Chapter 2
Storm's Aftermath
The storm in Berk lasted for two whole days, howling with the ferocity of the Red Death itself. By the time it ended, everything was ruined. Sure, the houses were all still standing, but plenty of shingles and other bits of roof and siding were missing, and anything at all that had been left outside was nowhere to be seen. At all. The torrents of rain and sleet left canyons in the roads and paths around the village, making travel by foot dangerous, and we had also lost one ship when part of a nearby sea stack broke off and came crashing down, nailing the vessel to the ground permanently.
I stayed in Berk as much as I could, however. Though certain dragons are almost completely impervious to cold or heat, I still don't like snow, and my home was already covered in nearly two feet of it, with more on the way. Everything was being shut down and, while granted it was now the weekend so the weather wasn't really affecting things yet, the storm showed no signs of letting up. At Berk, on the other hand, there were only a few layers of thin clouds left from the tempest.
Toothless stepped outside and stretched, yawning dramatically before looking up at the fading traces of dark sky. Hiccup and I stepped out next to him. "Well, now that the storm's over we have something to do, right?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood. Hiccup snorted in reply. "Yeah, right. I always wanted to spend a whole day patching up roofs and making nails," he grumbled.
::Oh, come on, it can't be all bad,:: Toothless said, coming up and nuzzling Hiccup's hand. ::Besides, I'll be there to help.:: Hiccup smiled and rubbed the dragon's head, gathering the gist of the message. "Yeah, thanks bud."
As predicted, we spent most of the day in the forge, hammering out nails, posts, and other various small tools needed to patch things up. Toothless kept the fire going while I, meanwhile, held the red-hot metal steady for Hiccup to shape. After that was done (and after Gobber shoved us out, stating he needed room for bigger projects now), the rest of the day was spent patching up the Haddock's roof. While there were no major holes (and thank goodness otherwise Hiccup would have thrown a fit over his papers getting rained on), there were plenty of missing shingles. Occasional gusts of wind coming off the receding clouds didn't help, though, and Toothless and I ended up catching Hiccup and Stoick as they were blown off the slick roof more times than I care to count.
Eventually, though, the house was patched up, and what was left was the domain of other handymen. And praise be for their adeptness at making repairs thanks to bygone days, otherwise what was going to take maybe a couple days would have taken nearly a week to complete. With our hands cleared, the gang finally got together to take a break and fly, something none of us had done since sometime before the storm hit.
"This weather is so weird," Astrid commented as we later settled on one of the sea stacks for a short break. "I mean, by now we're usually hunkered down, relying on the farm animals and the storehouses for everything, but instead we're still able to go out hunting in rather balmy weather, and flying in this air is still tolerable. It's not normal."
"Is it really a bad thing though?" Hiccup returned. "I mean, sure we're used to nine months of technical winter up here, but I'm kind of liking this warm weather myself." Naturally, they all glanced at me, expecting some sort of educated answer for the phenomenon. Instead, their looks gave me an unsettling feeling.
"What? You think I know what's causing the change?" I asked. "Weather does strange things all the time. I mean, we've been dealing with wild fluxes in my world for some years now and it's got everyone on edge about global warming or a new ice age, or whatever else they've cooked up by now. No one knows exactly why it is though."
::I don't think this is completely caused by nature though, Hawken,:: Barfbelch noted, lifting his heads up and nearly dumping the twins off, much to everyone's amusement. I raised an eyebrow for clarification.
::Barfbelch is right,:: Fireworm said. ::I think I speak for all the dragons when I say we've been feeling a bit antsy recently. No visiting dragons have passed through here for a couple weeks now, and the fish stocks have dropped rather noticeably. The storm might have been natural, but it still feels like an omen. Something's coming.::
I nodded and looked at the Vikings, who were all waiting to hear what the dragons had said. I sighed and rubbed my forehead, wincing as I forgot about having claws at the moment.
"The dragons think the storm might have some meaning, and I'd bet they're right," I spoke aloud. "I've been getting feelings, premonitions for a little while that there has been something off. Something's coming, I think, though I have absolutely no prediction as to what."
"Well, if it's anything like the past few incidents we've had, another one of those books you read might have the key," Fishlegs noted. "Should we tell Stoick?" I shook my head. "No. We don't even know what it is yet, or whether or not the dragons and I are just being paranoid. That happens too. But for now, everyone just keep your eyes and ears open for anything unusual." Snotlout raised his hand and started to say something, but I cut him off. "No, the twins and their antics do not count as something unusual," I quipped. His mouth closed and he pouted, ignoring the snickers from said pair. The rest of the group just nodded, and we all decided we'd been sitting there long enough, and so took off in the direction of the village again.
On the way there, however, I told Astrid, Hiccup, and of course their dragons to follow me. The rest of the gang headed back, while we circled around toward the cove. As we landed, I morphed back human and took a seat on a rock, waiting while Astrid and Hiccup dismounted and followed my example. The sitting on the rock, part, mind you, not the morphing.
::Thorn, Toothless, you may want to find some cover,:: I advised, and they nodded and sauntered over to the protected grove of trees at one end of the cove. "Hey, where are they going?" Astrid asked, getting up to call them back over before I held her back with an outstretched tail. "Don't worry about them," I reassured. "I told them to keep low for a little while. You'll understand in a second." I looked then at Hiccup. "Any new information about Framherja?"
Hiccup's eyes widened slightly, before they closed as he let out a groan and reached back, pulling the almost humming bow out from inside his vest. He had constructed a larger pocket inside the back of his vest to better accommodate it, and keep it hidden from other prying eyes.
"Personally, I'm at a loss as to why you gave me such a useless thing," he said, looking it over. "I mean sure, it's nice to look at but I've found no practicality to it." He set Framherja against the rock he sat on as he continued to rant. "I've tried every kind of ammunition I could possibly think of: oak and black cedar arrows, even one of those rare rosewood ones, all sorts of metal, rocks, and I even fashioned some arrows out of hardened bones to try. After three months you'd think I'd hit upon something, or maybe find a new method to shoot it that managed to work, but no. Every single one has either gone up in flames, melted, or exploded on me." He held up his arm to show the healing scabs from a splinter attack recently caused by one of the incompatible arrows used with the bow.
"By the way, if you don't mind me asking Hawken," he said, gesturing to the injury. I nodded and reached forward, placing a finger over the spot and focusing. No sooner had I done so than the familiar wave of energy ran down my hand and into the wound, closing up the scrapes as if they were never there. Then I sat back as Hiccup readjusted his sleeve again.
"Anyway, back to the subject," I drawled, "is there anything left you haven't tried?" I asked. He shrugged. "Well, I recently managed to get ahold of a gold and silver arrow from that last exotic trading ship that came up this way. Johann has nothing new for me to use, but I thought they might." "What did you trade them to get arrows like that?" Astrid asked curiously. Hiccup immediately made a face. "Uh, you don't want to know," he said, casting a quick glance over toward Toothless, who visibly shuddered as well. I raised an eyebrow, but at that point decided it better if I didn't ask. "Do you have them with you?" I instead queried. Hiccup nodded, and reached into his pack nearby to pull them out.
Sure enough, one of them was pure gold, however the other turned out to be an arrow of platinum instead of silver. I told Hiccup this, and his eyes brightened. "So I've really got a fortune here that I'm going to be shooting, don't I?" he mused. I nodded. Then he shrugged, and grabbed the gold arrow. "Might as well try this one first, makes the most sense. Though I wonder how well a metal this soft can really be used…."
As Hiccup strung the arrow and aimed for a nearby tree (and one that clearly had been used for practice before), I noticed Astrid slowly moving to stand behind a rather large boulder. She'd been present before as well during some of Hiccup's "tests," so I deemed it wise to follow her lead, and spread a pair of rock-hard wings in front of me, before turning my attention to Hiccup again.
He nocked the arrow on the string, lifted up the weapon to aim at the target, and just as he was pulling back the string to full capacity to release….
BZZZZZZZZTTT! FWOOSHH!
A bolt of energy raced down the length of the arrow, and the metal immediately liquefied. Hiccup yelped and dropped the bow straight away, barely avoiding the molten metal dripping down. As it hit the ground, the grass sizzled around the metal before it solidified again in a shapeless blob.
"And that is exactly what I mean," Hiccup snapped, sitting down and dropping his hand into the pond just to make sure there was nothing burning on it.
The platinum arrow fared no better, and I even went as far as taking Hiccup's suggestion and molding an arrow of ice from the pond, but that ended similarly, with all of us splattered with half-melted slush.
"I'm out of ideas," Hiccup relented after that. "I mean, come on. She's a bow. She should be able to fire something, but nothing has worked at all!" He sighed and slumped against a rock, dropping Framherja at his side. Toothless, deeming it safe to reappear now, slid out of the grove of trees and curled up around him. Thorn stayed asleep where she was.
"Maybe we need to find another guardian for the arrows," Astrid suggested, leaning against a small pine. "I mean, we got this from one, maybe another has the ammunition, some sort of ploy to keep the wrong person from getting their hands on it." "You know that wouldn't be it, Astrid," Hiccup pointed out. "Only a select few people supposedly can touch the thing, though granted we haven't been brave enough to test that." Astrid shrugged. "Well, the answer's got to be somewhere. You have a point that even a bow as impressive as that is useless unless there's a method to make it wo"-
::Hawken! Where are you?!::
The roar silenced us all, and I could hear crashing bushes and creaking trees heading our way. ::Down here!:: I roared back. A flash of green appeared at the edge of the cove, before changing to gray, then back to green as it came down the side. I stood up as the figure approached.
"Spitfire, what's going on?" The Changewing skidded to a stop in front of me, finally becoming wholly visible and clearly out of breath. ::There's….a boat…on the eastern beach. I…was down there….looking for missing ship pieces….:: he stopped for a moment to actually catch his breath before looking back up at me with urgency. ::Hawken, there's another boat down there. It was smashed up pretty badly, and really small for being seagoing but….but, I think there's somebody underneath it.::
A/N-Okay, so who did Spitfire find? Moreover, anyone want to venture a guess as to how Hiccup's weapon actually works?
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