"Hiccup, wake up."

He felt a pressure at his shoulder, and began slowly to wade through sleepy murk to the sound and touch. "Mmpph wha?" he asked intelligently. He'd been dreaming. At first the dream had begun like so many others, but a vague tension began to creep in as he and Toothless descended from the clouds, gliding lower and lower until they sank impossibly through the ground and well below, until the underworld seemed vast as the sky.

When you spent the majority of your time in open air, the idea of being underground was unsettling.

Astrid's pretty face loomed over him where he had been sprawled on his bed, after she'd strongarmed him into getting a few hours' sleep. "Wha's going on?" he slurred.

"They're getting worse."

This yanked him out of drowsiness. "Have any—died?" he was afraid to say it.

"Not yet." Her tone was not comforting however, and she placed an emphasis on 'yet' Hiccup did not like. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, fumbling around for his prosthetic leg. Astrid handed it to him.

By the gloom it seemed that dawn was yet a ways off, and stars winked on the pair as they left his home and he closed the heavy door behind them, relieved that Toothless was not around and feeling guilty for feeling relieved.

"No more dragons have gotten sick," Astrid said before he could ask. They had set sizable guards around the paddocks by this time, although Hiccup was pretty sure the poisoner had already done as much as he dared. "But the ones that are sick are not doing well."

So much for flushing them out with water. At best, it was only slowing down the Hel's Yew effects. Hiccup glanced at a dark house over a small rise, where by the small lamp shining through a window he knew that Gobber was keeping an extra vigilant watch on Bolwer Gorm.

The scene at the paddocks was a little heartbreaking. Heedless of the hour, scores of Vikings were milling around fretfully. Ticktack was piteous with both heads stretched out on two separate pillows, its human comforting them as best he could.

Hiccup dreaded every face that looked to him for answers he could not give, and he felt helpless as he surveyed the efforts. Up to this point he had forced himself to feel optimistic and look twice as optimistic as he felt, but when he looked around it seemed hopeless to keep up the act while things were falling apart. Now he focused on looking calm, while his mind raced.

"This is so bad," he murmured.

Astrid agreed.

Hiccup looked at the horizon where he knew the sun would be breaking upon them in short time. "Plan G," he muttered.

She looked to him. "The Terrors?"

"I can't think of anything else."

The two conferred for a few minutes in low voices. Then Astrid bounded back through the mists. Hiccup began to turn when Fishlegs and Roppke caught up to him. The big Viking boy looked about to speak, but no words made their way out and he subsided into anxious silence.

Hiccup said softly, "I'm going to try something. Will you keep an eye on everyone? We should be back in a few hours."

Fishlegs nodded, blue eyes wide. Suddenly Hiccup smiled encouragingly at him, thankful for the immense help the boy had proven to be. "You've done really well," he said. "No, really," he added at Fishlegs' blush.

The boy mumbled something embarrassedly and moved back toward the paddocks, ears red.

Roppke was not watching Fishlegs. "What are you going to do?" he asked intently.

Part of the time Hiccup had promised Astrid he'd spend sleeping was actually spent awake in furious pondering until one suspicion had fallen away and a new one rose in its place.

"The Terrors aren't immune. They're not. So they've got to be doing something that cancels out the Yew."

"Like what?"

"No clue," Hiccup said lightly. "But they're our only lead."

"You're going to follow them?" asked Roppke. "How?"

"On Toothless, and Astrid's Nadder." Hiccup raised his eyebrow. "They're fine, by the way."

Roppke looked abashed. "Sorry. I assumed they were."

Hiccup smiled at him, though his heart wasn't in it. "We might need your help. If there's anything we have to bring back I don't think even all this much Viking—" he gestured to all of himself— "can muscle it all back."

The other Viking snorted, but Hiccup could sense his concern when he looked back to the dragons.

A short time later the three of them wrangled a thick tarp into place on Gibby's saddle. The Nadder's eagerness was a weird contrast to the ill lethargy of the other dragons. Toothless was also strung out but that was partly because of the anxiety he could not help but feel radiating from Hiccup, and it caused the dragon to be short with Roppke. The big Viking jerked his hand back at a now-uncharacteristic growl from the Night Fury.

"Toothless," Hiccup said warningly, and the dragon subsided, although he did not take his lamplight eyes off Roppke for several minutes.

Astrid missed none of this but worked as though she did not notice. "Gear's set," she announced with a final tug of a strap. Then she stared at the enormous pack, bulging with food, that Hiccup was wrestling to Gibby's other side. "What do we need that for?"

"Well," huffed Hiccup, "when I snack, I snack."

Roppke gave a small grin and said, "Nobody'd know it to look at you." Toothless flattened his head plates in irritation.

"All we need is a Terror." Astrid gazed around, and whistled. Almost immediately a little dragon came zooming up to them, making its odd little chortling sound and demanding a scratch before they could coax him to cooperate and gather some others.

Soon a small gaggle of Terrible Terrors was cavorting around them, jabbering at each other, vexing Toothless and nipping Gibby on the tail. Hiccup could not help but smile at how inexhaustably exhausting they were, and he ushered everyone into the air before the Terrors could overstay their invitation. As a group they rose, Astrid and Roppke riding on Gibby, and Hiccup on Toothless. The Nadder had to take a running leap to gain enough momentum for flight, and Hiccup could see Roppke's face turn white as they hopped off a cliff and plummeted a bit before Gibby's wings caught the wind.

Toothless primly launched from a standstill, which he liked to do when he showed off. The Terrors careened past them, tumbling around in a makeshift game of cannonball. At least they harrassed each other quite as much as they did everyone else.

It was a minute or two before the dragons understood that the Vikings meant to follow them. The flock sprinted off happily, darting to and fro in the air currents like schools of fish. Every so often they doubled back to make sure that everyone was having as good a time as they were.

Up here Hiccup felt his worry drain a little. No matter how often he'd gone flying with Toothless, the elation never faded. Sometimes he rather thought that Vikings were adapting quite as much to the air as dragons were to Berk, because the sky felt as much like home as did his little cottage in the village; he was beginning to know the islands, the rocks, the thickets of forest like he did the cracks in his floor.

It was also dangerous, because that feeling of abandonment could create recklessness, causing you to forget the threats you could not really leave behind.

Nearly an hour went by before Astrid twisted to face Hiccup and shouted over the rushing air, "Are we going in circles?"

It did seem like the Terrors were not exactly grasping the point of this excursion. Dawn had by now stolen through most of the sky, and time was not on their side. "Hopefully they'll get hungry soon," muttered Hiccup.

One thing you could count on was a Terror's appetite. Fifteen minutes later the flight had begun to take a more certain direction, and fiften minutes after that Hiccup had the sinking feeling he knew where they were going. Mists swathed the surface of the ocean, chilled their bones and obscured their vision. Uncertain of the dragons' sensory abilities now that the Red Death's magnetic presence no longer drew them to the old volcanic lair, Hiccup made sure they stuck close together. It was easy to get lost in the fogs.

"Why in Odin's name are we going back?" Astrid's voice had an eerie cast, buffered by the fog. Her tone was brave but Hiccup thought she must be wondering what he was—there couldn't possibly be a second Red Death, could there? The Terrors, however, showed none of the brainwashed rigidity of flight that suggested another beast was calling to them. Neither did Gibby or Toothless.

A low rumble began in the Night Fury's throat, and Hiccup patted his head. "Easy, buddy," he said, although he was spooked too.

He was relieved when they began to rise. They cleared the mists and the volcano loomed up before them, with the same gaping hole in its side that the Red Death had emerged from.

And then—the Red Death itself. Even now, the sight of it just—it was so big. When he saw the enormous rib bones rising up like bleached masts, Hiccup's heart jumped up in his throat and it suddenly felt impossible that he had ever been brave enough to confront the great beast. He was almost more afraid of it now, upon reflection, than when he hadn't had the time to think.

Following the Terrors, they soared around to the other side of the island, which had largely escaped damage. It held a surprising amount of vegetation, mostly scraggly bushes and grass. Volcanic ash had made the soil fertile, both around the base of the mountain and on the tiny archipelago. Excited by the prospect of a meal, the Terrors started diving into the water and snapping up fish. Several landed on the little islands, some no larger than ten or fifteen paces across, and flung themselves headlong into the bushes.

Gibby landed as gracefully as her load would allow. Toothless, as ever, swooped down without a hitch.

Astrid and Roppke hopped off and surveyed the scene. Hiccup waited a second, then dismounted. His metal leg sank an inch into the soft soil. Astrid went over to one of the bushes that was not being busily scavenged and plucked something.

"Here," she said, holding it up. Hiccup made his way over carefully and saw that she held a cluster of bright berries, the same that the Terror had offered him before. "I think—hey!"

A Terrible Terror had snatched the berries from her hand, plummeting through the air and gleefully landing in a heap with its prize. "Those things are more Terrible than Terror," Astrid grumbled.

Hiccup blew out his breath. "Okay, I think we've found it." He unwrapped the tarp they brought and spread it on the surface as levelly as he could. "Let's spread out and gather as much as we can."

They set to work immediately, plucking armfuls and dumping them onto the canvas, while shooing away the Terrors from scarfing them up. Astrid leaped nimbly from rock to rock. Hiccup moved around less nimbly. Roppke returned bearing enormous quantities.

"Do you really think this will work?" he asked, wiping his berry-stained hands. "Why berries?"

"It was the only difference in their diets," called Astrid, moving further away. She was beginning to fade into the gray.

Hiccup slung down the giant pack he'd brought along. "The uncommon denominator. So no, I am not one hundred percent sure this will work, but I am one hundred percent sure I don't have a better idea."

Roppke fairly uprooted a bush and yanked the berries from it. "It seems like such an easy solution."

"The berries are," said Hiccup.

Sensing what he meant, Roppke raised his eyebrows and studied the boy. "I thought you'd decided to leave Gorm for your father to handle."

By now Astrid had disappeared from sight with the intent of gathering the furthest berries and working her way back. Hiccup listened for her, but didn't hear anything. "Why don't you guys sniff around," he said to the two milling dragons. "We'll need to find as many berry patches as we can."

Toothless and Gibby bounded off, plainly relieved to get away from the Terrors.

Hiccup watched them vanish before addressing Roppke again. "Ah, well, I guess I'll have to. I don't think Dad really expected me to put down any insurgents, you know? Like, at most he probably just hoped I'd keep Grima from hexing the neighbors."

"Did you?" Roppke's eyes crinkled in amusement.

"Nobody's grown an extra head yet."

"A human Zippleback."

Hiccup smiled, but it faded quickly. "The truth is, I'm still trying to understand why this happened."

Roppke spilled some more berries onto the tarp. "You had to figure not every Viking would change their mind, just that easily."

"No, I thought it'd take something really, really difficult to change their minds, like picking a fight with a big honking dragon," said Hiccup peevishly.

The other Viking raised his hands. "Sorry. But you know what I mean. Berk lost a lot in the war. Bolwer Gorm lost his twin brother. It's a lot to get over."

"Everyone else got over it," said Hiccup, tossing a handful of berries onto the steadily growing pile. "I know it sounds harsh, but Gorm's not the only Viking who lost someone to dragons. A lot of us did."

"You didn't," said Roppke.

True enough. Hiccup's losses were not insignificant, but dragons were not to blame for his mother, and only one dragon was to blame for his leg. "No. I was lucky. So were you, you didn't have to sacrifice anything either."

Roppke grunted, and Hiccup stopped working to watch him ripping berries none too gently from their stems. "But maybe that makes it harder to get why so many Vikings who lost so much could want peace."

Silence.

"Somone who never gave up anything might not understand."

The big Viking was still, and then said quietly: "I wouldn't say I didn't lose anything."

Hiccup was very aware of how very alone they were just then. It didn't matter.

His next words were hard and full of meaning. "Roppke, what you lost meant nothing."

Roppke gave up any pretense at work and squared his shoulders to the boy across from him. Hiccup said angrily, "What did the war cost you? Fame? Your reputation?"

It was a long pause before he spoke. "My pride," said Roppke. "As a warrior."

"Odin," Hiccup said hoarsely. "Your pride."

For a minute everything was so quiet. Even the Terrible Terrors sounded far away. Roppke's eyes were hard and black as flint.

"What are you accusing me of, boy?"

"You poisoned the dragons," said Hiccup. "Not Bolwer Gorm. You."

"Where's your proof?"

"Where was yours?" Hiccup snapped. "When you sicced that mob on Bolwer? When you volunteered to escort him home, alone? Would he have made it there, or would there have been an accident?"

Disbelief soaked every word, because even though he knew it, he could not believe it. "Fishlegs never saw Bolwer. He only found the berries, and you knew the game was up. You had to find someone to blame."

Roppke was speechless, but Hiccup knew he would regain his words soon, and with a vengeance.

He remembered the easygoing humor Roppke could display at times, a fearful temper he showed at others. He'd been relentlessly devoted to Chief Stoick and Hiccup did not want to begin thinking of his father's reaction upon coming back to Berk and discovering the man who'd followed him heedlessly into every fight, whom he'd left behind as a measure of protection for Berk, had defied the truce Stoick himself had declared.

By now Roppke's fists had clenched. No sign of Astrid or Toothless, although Hiccup still hoped to handle this without them, or the knife strapped to his belt.

"So what now, Chief? Are you going to place me under house arrest?" The derisiveness had a faintly hysterical edge to it.

"No, Roppke." Hiccup tried and failed to not sound devastated. "You don't have a home here anymore."

The expression on the man's face was noncomprehending, but Hiccup's words had the ring of a threat and he reacted by stepping forward, less an advance of malice than if he thought a step would bring him closer to understanding. "Just what do you mean?"

Hiccup gestured at the enormous pack of food he'd insisted on lugging along, which he had packed the night previously after he'd talked to Gorm and come to some conclusions.

"I'm going to give you a head start."

Two beats.

"You're going to need it."

Realization dawned on Roppke's face, as clear and bracing as the sun's first light. "You're banishing me. You are actually banishing me?"

Hiccup smiled humorlessly. "What I'm doing is giving you a chance to run away."

When the Viking made no move to take the pack, Hiccup rubbed his temple. "You're only getting this chance because no dragons have died. Yet. If just one had, we'd be having this conversation in front of Toothless." And the rest of Berk.

After gaping, Roppke laughed in incredulity. "I don't believe this. You are choosing dragons over one of your own. A Viking!" He pounded his chest. "I am one of your people!"

You were, Hiccup thought.

"Roppke, you poisoned the dragons, you fingered Bolwer for a crime you committed, and you betrayed my father and all of Berk. This is so much better than you deserve."

In a flash Roppke's eyes became wild and he took another step forward, this one with unmistakable malevolence. Hiccup fought the overwhelming urge to take one step back. This was the crucial point; the others could return any moment, and if they did, either it would be too late for them to help Hiccup or it would be too late for him to protect Roppke.

Roppke did not look in need of protection as he came closer, propelled by fury. Words came tumbling out, distorted and ugly fragments of sentences he could not finish. This sensation of real, dangerous conflict with another Viking was completely new to Hiccup. For some reason this felt so much deadlier. The dragons had acted out of pure self-preservation, but when one human moved in to exterminate another there was something far baser about it than animal instinct.

Hiccup's hand brushed the hilt of his knife, but he was under no illusions: if Roppke wanted a fight, he'd win it.

"Think," Hiccup said, trying to sound firm and sure. "This is like the worst move you could make. You've got maybe seconds now until someone comes back. How much time will you get then? Before Toothless finds you?"

He swallowed mild panic as Roppke did not stop coming. Backing up would back him right off the little island.

"If you leave now, you stand a chance." Hiccup tried to keep his voice steady.

Roppke still came.

"You could find another—"

Roppke lunged.

Hiccup yelled as the big Viking barrelled toward him, and barely managed to dodge the bulk that blurred past him and toppled headfirst into water. It was not deep, perhaps chest high, but it was sufficient to stall Roppke long enough for Hiccup to pry the knife from his belt. Roppke spluttered and coughed, struggling to right himself and maneuvering back to the surface to gasp in air. His eyes found Hiccup, knife held at the ready.

Now Roppke was in a predicament, and time was running short. Hiccup breathed hard.

"Now, you listen," he said, sick to death. "You listen here. You're going to take this pack and you are going to run for your life. If you ever come back, the gods help you because I will not."

Roppke was in a mood to listen. Hiccup didn't let him get out of the water but tossed the pack to him, not caring now whether some food got wet. The Viking paddled away towards the main island, all the while keeping one eye on Hiccup as though he feared the boy would injure him while his back was turned. He needn't have worried; Hiccup was not that way and even if he were he did not trust his own ability to throw a knife that accurately.

The man had just reached the beach and darted for cover when Astrid came leaping over the rocks, parting the mists like a curtain. On her back was a huge bag stuffed with berries, which she upended over the pile.

"How much do you think we'll need?" she asked.

"We'll probably have to make a few trips," Hiccup said tonelessly.

Together they amassed a sizable amount, and their dragons zoomed into view bearing berry-laden bushes they'd uprooted. Gifted with opposable thumbs, Hiccup and Astrid quickly picked the bushes bare while the remaining Terrors hurtled into their midst. Most had filled their bellies by now and were off on whatever Terrors typically got up to.

"Where's Roppke?" Astrid asked, wiping her hands on the canvas and dunking them into the ocean to get rid of the stickiness. "I'd say we're just about ready to go."

Hiccup paused, then said, "Roppke's not coming back with us."

She turned questioning blue eyes on him.

"And when we get back, Bolwer will be released from house arrest." He hoped she'd put two and two together, and she did.

"No," she breathed. "Not Roppke. He couldn't have."

Hiccup sighed and didn't answer. What would his dad say?

They cinched the top of the tarp shut and looped a rope around the mouth, fastening one end on Toothless's back and the other on Gibby's. Launching took a laborious few minutes but they managed to lift up, both dragons' wings beating the clammy air hard for altitude. Thus they left with one less the number with which they'd arrived. In addition to the large load carried in the tarp, both Hiccup and Astrid carried berries in sacks bundled on their backs and the dragons' sides.

Some Terrors joined them for the journey back, cartwheeling through the air beside the dragons as though in preemptive celebration. In annoyance, Toothless gave an especially hard flap of his wings and sent a few tumbling.

Upon arriving, the Vikings greeted them hurriedly and Astrid just barely was able to maintain some kind of control over the distribution of the berries. Snagrod ran full-out with his toward the paddock where his dragon waited.

Hiccup stared at the house over the hill. Sensing that he was looking to get away, Astrid whispered, "I'll tell them. Go get him."

So while everyone was busy parceling out the berries, Hiccup went up to the place where Bolwer Gorm was chained. Bolwer glowered and Gobber looked up expectantly at his approach. "Well?"

"We'll see," said Hiccup. "In the meantime..." He took the key from the side table and unlocked the chain that manacled Bolwer to his bed, explaining everything quickly before Gobber had a chance to protest. "Sorry about that," he finished with nothing better than a lame apology to offer.

Bolwer theatrically rubbed his ankle where it had been chained and Gobber cuffed him on the head. "Don' be dramatic."

"I think there might be an infection," whined Bolwer.

"There is not."

"Are you going to punish Roppke?"

"He's not coming back," said Hiccup.

This was sufficient to impress Bolwer into silence, and he considered the boy for a brief time before venturing outside without further complaint. Gobber shut the door behind him. "He thinks you killed 'im."

"With my bare hands." Hiccup tried to make muscles for emphasis.

Gobber snorted and took a second to gather up his things. "You've had an exciting time o' it. Didn't think things would get much more interestin' than officiating a wedding at spearpoint."

"That was plenty interesting," grumbled Hiccup. Gobber gave him a good-natured slap on the back that sent him three feet forward.

They walked outside with Gobber shaking his head. "Roppke," he said. "I thought it kind o' strange when he never took his Nadder heads down."

Hiccup had not known about that, and went a little green.

Stoick was going to be appalled by the calamities that seemed to beset Berk when he went a' sailing.

big thanks to everyone who's reviewed!