The pain that struck his body seemed to come in waves after he hit the branches and bushes, meeting the dry soil of the slope. The numbness on the surface of his skin made the unpleasant sensation feel like thunder rolling in long seconds after lightning had struck. He landed awkwardly down the slope of dry dirt and rocks, unluckily running into obstacles. Stopping his slide felt impossible. The rough softness of the earth dragged him down the cliff's incline despite his efforts to fight both the drug and gravity itself. At one point, he pulled out his hunting knife from the sheath strapped to his leather armband, turned, and stabbed the short blade into the sandy ground. It did little to prevent what came next.
He quickly reached the end of the slope and would rapidly meet forest ground at the bottom. The dark green of the pines swallowed him up like the jaws of a Foreverwing. He tried grabbing onto something – a branch, a larger rock - anything at all before he plummeted down the last straight fifteen feet. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his dagger, bracing for the impact.
When his body finally hit the flat ground and came to an abrupt stop, Hiccup let out an agonizing howl as the blade of his knife impaled itself in his outer thigh in the misfortune of his fall. Hiccup groaned low, teeth bared and grinding, the pain triggering choler. He grabbed his left tight, digging his fingertips around the fresh injury. He groaned miserably as he glanced at it, noting how deep the blade was penetrating past the broken flesh. Blood trickled out with every spasm of his body. His back arched; his face in anguish. He breathed hard and threw his head back, crying out. Tears leaked from his eyes at his insufferable condition.
The effects of the sedative had already started to wear out given the little amount he'd inhaled, but what Hiccup still could not feel was the adrenaline his fall, wound, and fear combined he should've provided him with – to help him numb away his suffering and lend him the strength and energy to flee from this place. But at that moment, all he could do was lay there, wheezing, trying to cope with the pain. The darkness that surrounded him seemed to observe him, but not through pitiful or ravenous eyes. Hiccup had felt helplessly vulnerable before... but this was a whole new kind of vulnerability. There was a difference between bracing oneself against a predator making an approach and not being able to react at all against the danger. It was like he was already dead, watching fangs pierce his flesh, feeling nothing. He couldn't tell shadow from monster. Hiccup tried holding onto a thought, tried to anchor himself, but the current of exhaustion was carrying him away into the sweet darkness of unconsciousness. It was more powerful than his will and Hiccup didn't have the strength to fight against it.
He was powerless. He was bleeding. Narcotized. He wasn't going to win this battle, and Hiccup silently accepted that fact as his eyes fluttered shut, the darkness of his surroundings blurring away.
...
"We have to find a way to get to him!" shouted Astrid over the whistles as arrows were fired upon them.
It hadn't taken too long for the backup Riders to react. Astrid didn't know how Heather had slipped away from the Hunters when she saw her flying for safety on Windshear. Knowing Hiccup, she had no doubt Hiccup had improvised a distraction that would give her a chance to escape. Astrid didn't know the exact moment when things went horrifyingly wrong. Hiccup and Heather had been left exposed and easily surrounded. She had yet to ask whether it was a bad move of inattention or bad luck.
It was the ringing alarm that had the rest of the Dragon Riders moving. Hiccup had been easy to spot from afar. He'd been totally exposed. Hunters had been charging at him, weapons at the ready, rapidly closing the distance between them and the lone, lost Rider. Astrid had sensed something was wrong the moment she noticed his slow response to her call. Given the perilous situation, she'd thought he'd be quick to react and that he'd know exactly what to do. But his movements were clumsy and the Dragon Hunters had rapidly closed in on them. They'd fired, and Astrid had lost control of her dragon.
Astrid could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she searched the woods down the slope where Hiccup had dropped. She dared get as close to the treetops as possible, but the Hunters standing on the cliff edge were making her life difficult. Astrid knew she was spending her year's luck to be left unscathed. It was a miracle she hadn't been shot yet. She flew down and back up, out of range.
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that, Astrid?" shouted Snotlout, his temper hot from another near-death mission attempt gone wrong. "I don't know if you noticed, but there are way more of them than there are of us! The main reason this was STEALTH MISSION?!"
"We can't just leave him, Snotlout!" replied Fishlegs, his edge unmasked. "The odds of escaping on his own are not in his favour." Just as the last syllable left his mouth, an arrow whistled loudly over his head. He readjusted his grip, eyes wild. "...And neither will ours if we don't get out of here soon..."
"Come on!" called Snotlout, turning around to flee. The others followed the suggestion while Astrid redirected Stormfly to blast away a flying net.
"No!" ordered Astrid, angry with her team. "We turn around! We have to go back for him! Fishlegs!" Astrid yelped as an arrow grazed her cheek, leaving behind a shallow cut. She touched her face, feeling the warm liquid on her fingertips.
Her usual determination had gone the moment Hiccup slipped away from her. Her heart had been threatening to burst out of her rib cage. Finding him had been the only thing on her mind since. Not the safety of her team or her own. She knew they didn't stand a chance against the Dragon Hunters' defensive formation. Wherever they approached from, they'd fire on them, and there were too many soldiers to handle all at once. Astrid knew all too well the enemy had seen the events and were already on their way to her leader, rapidly closing on his location. Astrid couldn't bear to think in what state Hiccup was, whether he'd broken something or got cut badly enough. Astrid could choose to race against the Dragon Hunters and try to find Hiccup before them, but she knew all too well that even if she did, she'd be grounded and surrounded before she could think twice.
Time was ticking by too fast. She looked down at the trees, physical pain clawing at her chest as she turned Stormfly around and chased after the others.
...
It was difficult to protest in his state.
Hiccup had been drifting away when multiple footsteps approached him. His mind wasn't in the right place to identify them as Hunters. Every noise came and went like a slow heartbeat. One moment, he could sense his surroundings as he would when he thought he felt an eerie presence sneaking up on him in the middle of the night. He became alert; felt every wall, every corner, and hear every creak. He felt the temperature of a room, the shadows moving. Always trying to identify the little details around him before he told himself it was all in his head and drifted back to sleep. Then the next, it was the abyss. He didn't know how much time went between his states.
Hiccup felt this weight shift and pain shoot through him. He groaned in protest, his torment audible. He didn't know what was real and what was a trick of his imagination. He didn't know whether he was dreaming or awake, sleeping or knocked unconscious – dead or alive. He couldn't dream. Couldn't think. Couldn't be. He didn't exist. It felt like an eternity before he found his right mind again, but he didn't place the world or himself until his eyes opened and he moved his body. When he did come around, the first thing he registered was how cold he was. The steady rocking of a ship. The dust particles hung in the air. The distant screaming of seagulls. The rhythmic sound of the ocean. The deep screech of the wood as the vessel rocked with the waves... The heavy metal cuffs bounding his wrists... He didn't feel frightened when he lifted his eyes to the figure standing by his cell door.
He should've been.
But Viggo Grimborn no longer frightened him.
He made him angry.