Chapter 11
"So . . . how do you expect to find them?"
"I don't know, Tuffnut!" Astrid snapped. "Maybe if someone hadn't run off in the first place . . ."
"Whoa! I'm not Snotlout, so quit yelling at me."
She cast her gaze forward. "Sorry."
Our reflections shimmered in the waves as we flew overhead. The merchants had pointed us east of our original starting position, or in others words, where Snotlout and Fishlegs had gone. No sign of them yet, though. Just water, water and, yes, more water. Lovely.
"They couldn't have gone that far," Ruffnut said. "I mean it's Meatlug."
"It's a big world," Astrid said. "Who knows what weird thing caught their attention."
Another fair point by my fair lady. Fishlegs was the most curious of us, and Snotlout was the most likely to ignore a mission. The combination of the two weren't as likely to get into mischief as Snotlout and the twins were, but still not a great pair. Astrid and I were the only two who could keep Snotlout in line. And that was on a good day.
"There's an isle up ahead," Astrid said suddenly.
I knew what she was getting at. It had been a long way without land, and Fishlegs was a heavy rider even for Meatlug. Fishlegs would have probably insisted on a break, and as stubborn as Snotlout could be, there was a good chance he didn't leave them behind.
It wasn't much of an isle. Mostly water crashing against cliffs, rocky beaches, and a few prickly batches of plants. So, a lot like the shores around Berk, only without any trees. Astrid walked to the center of the place, a feat that took her a grand total of five seconds, and looked around. She put her hands on her hips.
"Well, if they were here, they aren't anymore," she said. "Anyone need to rest?"
"Nah." Ruffnut grinned at Astrid from over Barf's head. "We're good. Right, Belch?"
"Uh, I'll decide that." Tuffnut grabbed Belch by the horn and examined him. "Yep. He's fine."
"What about you, Stormfly?" Stormfly clucked happily as Astrid rubbed her neck. "Toothless?"
Toothless gave her a smug look. Toothless and I, we could fly for days. Now that I was miniaturized, he could go even longer.
Just when Toothless arched his wings in preparation of a take-off, I spotted something. I jumped off his back, squawked and ran over to the object of my investigation: footprints.
"Look at these," I said to Astrid, even though she couldn't understand me. I ran the point of my claw around the heel of the prints. "They went that way."
Astrid followed the trail, noting where the prints disappeared and which way they were facing when they did. "They were here. They went this way," she said. I could see her eyes brighten.
But before we could really celebrate, Ruffnut said, "Uh, guys, apparently they went this way, too."
"What?" Astrid ran over, and checked out the trail there. "Ugh! They split up!"
What a surprise.
"You go after Snotlout," she said to the twins. "I'll take Fishlegs."
Before I could voice my surprise, Astrid swung herself onto Stormfly and left. The twins departed shortly after. Toothless and I stared at each other.
"Uh, let's follow Astrid?" I flicked my ears in that direction.
Toothless shrugged.
We caught up quickly. I tugged on Toothless's ear, urging him to get close enough to Astrid so that I could hop onto her. Toothless huffed and scowled a lot, but since I had chosen to swap dragons, he didn't seem to think he had permission to snatch me.
I crooned, looking up at Astrid curiously. Sending the twins after Snotlout was not a decision I expected of her. I definitely would have assigned them to Fishlegs.
She took a deep breath. She told me, "I don't want to face him right now. They can handle him."
Okay. Whatever she said. I'm not sure I believed that, though.
She squinted suddenly. "Hey, is that Fishlegs?"
I looked. There was a small blob bobbing up and down in the distance. Judging by the pattern of their flight, it was probably those two.
"They're coming back," she said softly, almost in alarm. "I don't see anything chasing them."
Even still, we stayed alert. Astrid kept one hand on the axe at her belt, even though it wasn't much use when you were riding a dragon. A spicy, sour smell wafted from her –adrenaline, maybe. I wasn't experienced enough to know – and it had the two dragons up in arms. Toothless immediately declared his guardianship over me. Stormfly even helped him take me back; she tipped just enough for his greedy paws to reach.
When Fishlegs and Meatlug reached us, Astrid demanded, "What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Yeah?" He said the word slowly, as if unsure whether we would understand Norse. "Why?"
"I just thought . . . never mind. Where's Snotlout?"
Fishlegs winced. "Uh, I might not . . ."
"I told you to keep an eye on him."
"I did. Uh, I mean I am! We're meeting up at this little island over there."
"And how long do you think it'll take him to get back?" she asked dryly.
Fishlegs didn't answer.
When we got back to the isle, it was empty. Surprise. Astrid made a show of looking around. She said nothing, but she didn't need to. She ended up sitting on the cliff side, wave-tips leaping at her feet, while she ran her hand down the shaft of her axe. It was a nervous tic of hers. And a worried one. And an violent one. My bet was that her current feelings were leaning toward the latter.
In a much shorter timespan than I had expected, we saw them on the horizon. Snotlout, his helmet hanging half off his head, swooped in on his trusty Hookfang, one hand raised in a slight wave as if he was a king saluting his commoners.
"Where were you?" Astrid demanded as she marched up to him. She at least had the foresight to put her axe away.
Contrary to what I had expected, Snotlout didn't get mad. He smiled at her – a cutting, smug smile, yes, but still a smile. He said, "Just solving the mystery."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I," he jabbed his thumb into his chest, "found it."
A short pause.
"Found what?" Fishlegs asked.
"The witch's house, duh!"
"What!"
Snotlout ignored Astrid's outburst. "Now quit slacking and follow me."
Astrid was still struggling to speak, even as Fishlegs and the twins took off with Snotlout. Toothless looked at me questioningly.
I tugged at her shoe. She only murmured, "How . . . ?"
"We can ask that later," I barked at her. "They're going to leave us behind."
She couldn't understand me, but she still snapped out of her daze. Under her breath, she mumbled, "Talk about dumb luck."
The ride to the witch's house was . . . hostile. By all rights, Snotlout should have led the way. As much as I loved Astrid, he was the one who actually knew where he was going. Astrid wasn't so keen on that. She wanted Snotlout to tell her where to go, and then fall back so that she could lead. And she wasn't quiet about it. Snotlout just sneered and said not so polite things to her and . . . oh boy. It was a mess. I swear if Stormfly and Hookfang weren't deliberately keeping distance between them, their riders would have tried throwing a few punches.
And the rest of us? Well, we just mostly huddled back and pretended not to exist. Those of us that had a choice, that is. Unlike Meatlug and Barf and Belch, Toothless wasn't intimidated by the loud voices. Nope. He just got more and more worked up, and he buzzed around Astrid and Snotlout, snapping his teeth together in midair. It unnerved the dragons, but those two didn't really notice.
Finally – finally – we reached our destination. Nothing fancy. Just a beaten, one-room hut on the first island in the chain of the Mazy Multitudes. It was perched upon a crag like some plump, old raven, and there was a path leading down from the hut to a rickety dock at the water shore. The boat itself was missing.
"So lucky," Astrid repeated.
We landed. Astrid was the first to approach the house, Stormfly at her shoulder. I would have been with her, but she had signalled Toothless – that traitor! – to keep me back. Snotlout babbled to Ruffnut about how he would protect her.
Astrid took a second to study the locked door, then went for the very Viking method of just kicking the thing open.
Another second.
"Seems safe enough," she said.
Tuffnut walked past her and through the door. He said, "Are we sure this is the right . . . whoa!"
Tuffnut's question turned into a yelp. He jumped back violently. On its rope, the skull still swung from when he had bumped into it.
Astrid moved toward it. "Is that . . . is that a dragon skull?"
As if they understood her, all the dragons stared at that skull. By size alone, it would have either had to belong to a Terror, or a very young dragon. Meatlug whimpered and huddled against Fishlegs. Toothless growled. His tail wound around me as he glared at the area around us.
"Toothless, it's fine." I rubbed up against his chest. "She's dead, remember?"
He didn't stop growling. I would have done something about that, but the spikey scents of wariness and mistrust distracted me. By this point, Hookfang was snarling, too. Barf and Belch were whistling their 'Where are you, threat?' song, and Stormfly had gone perfectly still. The mistrustful scents started to emit from their riders too, as they noticed their dragons' body language.
"Maybe we should leave," Fishlegs said.
Astrid looked like she was on the verge of agreeing with him. The twins were impossible to read. And Snotlout?
"You're all a bunch of babies." He shoved his way past Tuffnut, and into the room beyond. Hookfang did not go after him.
Guess that was our job.
It was dark inside. Would have been a great time to have Inferno. Fishlegs found the shutters quickly and opened them. Motes of dust floated peacefully in the ray of light that entered, and that little bit of light was enough comfort for Meatlug to waddle in. Toothless was already with me.
The hut smelt of dirt and moss, of wilderness. And decay. I could taste it in the back of my mouth. Other than the skull, I couldn't see anything that would be emitting that scent, but it was there. It was everywhere. There was one foreign human scent - the witch herself, I presume - but it was fairly weak. I'm going to assume that's why Toothless wouldn't let me leave his side. His teeth were still showing; his wings were arched in an automatic act to make him look bigger.
There was a bed against a wall, and lots of shelves filled with dried plants, liquid-filled flasks, and all sorts of crazy things. It was like someone had crammed my work area in the forge together with Fishlegs' kitchen. A wooden table lay against another wall, and there was a knife sticking out of its surface. At the back, where a stack of cages.
"Hiccup, look!" Though aimed at me, the tone of Astrid's voice was enough to grab the attention of everyone. She ran right to the back of the hut, and wrenched open the door to a small cage. Something inside squirmed –
I smelt dragon. And fear. There was something else as well, like that decaying stench, but not. Definitely a relative of it though, and it made my mind go somewhere dark.
I wonder if dragons could smell when something was dying.
In the cage, the Terror hissed. She kept pushing backwards, like she thought if she pushed hard enough, she would pass right through the cage and wall. Astrid was trying to shush her, but the sounds were just freaking out the Terror more.
"Everyone, back off!" I ordered.
They did the complete opposite.
I nudged Toothless. He huffed, and then shoved the others back with his head, giving me a clear path to the Terror.
I climbed onto the table. "Hey, it's okay. We're friends. We're here to help."
The Terror cocked her head. She was panting heavily, eyes wide, but she wasn't hissing. Okay, right. Language barrier. What was a non-threatening sound . . .?
I chuffed.
The panting slowed. She sniffed. I wanted to tell her that the witch that had caged her was dead, but the closest I could get was by flicking my ears at the others, and then at that skull. She nodded when I did that.
Okay, I think she thought I was asking whether people had killed that dragon . . . this wasn't really working. I tried to tell her instead that we were good people, but she didn't understand me.
Toothless must have though, because he suddenly purred very loudly and rubbed up against Astrid. Meatlug followed suit with her rider. Fishlegs looked confused, but he gave her a gentle pat on the side.
"See, it's okay," I crooned. "They won't hurt you."
Some more crooning and similar displays either, I convinced her to crawl out of the cage. She moved slowly; I could tell she was starving.
Fishlegs was the first to pick up on that. As always, he had some food stashed away in his pockets, and offered that to the little Terror. She refused to touch it until Fishlegs put it down and backed away.
"Poor little guy," Astrid murmured.
"I got water, too." Fishlegs' voice was high, like he was dealing with an angry Nightmare. "Here."
When he untied his water skin, the Terror cried out. In her haste to get to the water, she even forgot her fear of Vikings, and Fishlegs couldn't even find something to pour it in before the Terror tried to tear apart the leather with her teeth.
"Wait, don't do that! Uh, use this!" He poured some water into his helmet and left it for the Terror to drink.
It was pitiful, watching her. Even more when she tried to growl and threaten the others. I really wish I could have talked to her.
But before I could even consider that, Stormfly squawked loudly from outside. Hey, over here!
Astrid nearly burst through the wall. I couldn't blame her; we were all on edge. Toothless didn't seem any more agitated though, so Stormfly couldn't have been alerting us to something dangerous.
Stormfly was stock-still. Her tail and neck were parallel to the ground, so that she resembled an arrow. That arrow would have been pointing in the direction of Barf and Belch, who were watching Hookfang as he dug a hole.
As I approached, the stench of death hit me.
Not just me. All of us recoiled. Snotlout was the first to brave his way through the invisible miasma, and peer into the hole.
"Gross!" He stumbled back. "There's bones in there."
Quietly, Astrid asked, "What kind of bones?"
That . . . was Fishlegs' job. We all looked away as he sifted through Hookfang's hole.
"Some of them are dragon," he whispered. "Most aren't. They were probably food for the dragons."
" . . . This is bad, right?" Tuffnut asked.
Face green, Fishlegs mumbled something incoherent. He ran back into the hut.
There was a shriek from inside. From the Terror, most likely, reacting to Fishlegs' reappearance. A second later, Meatlug waddled out, the Terror attached to her back. Out in the daylight, she looked even more wretched. Maybe her scales were naturally that mottled colour, but I had the feeling it wasn't natural.
She didn't stick around long – too many humans for her – and her absence left a silence that couldn't be filled. Either the birds had stopped singing, too, or we had all grown temporary deaf to their songs. Instead, there was the whistle of wind dipping and diving through the trees, and the creaking of some ancient tree.
At least the dragons had calmed down. They were still nervous, but no longer acting like someone was lurking in the woods, ready to attack. The riders, on the other hand, if anything, were worse. Astrid was keeping a brave face, but I could smell her anxiety beneath it all. None of that was expressed in her voice, though.
"We need to talk to the villages around here," Astrid said. "Someone's got to know what's going on . . . not you, Hiccup. You're not coming."
I pouted.
She said, "They're probably not dragon friendly, remember?"
Right. The pains of being a little fire-breathing lizard.
"Hey!" Fishlegs jogged up to us. In his clammy hand, he held a stack of parchment. "I'll go back with him, too."
"You, too? Why, are you scared?" Snotlout jeered.
"No . . ." Fishlegs waved the parchment in front of our faces. "But I found some kind of research notes, and the ride will give me time to look over them."
Astrid thought over that. "Okay, sure. I was probably going to do most of the talking anyways."
I tugged at Fishlegs' pants, wanting to know if he found anything interesting.
He flipped through the papers. "Some of these are old. Like before we met our dragons."
"That long?" A sharp note of suspicion made itself known in Astrid's tone. "What are they about?"
Fishlegs shrugged. "I haven't looked at them enough to say."
Astrid nodded at him. "Read them. I want to know everything those notes say."
Review Response:
sweettea1: So, a happy accident, eh? I can live with that!
Thank you! Magic is one of those explanations that was just specific enough and vague enough to work! But yes, thank you for reviewing the story. Hopefully, you'll continue to enjoy it.
Jazz: Okay fine: Daddy!Toothless ahead. There we go. Now everyone's happy!
There are people scared of puppies. Therefore, there must be people scared of Tiny!Dragon!Hiccup XD
a random person: The first question is still unanswered! The second was a yes!