XXXVI.
He staggered in a stupor through the bodies.
He passed dragon carcasses of all contorted shapes – supposing grotesque, bone-broken lumps like that really properly could be called "shapes."
He passed fallen Visithugs soldiers, miscellaneous men, to him all faceless, some literally so.
He passed familiar men and women, too, people with whom he had grown up, who had reared him, mentored him, bullied him, befriended him, gotten married or grown old or birthed children during their years on Berk with him.
Is that Mrs. Larson? Does Gustav…No, no, must not think on it.
Even the day was dying.
Directly above his head, bland gray clouds reflected the lifeless heap of ice and bodies resting on the earth. They mirrored each other, battleground and overcast sky, dismal gray with dismal blood. And small patches of blood too dripped down from a swarm of wispy stratus clouds, the haze of incessant leaden colors broken up by bleeding edges. To the north a large wisp tenderly catered to its own arm injury; another cloud nearer west suffered puncture wounds from the Vigilante's fortress impaling it with spikes of ice. Not even the sky escaped a round of casualties.
The world was darkening, and quickly. Its consciousness ebbing away. Fading. Colors fading, but for that red. Fading. Vision sunk into late-dusk haze. Fading. Morosely, the hidden sun slipped below the horizon to hide its eye from the unburied graveyard through which Hiccup staggered, staggered, staggered through, suffering likewise through a haze in his own mind.
Fading.
Darkening.
Dark.
Every image which rested on Hiccup's eye he wished he could forget. He could see far too much even in this dim light.
But the one thing, the one thing he did not see – either dead or alive – was Toothless.
And though the pools of red he passed he wished he never saw – for they reminded him too much of another bloody lake lying beside his father's corpse – Hiccup nonetheless sifted through the carcasses of enemies and feral dragons, hoping… and fearing… he would find his best friend. Finding Toothless dead would only compound the nightmare Hiccup currently faced. Yet even finding Toothless alive remained more than an intimidating prospect.
His heart throbbed nervously to think on it. For what if he did find Toothless? Did he really want to? A fluttering hope reminded him Toothless still could be that warm, energetic friend with whom he had grown up the past five years… yet at the same time, he quashed his own hope with the memories of the plasma blast which took his father's life.
His best friend… his father's murderer.
No, not best friend. Not even friend. He did not know what to call Toothless now, but he hardly could identify a vapid-minded killer as his friend. Not when another encounter would more likely than not result in that narrow-eyed Night Fury shooting another deadly blast directly at Hiccup.
If he found Toothless a second time, he could die.
He had to keep searching anyway.
And so the world faded around him – he paid no heed to the living men he passed – he believed they were Visithugs, all of them – and just rambled through the ruins of war. No one stood in his way or hailed his name; no human who stepped around Hiccup knew who he was. He was nothing more than a mind-lost Hooligan man traumatized from the past eight hours.
About halfway through his aimless but still goal-oriented journey Hiccup recollected the Vigilante's last words. They arrived unbidden in mind, a sharp painful stab associated with Berk's fallen chieftain. Yet as soon as Hiccup heard her snarls again in his memories, he realized those words could indeed help him, for the Vigilante's threat suggested where Toothless might be.
If we meet again, don't think your dragon will miss his shot a second time.
She must have taken Toothless.
Weary eyes lifted up to her fortress' jagged spires. The mountain would be challenging to climb even did he feel more vigorous and fully hale, for large masses of rubble tumbled down on the slopes, impeding easy access to ice and entrances inside. Yet Hiccup had to return to the mountain. If it meant finding Toothless, he could find the energy.
He had to know. Had to know. Where was Toothless?
Hiccup's surroundings metamorphosed from bloodied tombstones to granite slabs. The flat snowy surface of the battlegrounds grew into a steep incline with slippery slopes. Knees trembled as Hiccup reeled up the mountain slope, often leaning in to crawl on fours as he inched upward. Quickly his right thigh began to ache – it must have been strained when Stoick pushed Hiccup out of the way – when he had tumbled out of range of the plasma blast – when his father had died – but Hiccup continued climbing. Once he entered the mountain, slipped into the sauna sanctuary within, and located Toothless, then he would give his body rest.
The world was fading darkness. Darkness. Climbing. Struggling. That was what was left. All that was left. Groping for the next handhold. Groping for hope amongst nightmares. He did not much see the slope before him, for far more often, mental images of a Night Fury opening wide its jaws preoccupied his thoughts. He could still hear the screech of an incoming plasma blast screaming inside his head.
But though Hiccup heard and saw more of the world within than the world without, he began to notice the cold.
Coming night of course chilled the temperature outdoors, yet even during noon the day had been far from warm. Hiccup simply had not felt the bite of a frozen wasteland in the midst of the skirmish. Now, however, the rush and clamor of bodies, high-speed flights and heart-surging battle maneuvers, and constant physical exertion could no longer heat him. Chill winds cut even through his armor, slipping in at the joints near his armpits and the back of his neck and his mid-back and near his waist, and he found himself shivering slightly during his arduous journey up mountain slopes.
Everything… was… cold.
And then he noticed spires of ice at the tip of his vision, peeking out from behind the sweat-cloaked bangs half-covering Hiccup's viewpoint. He pushed his hair aside for a better view and puffed out a sigh of relief. At last, he had arrived at the outer wall of the Vigilante's lair. He could enter into the fortress, experience a bit of warmth or at least shelter from the wind, and soon rest his drained body, drained mind.
Before starting to search for a cave entrance inside, though, Hiccup turned around and stared out toward the way he had come.
It would have been considered a magnificent view any other day or night. Hiccup might have been Heimdall from these slopes, watching over the top of the world, seeing all. For the high elevation provided Hiccup an expansive lookout to miles and miles of snowy peaks, plateaus of snow and ice floes floating between wide, dark ocean swaths. Clouds above and the frozen world below reach out, out, out, in endless formations, flat surfaces, jagged surfaces, rolling hill-like lumps, sudden inclines or falls or gentle transformations from one geometric idea to another. Fading grays prevented Hiccup from seeing more – but if his vision had been unlimited – he never would have seen the edge of the horizon, only more and more kilometers of unending wilderness.
Immediately below him, outlined in half-obscuring gray from the fading light, an enormous mass of wooden objects, dragonesce figures, and tiny dots from men cloaked the slope. Everything was scattered below like someone had accidentally dropped and spilled broken toys at the foot of this mountain. The greatest densities of blackish objects began at the seas and became more and more scattered and sparse as they crept to Hiccup's feet.
Then a sudden burst of orange caught his attention.
Amidst a world of increasing black and visual obscurity, a tiny but nonetheless sharp dot of color blossomed.
It appeared to be a mere candle flame at first, except that its flames flickered so far below him it needed to be far larger than that. Yet it was fire. Entranced, Hiccup watched it float from the land's darkened shores to darker ocean expanses.
What was it?
Memories of another similar color – bright, unrelenting scarlet – flashed before his mind.
And then he knew.
The world never felt colder, more unwelcome, more hostile, more lonely, than that moment Hiccup's eyes watched his father's ship sail to Valhlalla.
His eyes could not make out the dots of Viking men and women on the shores, but inevitably every Hooligan from the fleet would stand vigil tonight beside quietly lapping ocean waves, salty tears dripping from their eyes, hoarse vocal cords murmuring regrets that the chief of Berk parted ways from Midgard so soon. Someone would speak aloud a eulogy – multiple people, probably – extolling his incredible character traits. His strength as a warrior. His resoluteness and authority as chief. His loving bond as a father. His important place as a friend.
And on and on they would talk through the otherwise-still night in gathering darkness, as the flames from Stoick's ship first ate the chief's body, then his funeral pier, then the boat's deck, and then the mast and the ropes and the sails until the entire vessel glowed with the mirage of the afterlife. That light alone would blossom – at least until the ship sailed away, away, away, never to return. Stoick's ashes would sink to the sea, his spirit take its place amongst the table of kings, and only memories remain on the ocean shore.
Hooligans would share stories commemorating all those incredible deeds done during Stoick's life.
Yet they'll forget the greatest sacrifice my father ever made… because I'm the only one of them who knows about it.
Flashbacks to aqua green and splattered scarlet. The trauma of a pounding heart and pouring tears.
Hiccup stared at the yellow-orange flower floating in a blackened world, swallowed his suddenly-dry throat, and whispered, "I'm sorry, Dad."
This fire blossom would be the last time Hiccup would ever see his father, at least until he, too, departed the world of the living.
He spoke now because Hiccup would not be able to clamber down the mountain and join the other Berkians below in their ceremonies. He realized that now, just as he realized he might not climb aboard their ship decks by morning and return home. If he could not find Toothless, he would be stranded here.
"I guess I'll never be the chief you wanted me to be," he murmured as that understanding dawned on him. He never would have deserved the position anyway. Visions of bodies danced in his mind. "And I'm not the peacekeeper I thought I was. I don't know…"
His voice cut off but his mind finished the sentence. It finished it multiple times, each completed statement aggravating the uncertainties in Hiccup's mind.
I don't know who I am.
I don't know where to go from here.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know what you'd want me to do.
I don't know what's going to happen, or how anything could turn out okay now.
An internal sob. Why… why… why did you push me aside? Why did you take the hit? You knew you were going to die.
I did this.
A more muted question now. How do you become someone that great… that brave… that selfless?
The fire below flickered. Wavered. And then darkness snuffed it out.