She turned around and found herself being pushed into the wall, dark green eyes seeking solace in her blue ones.

His fingers combed through her hair, catching in the embellished leather of her headband. She helped him toss it away.

Toothless opened his eyes slowly, watching with a blank expression as the two humans slept side by side a few feet in front of him. He couldn't understand what had driven them together at that moment, and he didn't try to make sense of it for very long. There were far more important things to attend to, including the newest turn of events. What mattered was that they were being hunted.

Again.

A tremor of apprehension ran through him like a knife; he no longer tried to suppress the raw fear as he attempted to listen to his surroundings above his hatchling's soft snores. He couldn't feel any vibrations in the earth, but then again, he hadn't felt any on the last island either. The enormous wolf seemed to have simply materialized out of thin air, and that had been what Toothless was mostly afraid of.

What is their tryst with Jormungand hadn't been the end? What if…what if it had merely been the beginning?

Toothless rested his head back down on his paws and tried to convince himself that going back to sleep would make everything better.

He stayed awake for the rest of the night

They started heading east the very next day.

It was had been a unanimous, unspoken understanding between them as the weather started getting slightly milder. Hiccup figured that they were nearing the spring equinox, although it was hard to tell after losing track of the days since he'd crash landed on Greonland, and travelling at night wasn't helping his case in tracking the sun's movements either. It felt as if they had been out there for years, when in all honesty, Hiccup guessed it was only a few months. But these months had irreversibly transformed the three of them forever, in ways they had yet to even acknowledge.

His reoccurring dreams never went away as they continued their trek back towards their homeland, and he started kidding himself into believing that it all had been an elaborate hallucination. It had seemed so real though, and a little part of him kept holding out that whatever he had seen and heard and felt had been true.

"So what," she had said, "You're different! Does that make you any less of a hero?"

He rolled over, his limbs tangled with Astrid's and he curled a finger around a lock of her hair. He let it tumble lightly back onto her shoulder so he could pick it back up again, performing the same gentle routine over and over. He finally knew how her hair would feel between his fingers and fought the urge to smile, still dazed by the chain of events that had inevitably led to the woman sprawled languidly in his arms.

Things had irrevocably changed, but whether it was for better or for worse…

Well, he wasn't sure yet.

Clearly, they weren't free of peril quite yet if the gigantic Hel hound that had tried to take a bite out of them was any indication. Trouble seemed to follow him like a plague, and if he hadn't been so used to the perpetual misfortune hanging over him like a cloud he probably would have been more worried right then.

But that, of course, had been his first mistake.

A week later, as they neared the western coast of Greonland, they landed on one of the largest islands they had encountered so far. A seemingly dormant volcano loomed over them like a jotunn on the east side of the islet, and the trio decided to take refuge in a cave at the foot of the mountain. They remained there for a few days as they stocked up on food and whatever else they could salvage.

The occasional tremors in the earth should have been their first hint, but even Toothless couldn't have predicted what happened next as the island suddenly began to crumble around them and the ground split into two. Astrid barely managed to drag Hiccup out of harm's way before a huge abyss appeared before them, swallowing up the trees and sand as a surge of gaseous steam rose up from the depths. Astrid hauled Hiccup to his feet and kept her fingers clasped around his belt as he desperately tried to keep his balance. The other side of the crack was being shoved skywards, and the bedrock screeched and shrieked under the tremendous pressure.

"TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup cried above the bedlam but he could already sense that the dragon was about to jump down to them from the other side of the fissure. Pushing against her side with his hip, Hiccup started running towards the coast line, knowing Toothless would be following close behind, and they would have to escape the immediate wrath of the hissing volcano if they wanted to leave this island with all of their limbs intact. The two of them stumbled every few steps, but every scrape and cut they amassed no longer seemed to matter as steaming chunks of rock and pumice started raining down on them from all sides, barring them from their initial path to the sea.

Toothless caught up with them within moments and tossed the two onto his back with his jaws, barely hesitating for Astrid to get her hand on the pedal before launching himself into the air. A hunk of lava just missed Hiccup's head by inches as Toothless spiralled upwards into the sky, steering clear of the spitting volcano as it continued to erupt. It was only when they were a safe distance away that Hiccup locked his prosthetic into the stirrup and looked on behind him, perplexed as the volcano seemed to quiet as if it hadn't erupted at all.

One of the worst storms either of them had encountered thus far on their adventure left them stranded on the coast of Groenland for nearly a week and a half. Astrid forbade Hiccup from leaving the cave, going so far as to remove his prosthetic and take it with her; her actions, despite her good intentions, made him feel just as inadequate as ever.

Toothless insisted on following her into the storm each time she left to find food and water, if only to provide him with some peace of mind and some relief from Hiccup's cabin fever. And even though he would never truly admit it, the female human was beginning to grow on him.

Her complacent aura and her increasingly grating obstinacy was difficult to adjust to at first, but she, in a roundabout kind of way, kind of reminded him of the young females that had been in his brethren ages ago. They were haughty, rarely humble, and that was a trait to be admired in a female of his species. The more he thought about it, the more the similarities became strikingly comparable.

He glanced over at Astrid as she stalked through the snow dunes silently, her eyes trained on an elk through the cover of the firs. He'd resigned himself to the fact that he would never see his brethren again, and that he had been accepted into a new one now. But could she, a female that so clearly reminded him of the dragoness' of his early adulthood, fit into his makeshift family?

She sent him a deadly smirk that clearly spoke to how much enjoyment she got out of the chase. He swallowed and nodded once in agreement before they staged their attack.

When they hauled their impressive catch back to the cave a few hours later, Toothless had conceded. She would make a good addition to their team.

She threw her runes one more time, if only to reassure herself that she was seeing things in her old age. She tried convincing herself that her eyes were failing her, but as she peered back down at the same three reversed symbols…there was absolutely no way.

A rumble of thunder passed overhead, and a flash of lightning to the west quickly erased any doubt from her mind.

This…this was not good.

Gothi collected the runes from the table and placed them back into the skin bag, tapping the tips of her gnarled fingers against the wood. After a moment of deep thought, she placed them aside and walked over to the cupboard in the far corner, her cane rapping against the worn hardwood in time with the pounding of the unseasonal rain against the windowpanes. Swallowing her impending dread, she pulled a stone bowl from the shelf and peered inside of it, assuring herself it was clean. She ran a cloth down the sides once she brought it back to the table anyway, just to make sure.

She then trudged over to the other side of the room and took a vial of lamb's blood between her fingers. She shook it three times and placed it beside the bowl, lighting another candle.

She began reciting a prayer to Frigga, asking for her good graces. Then, she removed the plug from the flask and poured it into the stone bowl, summoning Skuld and her divine knowledge of the future. She stirred the vessel three times in both directions before setting it back down and lightning another candle, holding it up to see.

It only took a few minutes to read the prophecy, but that was long enough. Her questions finally had answers, but they failed to bring her any sort of respite. She set the bowl down and sat upon her stool, taking a dulled piece of charcoal in her hands. She glanced down at the parchment, and started writing.

And whilst the nine worlds held their breath,

Two brothers, vanquishers of death;

Into the deadly pit of favour

They have fallen with the gods.

Gone is the terror of the sea,

But note that one and two make three;

Be naught but wary of the trickster,

Of the father of façades.

There was another staccato clap of thunder above the island as Gothi stared down at the divination she had just prophesized.

This…this was even worse.

They had taken their time, but once they passed over the tumultuous currents of Jormungand – if they could even be called that now – they knew they were almost home. Hiccup had started recording the days out of boredom while they were still marooned on Greonland, and just over a month had passed since he began.

The closer they loomed to their eventual destination, the more he thought about how things had changed. He wondered what he would say to his father, and how the chieftain would react, how Gobber would react. What would the rest of the inhabitants say when they saw him return with Astrid clinging to his shoulders, looking decidedly worse for wear. He couldn't stop himself from imagining the worst case scenarios; he kept seeing Mrs. Hofferson coming at him with a knife.

All kidding aside though, it was safe to say that he was still kind of frightened. By trying to ignore the fact that something out there was once again trying to kill him, he had been distracting himself pretty well with the fact that he'd soon be living with a roof over his head. He'd have to go back to the forge and scrub the floors and wake up every morning to the same rafters he'd been waking up to since he could remember.

All in all, it seemed a little mundane.

For so long, he'd been living day to day just to survive. He had kind of gotten used to the impulse of it; he never knew when some evil creature would decide that it was going to try to kill him or when a volcano was going to spontaneously explode. He grinned wryly the more he thought about it – clearly, he was a glutton for punishment.

He tried to smother the thoughts of some of the other things he would be forced to do once he returned home, namely taking over being the chieftain in training. Considering his apprehension concerning the tribe that, for the most part of his life, detested him, he was a little hesitant to try and do his father's job. Back in the fall, he hadn't thought he would ever return to take back his responsibility as the Haddock heir. But things were in a constant state of adjustment lately, and the past really didn't matter anymore.

He thought back to a time when Astrid had been curled up beside him, nearly asleep, when she had told him to stop living in the past. Sitting there now, he realized that she had a point; maybe he was being a little melodramatic.

Astrid tightened her grip on Hiccup's waist and rested her chin on his shoulder, smiling lightly. They were so close she could practically taste it. They were almost home.

Hiccup angled his head just enough to meet her gaze before turning back forward, keeping an eye to the east. He wondered about how their relationship would change once they returned; they had broken so many traditions and taboos already. That, and they were so clearly incompatible for each other it was almost bizarre, and they were constantly at each other's throats like rabid cats and dogs. But he supposed it was worth it; if anything, she could provide him with that impulsiveness that he was already beginning to miss.

Hiccup glanced behind him, noticing the dark clouds following them in from the west. He swallowed the growing sensation of anxiety in his gut and refocused again on the skyline, squaring his shoulders when the outline of Raven's Point could be distinguished from the horizon.

He heard her gasp from behind him. He grinned.

And on the wings of flight, Hiccup knew he was home.

FIN.

I can't believe it. I'm in a state of shock.

Horizons is over! And what an amazing ride it has been! Thank you so much to Sir Nick, who has been a faithful beta, and Leon Woon, who had to stand in a few months ago. Thank you to those of you who favourited and alerted, and even though I never heard from you, it's nice to know that you care. Thank you to the people that recognized me and my stories on deviantArt, tumblr, and other blogs. And thank you to those of you that helped me with research, because as you know, I put a great deal of mythology into this saga.

Finally, I want to send out a HUGE thank you to my reviewers. Without you, this story would not be posted. It would have stayed in my journal, partially in French. Because of you, I'm kind of a big deal. Because of you, I experienced such an awesome level of kindness and criticism and love and I can't thank you enough! You people are amazing for sticking with me throughout this entire saga, and don't ever forget it!

Already, I've had people begging me to write a sequel but...I won't do it unless a crazy amount of people hound me down and bother me with reviews and messages. Only then will I consider. But for now, I hope you enjoyed the open ending and I hope to hear your thoughts of it in a review. If you have any questions that you think I left unsaid, make sure you ask as well!

It's been three years of absolute joy writing this saga and I hope you'll continue to read what I have to offer.

Brontë