The visiting chiefs and their parties left Outcast Island the next morning, their future in the possible war clear as day. Even with Hiccup's offer of staying, Astrid told him that perhaps she should stay in Berk a little while longer, even though on the inside she was worrying about her dream still. With the appearance of his sister, she was a bit reluctant to leave, especially since Heather seemed to be giving her the evil eye all through the evening celebration.

Once they were back on Berk, Astrid slid off of Stormfly's back, giving her Nadder a rub along the neck in a soothing motion, mostly for her own benefit than anything else. Leaving Stormfly to her own devices and parting from Snotlout and Fishlegs as they were approached by the twins and Gobber for an update, she started making her way away from the plaza of the village. Up and around the pathways she went, climbing stairs until she reached the highest point of the village of Berk.

Gothi opened the door before she could knock on it, causing Astrid to blink in surprise and lower her raised hand. "You were expecting me?" The older woman gave her an unamused look with a raised eyebrow, gesturing her in with a wave of her staff before she shuffled into the cottage herself. "I'll take that as a yes." Astrid gave a shrug before she followed her in, remembering hearing something that Gothi had either taken a vow of silence or had her tongue ripped out somehow. Either way, the elderly soothsayer turned around when they reached the sitting room of her cottage, waving her staff to the only seat.

After a minute or so of silent arguing back and forth about who should be the one to sit down, Astrid finally relented and plonked herself down into the seat, even though she wasn't too happy about it. Gothi wandered over to the patch of sand in front of her, causing the girl to sit up properly so she could see what she was going to write before she was hit over the head with Gothi's staff. "Ow! Jeez, what was that for?" Rubbing the lump, she couldn't help but wince at how Hiccup-like she sounded, lowering her hand as she watched Gothi write in the sand.

She was requesting her to recount her dream.

Astrid still remembered it vividly, so she had no trouble telling Gothi about it. About the dragons, Stormfly's warning, her futures self informing her of their choices to come. She leaned forward, cupping her hands together before she swallowed, looking up at Gothi's thoughtful face. "Am I really Freyja's chosen?" she whispered, her weariness from the last few days catching up to her.

The nod she gave her sent a shiver up her spine, placing her forehead to her cupped hands. She hadn't wanted it to be true. She was a shieldmaiden, not the chosen of the Goddess of fire and gold and war. Heck, she'd take being the dragon conqueror over being Freyja's chosen. With a small sigh, she lowered her hands, relaxing her shoulders and sat up straight, looking at Gothi who it appeared had the patience of a saint. "What do I do? How do I free him? How do I stop this? I don't know what to do, Gothi."

A wrinkly, gnarled finger was held into the air before Gothi shuffled into the adjascent room, the room where Hiccup had been resting that week after she and Toothless had found him on the beach. There was the sound of rummaging before she came back, holding a glass jar with a liquid of some sort that looked vaguely like meade. Astrid stared at it before she got the eerie feeling of something staring back and she shook her head, raising an eyebrow. "I don't see how drinking is going to help my problem."

Whacked over the head with the soothsayer's staff again for the comment, Gothi placed the jar at Astrid's feet, gesturing at it for her to open. Morbid curiosity filling her, she shifted forward in her seat a little, leaning down to wrench the top of the jar off. The smell of old meade reached her nose and she had to resist the urge to vomit as Gothi reached into the jar, her face a look of concentration before she pulled out what she was searching for.

Opening her palm, Astrid nearly did vomit when she saw the eye in Gothi's hand. She clamped a hand over her mouth before she realized she'd seen the colour of the iris before and she lowered it, understanding dawning on her. "Is that...the eye Hiccup lost?" Gothi shook her head, drawing in the sand with the butt of her staff again. "He didn't loose it? But it was badly damaged, wasn't it?" A gasp left her mouth as she saw runes in the sand being drawn, a name everyone recognized.

Odin.

"He gave up his eye for knowledge like Odin did?" Gothi nodded grimly, drawing what looked like a tea cup similar to the one Excellinor had offered her. Astrid stared at the sand. "Then he already knew...he already knew what to do? How to escape her?" Another nod had her pursing her lips together, feeling a bit cheated. She'd been worrying this whole time and Hiccup was already making the changes necessary. There was a tap to her head and she glanced down to Gothi's new handwriting.

He asked me for a defense against her teas and manipulation, I asked him what he was willing to give in return. No sooner did I ask had he ripped out his own eye. Gothi placed the eye gently back in the jar and gestured for Astrid to do the lid up again. Once she was done, there was another new message. Excellinor and I have a history. We were part of the same coven, I believed even friends at some point. But Excellinor's heart is as black as the blackest night. The only thing she has wanted for years is for a prophecy she envisioned in our youth to come true, and she would do anything to make it come true.

"You mean the prophecy about the next King of the Wilderwest?"

No. Gothi shook her head. She had a vision, one of her holding the dragon's jewel, the gem of ultimate power. The King of the Wilderwest has nothing to do with it, only that the dragon's jewel lays at the end of the last King's burial place, a trial only the next King can go through. I have no doubt that after he gets it for her, she'll get rid of him. He likely never mattered to her if she had no qualms about him killing her own son.

"And because she's a soothsayer, people take her word for truth." She knew that from experience. Astrid's eyes widened as everything suddenly seemed to drop into place, like pieces of a puzzle had finally been connected. "What does the dragon's jewel do?"

Legend has it that it can control dragons, for it contains their very source. It's likely that Grimbeard went to great lengths to keep it hidden and make sure that nobody went looking for it, that it got lost in the records of history and would be considered a myth.

The shieldmaiden raised a hand to her head, her gaze horrified. "With that many dragons under her control, she could rule the Archipelagos." At Gothi's nod, Astrid rose from her chair, whirling around before her arm was snagged and she was sent sprawling with the force the old woman put into the use of her staff. "I have to stop her, Gothi!"

Gothi gave her a disapproving look. She hasn't done anything to the boy yet, girl, hold your dragons. With the four tribes in alliance, we may well see something that not even the Norns could have predicted. Stand your ground for now, keep this information to yourself. I will let you know when it's time to move. Reluctantly, Astrid nodded in understanding, pushing herself up off the ground even as her heels dug into the floor to prevent herself making a dash for the door and down to the village to Stormfly.

All she could do was wait.

She hated waiting.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Hiccup turned his head to look over his shoulder as Heather sauntered into the ring, stopping a few feet from him and placing her hand on her hip, her other resting on the hilt of her sword. Rolling his eyes, he waved a hand, dismissing the warriors who had come for lessons with their dragons. Many of them were dim but showing some promise. He supposed it wasn't really that different to working with the Thorstons or Jorgenson. As the warriors and their dragons left the arena, he raised an eyebrow at his sister, crossing his arms over his chest as Toothless crept closer to him, his hackles raised in her direction. "Don't you have some poor fool to work over?" he asked with a sneer, keeping her in his right eye's line of sight.

"Please, brother dear, the men here are hardly a challenge." She gave a casual shrug before she turned her head to look after the last warrior as he left, turning her attention back to him. "And what's with the hostility? Really, Hiccup, shouldn't it be about time we buried the hatchet so to speak?"

"Since when do you want to bury hatchets?" His upper lip lifted in almost a mimic of Toothless as he turned away from her, walking over to the Night Fury. Toothless seemed to relax with his rider closer, cocking his head as Hiccup made a show of inspecting his prosthetic before he looked back at Heather, acid green eyes watching her.

"Well, it's not like I've ever tried to kill you on purpose..."

"Not even that time you left me in the wild dragon's nest when we were kids?"

"Okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words." Heather did her best to look as sheepish as possible, walking around Toothless's other side without a worry so that she could squat down in front of him, crossing her arms over her knees. "I want you to teach me how to..."

"No."

She gave him an incredulous look as he blatantly refused her request, watching him rise to his feet and walk so that he was near his dragon's middle, standing with a flourish herself. "What? Why not? Why do those morons get to learn how to ride dragons and I don't?!"

"Because I know you, Heather." Hiccup glanced at her out the corner of his right eye, his gaze narrowing. "I know you know where Grandmother is and I'm not giving you the opportunity to get one up on me. I'm not the boy you left when you went to the mainland two years ago. I know what Grandmother's been doing to me ever since I washed up here."

Heather blew some hair out of her eyes, staring at him before she crossed her arms over her chest. "I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. Now if you don't mind, I have some things I need to do."

She watched him leave the arena with his dragon and scowled deeper, nails digging into her arms as a growl left her throat. "Fine. I'll just get one of the stooges to teach me how to ride a dragon." A wicked smile curled across Heather's lips, reminiscent of Excellinor's. "I'm not letting you have the dragon's jewel, or Grandmother."