Chapter Five: Dagur Island
Ok, what does an UnknownBlackHand have to do to get a good reaction out of you guys? Would this chapter win me some wonderful reviews?
It turned out that Midnightfire made for an inquisitive, well-behaved, and (above all) delightful little girl. She was particularly interested in the capabilities human hands had. She asked to borrow one of Hiccup's sketchbooks at one point and was fascinated with Hiccup's drawings, as well as how delicately she could turn the pages. Astrid, taking note of her fascination with Hiccup's work, went upstairs and brought down a few sheets of parchment and a piece of charcoal for Midnightfire.
"Do you think that you can try drawing your mother or Stormfly?" Astrid asked. A bright smile shone on Midnightfire's face as she accepted the parchment and charcoal. She brought them back over to the table and began sketching. Her deep focus stirred up curiosity in both Sapphire and Stormfly and they approached the table and took a look at her drawing.
With the dragons and Midnightfire distracted, Astrid got up and fixed herself another eel lunch while eating a piece of chocolate; and something dawned on her. She had been craving both eels and chocolate, why not have both of them at the same time? So she combined them. At the same time, she knew that Midnightfire would want to eat eventually, so she cooked up a salmon for her.
Skullcrusher was given a head start to resume tracking Dagur the Deranged in the morning, but just as soon as they were out of eyeshot, the remaining riders saddled up and took flight. They caught up to Skullcrusher within ten minutes, but this time the Rumblehorn had picked up the speed. Dagur's scent was getting stronger and tensions were rising within the riders.
As they were following Skullcrusher, Alvin and Blade leveled off with Hiccup and Toothless. Alvin asked Hiccup: "How do you want to go about capturing Dagur?"
"First, we circle the island he's on, if he's not on any shoreline, then we land where he landed his ship, and begin to track him down, but Alvin, you stay in the skies and circle over the island. If you find Dagur, have Blade sound a roar before you dive in after him." Hiccup replied.
"That sounds good enough to me." Alvin told him.
"Land ho!" Eret called out. Skullcrusher sped up even more, Dagur's scent was strong now, and the island in sight also had a ship on one of the beaches.
"That's his ship!" Alvin called out. Now that the ship was in view, the riders had no need to follow Skullcrusher's nose for the moment. The other dragons picked up speed and circled the island, while Eret landed Skullcrusher by the ship so the Rumblehorn could rest his wings; as said before, he wasn't much of a creature of the sky when compared to the others.
Unfortunately, Dagur wasn't just sitting on the shoreline. However, there was another scent in the air Skullcrusher caught a whiff of. It was a rather troublesome scent that put the Rumblehorn on edge.
"Skullcrusher, what's wrong?" Eret asked with concern. He could tell that the dragon smelled something of concern, but as for what it was, he could not tell.
"Is it another dragon?" Eret asked Skullcrusher. The dragon gave him a 'yes' grunt. Now getting somewhere, Eret kept talking: "Is it a big dragon?"
Yes.
"Is it a Bewilderbeast?"
No.
"Is it a Red Death?"
No.
"Is it dangerous?" Eret asked. Skullcrusher gave a panicked roar and a grunt meaning that the dragon he smelled was exceedingly dangerous. A moment later the riders landed, notifying Eret that they hadn't spotted Dagur.
"Chief, I'm afraid that I have some troubling news." Eret told Hiccup.
"What is it?" He asked.
"Skullcrusher caught the scent of a large and dangerous dragon. It's neither a Bewilderbeast nor a Red Death, but it's got to be larger than a Typhoomerang or a Timberjack, maybe even larger than the Screaming Death. Whatever it is, it has put Skullcrusher on edge."
"Skullcrusher's not a cowardly dragon. If he is scared, then we should leave the island right now." Stoick stated.
"I agree with you, Dad, but what about Dagur? There's no telling what events would occur if he crosses paths with this dragon. On one hand he might try to kill it or get himself killed in the process of trying to kill it; on the other hand he could try and train it, and if it is as dangerous as Skullcrusher makes it seem as, then Dagur would use this dragon to attack Berk and destroy us all!" Hiccup replied.
"Well we can't have that." Alvin stated. With some reluctance Claudette and Stoick accepted Hiccup's reasoning. They would search the island for Dagur and the large dragon, but Eret and Skullcrusher would guard the ship in case Dagur came around to gather supplies from it. The Rumblehorn really pushed his limits during the home stretch in the pursuit of Dagur and was in the need of some food water and a bit of rest. Eret opened up one of his saddlebags, and fed him some chicken he had stored away.
Alvin and Blade took to the skies and began circling the island while the Strike class dragons ventured into the island's forests and began searching; and the three riders split up, promising to fire a signal into the air if they found either Dagur or the large dragon.
Claudette and Whoshadow came across a freshwater stream. The bonded pair got low and drank from it. The water was pure, clean, and quite refreshing. When they had their fill, Claudette was about to hop back on the saddle, but then the bushes began rustling. Claudette grabbed her bow and readied an arrow as a strange man emerged with a bottle to fill with the water. He was tall; his hair was dark, long, tangled, and worn loose. He was wearing faded blue war paint, seemed to be a couple years older than Hiccup, and actually on the scrawnier side when compared to other Vikings. He also bore the wounds that came with the torture that he'd been subjected to. There was no doubt about it that this was the wanted fugitive.
Dagur looked up from the stream and caught sight of Claudette and Whoshadow. He knew that only his foes were able to tame such dragons as the Skrill, and in failing to notice that Claudette was aiming a bow at him, he pulled out a dagger and charged them with a feral howl. Whoshadow roared, and pounced Dagur, with talons catching his arms. With Dagur pinned to the ground, and Claudette's bow trained on Dagur, Whoshadow looked to the skies and she shot a bolt of lightning where Blade and Alvin could see it.
"Girl, you rock!" Claudette told Whoshadow with her bow still trained on Dagur. The mighty Skrill then locked eyes with Dagur and gave a vicious snarl.
Hiccup and Stoick never really spread that far apart from each other… and they both caught sight of the dragon that had put Skullcrusher on edge. Half the size of a Red Death and from the looks of the head, powerful wings, and the finned tail, this was a Strike class monster!
To make matters worse, it turned out that this beast was the Alpha of a horde of Skrills and Night Furies, sure there was an occasional Monstrous Nightmare and Deadly Nadder, but there were also Timberjacks and Stormcutters!
"Retreat." Toothless stated; his eyes wide and pupils were slits.
"What?" Hiccup asked.
"Retreat!" Toothless exclaimed. There was no argument now, the Alpha caught sight of the intruders. Then, they heard the sound of a deranged war cry soon followed by the sight of a lightning bolt shooting into the sky. Claudette and Whoshadow had found Dagur, and from the looks of it and the sound of a snarl, they've actually had the upper hand.
"Dad, we need to retreat!" Hiccup called out. Both men saddled up the Night Furies and took to the skies along with Eret, and the rest of the party. However, they now had the Alpha chasing after them!
When the hunting party was gathered together, they found Dagur struggling in Whoshadow's grasp. Hiccup flashed a satisfied smile from behind his flight mask. Nothing felt better than seeing the defeat of an old foe.
Unfortunately, the feeling over the relief of capturing the lunatic villain was short-lived; they had a big, unknown, Strike class dragon pursuing them with thunderous wing beats and a roar that could give the Screaming Death a run for its money.
Dagur continued struggling against Whoshadow's grip, and during a brief panic over the unknown dragon roaring after them, her grip loosened up a bit, and Dagur broke one arm free. He reached for his belt and pulled out his dagger again, and stabbed Whoshadow's ankle. The Skrill screamed and released Dagur with the dagger still lodged in her ankle. Whoshadow was about to turn around and catch him with her fangs this time, but the Alpha caught him like a loyal bonded dragon would.
"Oh no, they're bonded!" Hiccup exclaimed.
Enraged over the fact that she dropped the fugitive, Whoshadow sparked, making Claudette's hair stand on end, and she fired a blast in the Alpha's face to blind the beast temporarily, and force it to give up the chase.
"Alright, we need to give it up now! Those dragons will defend their Alpha to the death, and we're grossly outnumbered now!" Hiccup announced as the Alpha and the dragons were retreating to Dagur's island. There was frustration in the air, but they had no other choice, so they retreated back to Berk.
"I can't believe you ate chocolate-coated eels." Midnightfire told Astrid the next morning.
"It's what pregnant humans do, they get weird cravings. Besides, it was good, you should try it; as a human, you'd be able to eat eels without getting sick." Astrid replied.
"Knowing that chances are that your kid is going to have some draconic features, I'm surprised that you're not getting sick from eating those eels!" Midnightfire exclaimed.
"I should make you some eels to eat for giving my child draconic features." Astrid stated. In the background, Sapphire gave her a roar of protest.
"You win." Midnightfire stated. The two of them were lying on the grass by the cliffs in an area just between the forest and the village with Sapphire and Stormfly. It was a peaceful day with a gentle breeze going. If they looked to their right they could see Aric showing Brünhild how to build up walls of ice to fortify an island.
"How come I don't see you playing with other hatchlings that much, other than Brünhild?" Astrid asked. It was true that out of all of Berk's hatchlings, Midnightfire bonded closest to Brünhild.
"They have siblings and other members of their breed to play with. Sometimes we'll play with other breeds, but dragons simply prefer to play with our own breed. Brünhild and I are one-of-a-kind and so we play with each other though… but she can't share my passion for flying, and she always beats me in play fighting, so most of the time we just end up swimming and fishing; and if I'm not playing with her, then I guess I just get bored and eventually get into trouble."
"It is a shame that there aren't many Night Furies on Berk." Astrid stated.
"I'll drink to that." Midnightfire stated. It was a phrase she picked up from the other Vikings.
"I've noticed you playing with the Viking kids yesterday, how did that go?"
"They thought I was weird for turning myself into a human, but then we got into a chasing game. It was fun, but Mom gave me a tail whack for tackling one of them as hard as I did."
"Well we don't want our kids playing too rough, they'll break bones if they do." Astrid replied. A moment later, Stormfly and Sapphire's heads perked up, Sapphire's ears were raised, and she gave a soft 'rawr' to Midnightfire. She leapt to her feet and told Astrid: "Daddy and Uncle Hiccup are almost home!"
"Alright then, now help me up!" She replied. She rolled onto her side and Midnightfire tried to pull Astrid to her feet, but they eventually had to rely on Stormfly to help her up. Astrid hopped onto her saddle with Midnightfire sitting behind her, hands clinging on to Astrid's top, and Stormfly walked over to where the riders were coming in.
She was so happy to see Hiccup again after their two-day trek, and she kissed his lips before noticing that Dagur wasn't among them in chains or something like that.
"What happened to Dagur?" Astrid asked, and then taking another look at them, she noticed Whoshadow's wound and asked: "What happened to your dragon Claudette?"
"Dagur is what happened to Whoshadow. Listen, I'll be happy to come by later and chat, but I want to get Whoshadow in to Gobber before she discharges lightning at us, she's pretty pissed right now, and contemplating her revenge." Claudette replied.
I'll tear his guts out and feed them to the fishes and then I'll eat the fishes. Whoshadow thought with a snarl and sparks discharging.
"Dagur stabbed Whoshadow to made his escape; but what's worse was that he was rescued by an unknown Strike class dragon." Hiccup told Astrid. She looked over to Alvin and told him: "I'm sorry to hear that, Al- SCHXXBLTBLTUUCK! Blech!"
She vomited all over the Outcast Chief.
"What in the name of Hel have you been eating?" Hiccup asked her, eyeing up the chunks, and holding his nose to keep the revolting smell from his nostrils.
"Chocolate-coated eels." Astrid replied hoarsely. Hiccup almost vomited himself after hearing that.
"Come on, let's get you inside." He stated.
"Alvin, I think I can help you find a new pair of pants and boots." Stoick stated, and he walked Alvin away from the scene.
Hiccup looked downward towards Astrid's belly about to talk to the baby inside, but then his eyes locked with a black-haired, blue-eyed, girl. Toothless even caught sight of her.
"Who's this?" Hiccup asked Astrid.
"She's Midnightfire." She replied. Toothless' eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
"Daddy!" Midnightfire exclaimed, she ran and threw her arms around his neck. After brief sniff, to confirm that she was his daughter, he hugged her back.
Hiccup and Astrid started walking back to their home, but about halfway there, Astrid's knees buckled, and her hand went over her belly.
"AHH! HICCUP, MY WATER JUST BROKE!" She screamed. His eyes went wide, and he asked her: "How is that possible? You're only seven months along!"
"HICCUP, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, THIS BABY IS COMING, AND IT IS COMING NOW!" Astrid hollered. Without another signal, Hiccup's adrenaline was pumping; he took her in his arms, and ran her to the house, catching the attention of their mothers, who followed after them.
I hate to leave it there but I want the next scene to be in its own chapter. Special thanks to those who're following the story and also special thanks to Fernfury and Joat382 for putting Resurfaced and a Dragonstone and The Dragonstone Tribe into their communities.