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THE TRAP
(Day 2 - Midday)
Whittling a quick fish hook was easy. The hard part is sitting quietly by the stream, with the tumbling of the water rushing in his ears, drowning out everything else. Anybody could be creeping up on him, and he wouldn't hear them coming. The thought makes him too nervous to sit still.
After about a half-hour of silent fretting, Hiccup fetches the rope out of his pack and sets up a couple of traps just up the bank. Genuinely expecting to catch anyone would be ridiculously optimistic, he admits to himself; but it's better than no defense at all.
As it turns out, luck is actually with Hiccup for once. He lands half a dozen fish over the course of the morning, stringing them through the gills on a stripped twig of wood. He's almost starting to feel confident as he ponders ways to smoke the meat without being discovered. Maybe he can survive out here. Maybe he isn't completely hopeless.
He's halfway through disengaging the hook from his sixth fish when he hears a crash of falling rocks. Hiccup's eyes widen. His traps!
"I...caught someone?" he whispers in disbelief, half-turning...
An inhuman shriek splits the air, sends shivering echoes across the valley. Terrified birds explode out of the treetops, beating the air with their wings as they flee.
Hiccup gasps, and fumbles his grip on the struggling fish. It wrenches itself free with a convulsive motion and slithers out of his hands, flopping its way across the stones toward the water. Hiccup grabs once after it, but it's already out of reach.
As it plops back into the stream, the shrieking - and crashing - fades away into silence.
Hiccup stands for a moment, listening warily to the burbling of the stream and the gentle sigh of the wind in the trees. Then he picks up the string of fish in one hand, and grips his knife tightly in the other. Hesitantly, almost on tiptoe, he edges his way back upstream towards his traps.
He can't imagine a noise like that coming out of a human throat. But then again, he's never trapped a human being before. The thought makes his stomach twist, and he winces. The stones he rigged were as big as he could lift; he didn't think it would work, wasn't really thinking about what they might do to a person...
"Right," Hiccup mutters to himself. "It was my trap, so...whatever happened, happened because of me. I'll...just have to deal with it." His imagination immediately starts supplying images of crushed limbs and spilled brains, blood smeared across the stones and soaking into his rope...Hiccup groans, and swallows hard. Throwing up now would be incredibly unhelpful in every possible way. It can't be that bad, right? He rounds the last tree, and -
"Oh, god!"
Dropping his fish, Hiccup ducks back around the tree in a panic and presses his back to it, breathing hard. What is it, what is it? A glimpse of rippling black scales, rolling green eyes, heavy claws. It's a monster, some kind of...lizard. A Mutt.
They're unleashing Mutts on them? Already? Oh, god. Suddenly, washing blood and brains off his rope sounds like a picnic. This is so much worse.
Hiccup takes a deep breath, then peers around the tree again. The Mutt is still lying there, tangled in the ropes. Its flesh bulges painfully between the tight loops. As he watches, it gives a helpless squirm under the weight of the trap, then rolls its head back and moans. He can't think of a better way to describe the noise. It bubbles in the mutt's throat, and peters out on a note of utter despair.
He's going to have to kill it. There's no question of just leaving it. He needs that rope, and he can't dismantle the trap without killing it first. Hiccup shifts his grip on the knife, takes a deep breath, and steps out into the open.
The trapped mutt rolls one wide eye over to watch him; Hiccup freezes, pinned by its gaze. Glistening, veined with gold, jewel-bright. It's gone very still, but he can see its pebbled sides rising and falling as it breathes. God, it's huge. It's all thick clawed limbs and leathery wings, like a bat or a dragon, and it's big enough to snap Hiccup's head off in one bite. But instead it just watches him. Silently. Pupils dilated.
It looks...frightened.
Hiccup lets out a despairing moan of his own. "How am I going to have a chance at winning this if I can't even kill a Mutt?" he mutters, grimacing at himself. "Okay. Come on. I'm a tribute. I can do this. I can do this! It'll be..." He swallows. "It'll be easy."
He's helped slaughter sheep before; it was messy, horrible work, but it's possible to do it without making the animal suffer. Just one stroke across the throat. Quick and clean.
"I can do this," Hiccup whispers. The knife glints in the sunlight as he lifts it over his head, clutched in both hands.
Quick and clean...
Now.