Chapter 27: Frozen
Two families, both alike in dignity,
In the Barbaric Archipelago, where I lay the scene,
From a dragon's grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil claws unclean.
From forth the fatal cloacae of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers seek new life;
Whose high-speed misadventure overthrows
Do with their love bury their fathers' strife.
The fearful passage of their unbreakable love,
And the continuance of their fathers' fury,
Which, but their children's bond, nought could remove,
Is now the two-chapters traffic of my series;
The which if you with readers' eyes attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Not much time had passed since the adventure on Camouflage Island - a few days at most - when the winter storm hit.
And it wasn't just any winter storm. It was so bad that, in order to continue their training, the Go-Getters and the Berk Dragon Riders had to take up permanent residence inside the academy, living off of the food rations they had stored there beforehand. Going outside was out of the question, except for emergencies (which included, at his friends' reasonable insistence, having to use the bathroom). When Hiccup's mind wasn't occupied with his lessons, he was thinking back to the Blizzard of Oloth, which had been bad enough to bury Mildew's house in a week's worth of snow. (And he couldn't for the life of him figure out why everyone bothered to dig that cranky old man out.)
Hopefully it didn't take that long to dig them out of the Dragon Academy when the blizzard finished. It had already been a week since the storm first hit, and cabin fever was setting in. If Hiccup was being honest with himself, his friends and the Dragon Riders would probably tear each other to pieces long before they got out.
Right now, a perfect example of their deteriorating moods came as Hiccup was giving a lesson on flight. He used a piece of chalk to draw a crude picture of a Night Fury, with arrows pointing to its wings and tail, as well as a few mathematical equations.
"So as you can see on the chart," he kept lecturing, "proper wing control can be achieved by -"
Suddenly, Hiccup had to jump backwards in alarm as a blast of fire shot straight past his face and into his chalkboard, covering the whole thing with ash. Although at first he was startled, Hiccup quickly got over that and switched gears to "annoyed".
Letting out a frustrated grunt, Hiccup placed his hands on his hips and demanded, "OKAY WHO SHOT THAT FIREBALL."
Snotlout immediately startled whistling innocently, while he reclined against Hookfang's smoking muzzle. When he noticed Hiccup glaring at him, he sat up straight and pointed at Sonata.
"Siren," he accused.
Immediately, the dragonet's adoptive mother got up in his face and yelled, "I'll turn your face into a fireball, Snotface!"
"Snotface!" Sonata parroted cheerfully.
Brandyn raised an eyebrow, looking both amused and intrigued. "Would you? That'd be quite the improvement!"
Heather chuckled at her fiancé's joke and sat back down with her own dragon, patting Windshear's flank with one hand and gently stroking Sonata's little head with the other.
"By the way," said the ever-arrogant and ever-horribly flirtatious Snotlout, "Have I mentioned that you two girls look pretty with those haircuts?"
Astrid shot him a death glare. This wasn't the first time someone had mentioned her and Heather's new short-haired looks, and she wasn't a big fan of the idea that it would take several months for her hair to grow back to its original length. She was proud to have been sporting a shieldmaiden style braid, even after her and Hiccup's secret marriage, and then that Snivels had to undo all of her hard work and use Cut to chop it all off! Sure, it was for a good cause, but it still irked her.
"Don't let him get to you, Astrid," said Hiccup, "You know you're still..." - he paused to rethink what he was about to say - "...my encantadora esposa."
Unfortunately for him, Astrid's Spanish wasn't that good. So she had no idea what he'd just said.
Fortunately for them, Snotlout's Spanish was much worse. "Oh yeah?" he scoffed. "Two can play that game!" With a smug smile, he recited, "Astrid, mi amore. ¿Te gustaría que te arrojaran estiércol a la cabeza?"
"No, thanks," she answered automatically. Then she turned to Snivels, who was making faces like he was trying not to burst out laughing, and asked, "What did he say?"
The Servine wheezed, "He politely asked you if you wanted manure thrown at your head."
Snotlout looked absolutely shell-shocked.
"Smooth," Tuffnut snickered.
Hiccup, fortunately, managed to get that image out of his head rather quickly.
"Come on, guys," he complained to the troublemakers now, "I don't want to be in here any more than you do. Can we just get back to training, please?"
He didn't get a reply from any of the Viking Riders, but from Astrid. His wife was sitting against the wall next to Stormfly, running a whetstone over the two blades of her axe.
"Not much training we can get done in these cages, Hiccup," she told him, wearily. It was a tone of voice that was very appropriate for how everyone felt right now. "There's barely enough of them for all of us to fit."
The biggest cage at the academy wasn't anywhere near big enough to fit a whole menagerie of dragons and Pokémon, so the team had to split up into different cages. The four trainers of Fjord's prophecy had to share their space not just with their dragons and main partner Pokémon, but also Junior Go-Getter Frida, Stormfly's brother Pincher, Adhesive the Poipole, and the Berk Dragon Riders and their companions. It was a tighter fit than they would have liked.
They'd been in the middle of a lesson on Deadly Nadders, mainly for Frida, when the storm had hit. With not enough time to make it to their homes, they had to make do with the academy.
Hiccup couldn't help but wonder if the blizzard was related to that one line in Serac's prophecy - Find the seed hidden in the snow.
"I say we play Twenty Questions instead," volunteered Snotlout. He glanced around at the rest of the gang to see if they were interested. "Anyone? Anyone at all? Why am I the best rider?"
In response, Heat the Magmar lazily moved his head and blasted a cloud of flames at Snotlout's head, knocking his helmet off.
"Hey!" Snotlout whined. "Who's side are you on?!"
"The smart side," Ninjark offered, somewhat jokingly.
"Ooh, I'll go first!" Tuff said, excitedly. "Okay, first question - how do you play Twenty Questions?"
Facepalming at their antics, Hiccup half-groaned, "Ugh, can we all just try to stay focused? Even for a second?"
"We've been stuck in here for a week straight because of this crazy weather," Astrid replied again. "We're all starting to go a little nuts."
She jerked her head toward the far back of the chamber, where Fishlegs was sitting up against Meatlug's belly. The Gronckle was lying on her side, fast asleep, while the husky dragon enthusiast showed an almost unsettling amount of affection towards her talons.
"Hello, Mr. Pinkie," he cooed, wiggling the toe that had him so captivated. "Don't tell the others, but you are my favorite!"
Okay, it wasn't almost unsettling. It was way past that point.
Next to the Ingerman boy and his sleeping Boulder-class dragon, a certain ten-year-old sat snugly in the curve of her Sharp-class dragon's flank, between his wing and his leg. Looking extremely comfortable against Pincher's scales, Frida was laughing heartily at Adhesive's antics.
"Do it again, Ad," Frida chortled. "Do it again!"
The Poipole flipped himself upside down and, with a big goofy grin on his face, said in a playful voice, "So i herd u liek mudkipz."
They both burst into a fit of giggles.
Hiccup breathed a tremendous, tired sigh when he saw just how right Astrid was. By now, it was like the Trainers of Destiny were the only sane people left in the cramped dragon cage they'd been stuck in for so long.
As if to emphasize this point, Ruff and Tuff started pointing and laughing at their Zippleback, who had suddenly gotten to their feet and started chasing their tail with angry-sounding growls. Hiccup moaned out loud and pressed his fingers to his temples, the very sight of the twins goofing off triggering a slowly-growing headache.
"Hey, Barf and Belch just found out they had a tail!" laughed Ruffnut. "And it looks like they really hate that idea."
"You're telling me," Tuffnut replied, his face wrinkled with disgust. "I know I wasn't happy when I found out I had a tail."
Yes, he was serious about that, apparently - he twisted his body around so he could glare venomously at his butt and commenced running around in circles, shouting, "You can't hide from me forever, invisible tail!"
Snickering mischievously, Ruff sidled up to Hiccup and murmured in his ear, "I might've told him he has a tail, too."
"Don't you two have to be muttonheads somewhere else?" asked an exhausted-sounding Blaze.
Ruffnut shrugged. "Not until four."
"RARGH!" Ra roared impatiently. "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" The claustrophobic Solgaleo pounced on Snotlout with a snarl, having evidently chosen this moment to reach his limit and regress into a crazed, feral state.
"AHHHH!" Snotlout wailed, trying (and failing) to wrestle the Legendary Pokémon off of him. "Someone save me! I'm too young to die! HEAT! HOOKFANG!"
His loyal Magmar rushed forward, only to be swatted away by Ra's thrashing tail. The Monstrous Nightmare, on the other hand, curled up to take a nap.
Completely unenthused, Hiccup deadpanned, "Can someone pry the Solgaleo who slowly goes insane when he's trapped in a confined space off of Snotlout before he destroys something vital?"
From her spot in the far corner, Camazotz's eyes glowed light purple with psychic energy - an energy that surrounded Ra and lifted him up off of his human prey and back into the corner where his girlfriend was resting.
"Try not to think about where we are," the Lunala advised. "Think about something else. Remember our joint evolution at sunset? Wasn't that wonderful?"
"Very," Ra mumbled, sounding more like his normal self. "You looked so beautiful in the fading light."
Camazotz gently lowered him to the floor before releasing her Psychic hold on him.
Suddenly, a huge blast of cold air rushed into the chamber, causing everyone to immediately give the opening doors their full attention. Stoick the Vast stumbled through the gap amidst the swirling ice and snow, coughing and shivering, and used all of his Viking strength to pull the doors shut again.
"Odin's ghost, it's cold out there!" Stoick exclaimed, sounding horrified and amazed at the same time. "It must be the worst freeze in the history of Berk! I think my beard might be frozen solid!"
He patted his impressive beard, which had turned completely white with frost.
"Welcome to Berk, with the kind of balmy, fun-in-the-sun weather that gives you frostbite on your spleen," Snivels commented wryly. "I imagine Brumous is having the time of his life, being an Ice-type and everything."
Hiccup nodded in wholehearted agreement with the Servine before turning back to his visiting father. "So, Dad, what brings you to this madhouse - I mean, academy?"
Ignoring the slip, Stoick reported, "Trader Johann hasn't made it to port. If he's caught out there in the storm, he won't last through the night."
The younger Haddock's face lit up with excitement so fast it wasn't even funny.
"Oh yes, we can go find him!" he blurted out in a frantic rush. He reached over to pat Toothless, who had come to his human friend's side the moment Stoick had entered. "You know, Toothless can help me find Johann's ship in the darkness. He's the perfect dragon for the job!"
Finally, an opportunity to leave the academy! A chance to get out and stretch his legs as he breathed in the fresh, freezing cold air! The perfect time to leave before he was driven completely out of his mind!
However, Stoick was reluctant. "I don't know, son..." he lamented. "What if there's a giant Pokémon hiding out in the storm?"
Even though Hiccup remembered that they'd had to deal with a Gigantamax Centiskorch and Coalossal the last time there had been a storm, he didn't care at the moment. He needed to get out of there, for Arceus's sake!
"Please, Dad..." Hiccup begged, his voice full of pain. "If you've ever cared for me at all, the way a father cares for his son, then you will let me leave."
He turned around to look pointedly back at his cabin mates, just so that Stoick would have an idea of just what he was dealing with. Ruff and Tuff were fighting...Sarin and Ricin were jabbing at each other's rears with their horns and spikes...Barf and Belch had successfully caught their tail and were chewing on it while Drei, for whatever reason, tried to steal a bite...Snotlout was laughing so hard that he bumped into Astrid, who shoved him to the ground, where he was pinned down by Hookfang resting his head on top of him...all while Heat was being held back by the combined efforts of Fishlegs, Pad, and Numeru, in order to stop him from jumping on Frida, who had her arms spread out like wings while she ran in circles and giggled like a lunatic.
Needless to say, one single glance at Hiccup's current situation was enough to convince his father that he needed a break.
"There have been worse days than this," commented Snivels - one of the few remaining sane creatures in the room.
"Ugh..." Stoick grunted, not wanting to get any further into it. He reluctantly ordered, "Bolt the door behind you on your way out. Please."
He left, leaving Hiccup behind to fist-pump victoriously and exclaim, "YES!"
The Go-Getter bigwings enthusiastically waved his hand to tell Toothless to follow, and the Night Fury bounded forward to join his rider, having sensed the movement and known that it meant for him to come along. Together they pushed their way out the door and into the bitter cold, and Hiccup was just about to leap into the saddle and get the heck out of there...when a familiar voice made him stop dead in his tracks.
"Hiccup!"
Surprised, he whipped around and saw Astrid standing right behind him.
"Ah! Oh, Astrid," he sighed in relief, holding a hand to his heart. However, he took note of the somewhat worried look she was giving him, and frowned slightly. "What's wrong?"
Astrid fidgeted a bit, clearly uncomfortable. "Nothing's wrong," she insisted, and blushed with embarrassment. "It's just...look, be careful out there, okay? I know you don't always have the best luck when it comes to storms. And need I remind you, there's a whole slew of Dynamax storms on the loose."
It was true. Something bad usually did always happen when Hiccup went out into a storm...and he really didn't need reminding that Millennium and Gigantamax-capable Pokémon were still running wild out there somewhere.
But honestly, seeing that Astrid had come to warn him, despite not being comfortable with expressing her concern, especially in front of others, made Hiccup feel happy. She didn't like to show it very often, but she really cared.
"Astrid, Toothless and I will be fine," Hiccup reassured her with an easygoing smile. He put a hand on her shoulder and added, "Just stay here with the others where you'll be safe from the freezing wind. And Toothless and I will keep an eye out for Millennium just in case."
While Astrid's expression lightened up a bit, she still seemed on edge. She grabbed her arm self-consciously, hesitated, and then asked cautiously, "What was it you said back there?"
The question caught Hiccup a little off guard. "Back where?"
"Back in the bunker," she answered. "You said something about me in Spanish?"
"Oh, that," he said. "Snivels taught it to me. He said it means 'lovely wife'. And you know as well as I do how much he hates lying."
"Leave it to you to find a way to compliment me in secret," Astrid teased lightly. Then she added, in a significantly less playful tone, "But, in all seriousness, have you...heard anything about giant Pokémon recently?"
Hiccup looked thoughtful. With so much going on, he'd nearly forgotten when their last encounter with a Dynamaxed or Gigantamaxed Pokémon had been. But he hadn't seen or heard of one in a while now.
"N-No, not since we fought that Centiskorch and Coalossal," he stammered.
Astrid nodded, then looked away. "Sorry for bringing this up..." she apologized. "It's just...it occurred to me out of the blue recently, and we already have a lot to worry about with Dagur and Millennium, and this new prophecy is -"
She stopped rambling when she felt a hand on her shoulder once more.
"Hey, Astrid," he said confidently. "The Go-Getters are a team, and we can beat any adversary the archipelago throws at us. Or, the Multiverse, for that matter."
Her shoulders falling in relief, Astrid's face cleared up and softened into a smile. "You're right," she replied. "It's easy to forget that, sometimes."
Smiling back at her, Hiccup rubbed the back of his head and answered, "I just gotta say...thanks, Astrid."
"For what?" his wife asked, bewildered.
"Trusting me enough to open up like this," he told her. "I know you're not the type that likes admitting to anyone that she's scared. And that's...well, I love that about you."
The honesty in his words was enough to stain Astrid's cheeks a light pink, which she dealt a swift punch to his arm for. While he was busy rubbing the sore spot, Astrid spoke again in a much quieter voice. "I do trust you, Hiccup, because I love you and you're an important part of my life. I wouldn't be a good wife if I didn't open up to you, right?"
Hiccup's face felt warm when he heard that from her, and his smile grew. "Thanks again. I really appreciate hearing that from you."
He pulled her into a hug, which she returned wholeheartedly. He felt her lips press against his cheek, making him blush, and he gingerly returned the favor.
The snow was finally slowing down by the time Hiccup and Toothless left Berk behind in their search for the missing Trader Johann. The sea was still obscured by a combination of fog and precipitation driven by strong winds, making it hard to see. But even though Hiccup clutched his arms close to his body and shivered as they flew, he could easily notice that the weather wasn't nearly as bad as before.
Maybe the storm's finally over, he mused to himself. That'd be pretty nice...
"Pretty dark out here, bud," he bent down to talk directly to Toothless. "Do your thing."
Nodding, the Night Fury inhaled a breath, then unleashed it as a screeching roar that bounced off the clouds. Toothless waited for a minute, then apparently sensed something and abruptly changed direction. He banked right while going into a dive, forcing Hiccup to grab the saddle instead of himself for warmth.
When Toothless had finished altering his course, the clouds soon parted way, and the snow stopped completely. Hiccup looked down at the water with his eyes open wide, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Ice. Loads and loads of pack ice that choked the sea, clustered tightly together and leaving only small spaces in between them. There were also a few patches of ocean that were left uncovered by the ice, but those were few and far between. From Hiccup's perspective above it all, almost the whole sea had turned completely white.
"I've never seen the ocean frozen solid before!" he gasped, amazed at the sight. "No wonder Johann can't make it to port - no-one could get through this!"
Abruptly, he spotted something unusual on the horizon. Another cloud was fast approaching from the opposite direction, moving over the surface of the ice. Hiccup pulled on Toothless' saddle, urging the Night Fury upwards so that the strange phenomenon could freely pass on by. It sped across the ice directly below them, and Hiccup watched its progress until it had vanished back into the distance. As he stared after it, he could have sworn he saw shapes moving within the cloud, but it passed by far too quickly for him to double-check.
"O-O-Okay," Hiccup said aloud. "I don't know what that was, b-but I'm glad we're up here, and it's down there."
Toothless agreed with him, giving a short scream as he continued to carry his rider farther over the ice-locked sea.
The storm really had passed, leaving the sky empty except for the moon and stars, when Hiccup first spotted something wedged awkwardly between two ice floes. Raising his spyglass to his eye, the young trainer immediately saw that it was a boat - and that there was a very recognizable figure pacing anxiously on the deck.
"There he is!" he cried with delight, spotting the man that he'd come all this way to rescue. He and Toothless swooped low and prepared for a landing.
Trader Johann saw the ominous, ragged-winged silhouette of the Night Fury against the full moon, and instantly started waving his arms above his head for attention.
"Master Hiccup!" Johann yelled out when Hiccup and Toothless got close enough to land. "You're a welcome sight for these weary eyes!"
"Weary eyes!" parroted the Chatot that was perched on top of the mast.
Smiling, Hiccup landed his dragon down beside the ship, exchanged a quick greeting with the merchant, and told him that they were to fly directly to Berk for their own safety. Johann couldn't have agreed any more quickly, having already spent most of the night utterly convinced that he wouldn't make it long enough to see another sunrise.
And within minutes, Toothless was off and flying again, carrying both his human partner and Berk's most beloved trader back to the island. The wind had died down, so the night air was crisp and refreshing instead of bitingly painful.
"In all my years sailing the briny deep, I've never come across a freeze quite like this one!" exclaimed Johann as they flew. "Aye, it's as thick as Thor's hammer! I even considered abandoning my ship and traveling to Berk on foot!"
"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore," Hiccup looked back at his passenger and smiled graciously. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride."
"Excellent!" the trader replied. However, just as Hiccup faced forward and prepared to enjoy a relaxing flight back to Berk, Johann started talking again. "We shall pass the time with tales of my adventures, that are sure to warm your heart and stoke the fires of your imagination!"
Sample the Chatot perched on top of Hiccup's head and squawked, "Imagination!"
The smile started slipping from Hiccup's face as he realized the flight back wasn't going to be relaxing after all.
Trader Johann, although he was the best trader in the archipelago, endlessly friendly and polite, and a good friend and ally to all of Berk, had an absolutely infamous reputation for being a nonstop talker. The length of his adventurous tales was nothing short of legendary, and he loved nothing more than telling and retelling them to whomever would listen. There was even a joke going around Berk that he could talk a Thunderdrum to death in only a few minutes (and Thunderdrums were practically deaf). Even Hiccup, having a very un-Viking-like amount of patience, often found himself dreading being within earshot when Johann began one of his reenactments.
Without stopping for breath, Johann immediately launched into his story. "Did I ever tell you about the time I went up against the man-eating metal masons of..."
It was at this point when Hiccup stopped paying attention, and instead braced himself for a very, very long trip home.
One Eternity Later (or so it seemed)
The sun had rose a long time ago, and Toothless was still flying. Hiccup stared vacantly straight ahead, as he'd been doing for the better part of an hour.
"...but it wasn't a yak - it was his daughter! I could not believe it!" Johann cried with laughter, his voice becoming almost absurdly ear-grating as he laughed. "She looked like a yak and her name was Yakmene! And that, Master Hiccup, was how I became an honorary member of the royal court of -"
While he continued to talk, Hiccup strained his eyes to find something - anything - that would give him an excuse to get off of Toothless and away from the talkative trader. Fortune must have been smiling upon him, though, and soon he had caught sight of a familiar landmass rising up out of the distance.
"Oh look, we're here!" he exclaimed, perhaps a bit more loudly and hastily than he'd wanted to. "Thank Arceus..."
"Thank Arceus!" Sample parroted cheerfully. "Thank Arceus! Thank Arceus! Thank Arceus!"
Hiccup sighed, "Can you please stop that?"
"Can you please stop that?" echoed Sample.
Was it Hiccup's imagination, or did the Chatot's voice sound a little like his own as he repeated that last statement?
Immediately upon landing, Hiccup realized that something was very wrong.
He slid off of Toothless' back, followed closely by Trader Johann, and looked around at the plaza in confusion. The buildings were all standing as they usually did, and piles of snow littered the ground from the intense storm. But what held Hiccup's attention wasn't what was there - it was what wasn't.
Berk, for reasons unknown, was completely deserted.
"Not the welcome I'm accustomed to, but nonetheless..." Johann quipped, sounding just as vexed as Hiccup was.
"Where is everyone?" the young trainer murmured, mostly to himself.
Looking around in wonder, Johann started to muse, "This reminds me of the time I visited the island of the Red -"
However, Hiccup raised a hand to cut him off before he could start rambling. Without waiting for an answer, he jogged off to start searching the town. It couldn't be abandoned. It just couldn't. The villagers were probably still huddling inside their homes, not knowing that the storm had passed. But then again, wouldn't they have heard the wind stop blowing long ago?
Hiccup tried to squash the feeling of unease that was already spreading through his body, prompting him to move faster. He'd check inside the buildings first, where the Hooligans were most likely holed up.
The first building he came to was Gobber's forge. He peeked in the entrance to the shop and hopefully called, "Hello?"
When he got no response from the smithy's dark insides, Hiccup sprinted to the next building and pushed the door open. The result was the same - there was nothing but darkness past the entrance. Same with the next house he checked, and the next after that. As he dashed from door to door, growing increasingly worried with every failure, Hiccup vaguely noticed Johann doing the same thing, and Toothless investigating barrels and wheelbarrows that had been left outside.
"Anyone?" he called again, sounding significantly more strained this time. The hope that someone would answer was beginning to deteriorate.
As he looked around the deserted plaza speculatively, his gaze fell upon the house he shared with his father, standing proud yet lonely atop the hill overlooking the village. A thought occurred to him - surely, if anyone was still present in the village, it would be Stoick. He ran up the hill and onto the porch, taking a moment to catch his breath before pushing the door open.
"Dad?" he asked as he entered.
The Haddock residence was empty as well, from the looks of things, but what Hiccup found inside was significantly stranger than what he'd seen in the other houses he'd investigated. Unlike the other abandoned dwellings, the fireplace in the center of the room was still lit - which, unless he was starting to lose his mind, meant that Stoick (and the rest of Berk) had disappeared swiftly and on very short notice.
Hiccup picked up a mug that had been dropped on the floor, and noticed that it was sitting in a puddle of spilled mead. That only confirmed his suspicions.
Another thought soon occurred to him. The academy!
He took Toothless down to the Berk Dragon Academy and instantly saw that the door to the cage was unbolted. Ignoring the dread that was slowly rising in his chest, Hiccup pulled the doors open and prayed that he would find the Go-Getters all there where he'd left them.
There was a shriek, and Hiccup jumped back with a startled cry as three Terrible Terrors took flight from out of the cage, where they'd been sheltering through the night. But once the cat-sized dragons had fled, Hiccup looked into the cage's depths and saw no other living things hiding inside - no dragons, no Viking Riders, and, most important of all, no Go-Getters. They, too, had vanished, seemingly into thin air.
"What in the name of Arceus is going on?" the team bigwings murmured to himself.
Toothless flew him back to the village, where Trader Johann was waiting for him. He dismounted and ran to the merchant's side, only to be met with an expression that was just as mystified as he was feeling.
"Anything, Johann?" Hiccup asked.
"The whole town, Master Hiccup," Johann replied hopelessly. "It's empty."
"Empty," Sample parroted sadly, his voice sounding almost exactly like Johann's.
"I know, and it's very weird," Hiccup nodded in agreement.
The two of them, followed by Toothless, walked through the village with no real destination in mind. Hiccup didn't know where he expected to go for answers, or what he expected to accomplish, but perhaps the movement would stimulate his brain and give him an idea.
"I don't like this one bit," Johann was lamenting. "There was one time I was on a trade boat with a man who claimed to be a warlock, and..."
Somewhere nearby, a sound caught Hiccup's attention. It was quiet, almost inaudible thanks to Johann's prattling, but the rider's ears detected it nonetheless. Unless he was mistaken, it had come from within one of the houses near the plaza...
It was the first sign of life in the village Hiccup had found, so he simply had to investigate. What had he missed?
Over his shoulder, he cautioned, "Johann, stay here."
Before the trader could muster a word of protest, Hiccup ran off to the house from which he'd heard the noise and hurriedly flung the door open. He paused in the doorway, suspicious - the house appeared to be just as empty as every other one he'd checked, but he knew that he'd heard something coming from inside of it.
Silently, he proceeded with tentative footsteps into the darkened building. It was unoccupied as far as he could tell, but the creeping feeling that he was being watched never left him, further convincing him that there was someone here with him.
Then, the creaking of wood came from somewhere above him, and he turned in response to the sound just in time to catch sight of something moving in the rafters. He narrowed his eyes and approached, only for a shadowy figure to leap out from above. It descended, and Hiccup's vision went black...
...He woke up a few moments later, with Toothless' muzzle gently nudging the side of his head. Fortunately, Hiccup was familiar enough with the ebony dragon to not be alarmed. On the other hand, as familiar as he was with Snivels, it wasn't enough for him to not be spooked when the Servine suddenly appeared inches from his face.
"WHOA, don't EVER do that again, Snivels!" Hiccup shouted before he could stop himself. He rapidly scooted away, his back bumping against Toothless' leg.
Snivels flinched backwards, although whether it was because of the volume or the realization that he'd just scared his friend, Hiccup couldn't say. He got up and approached Snivs, about to apologize for his rather dramatic reaction, when his friend suddenly killed that idea by jumping into his trainer's arms and hugging him around the waist with his leafy tail.
"Thank Arceus you're okay!" Snivels cried out. "I'm so sorry I fell on you! I heard something coming, so I tried to hide up in the ceiling, and when I saw it was you, I jumped down and I landed on you by accident!"
It all came out a bit rushed, but Hiccup was still able to follow along. Snivels released his trainer, lowered himself back to the floor and started rapidly pacing across the room, clearly bothered about something.
"They came out of nowhere! A whole pack of them!" the Grass-type Pokémon prince practically blurted out in an almost panicked rush. "Super fast! And their paralyzing sting..."
Although barely able to tell what his friend was talking about, Hiccup still knew that not many things could get even the most timid of the dragon Riders worked up into such a state of nervousness. He took a step forward and held out his hands, gesturing for Snivels to slow down.
"Whoa, Snivs," he said, gently. "What are you going on about?"
Snivels let out a slow, deep breath to collect himself and then glanced left and right, as if he was about to share a deadly secret. He leaned in and whispered two words into Hiccup's ear.
"...Speed Stingers."
Hiccup's eyes went wide as well when he heard that particular dragon's name.
"Speed Stingers?" he repeated, hardly able to believe what he'd just heard. "Here?"
To his dismay, Snivels nodded in response to his trainer's skeptical remark, silently telling him that he hadn't misheard. "It all started just after nightfall..."
Flashback
Snow still fell thickly upon the island of Berk, but the storm had nonetheless died down enough for the Berkians to safely come out of their homes. Stoick, Gobber, and the dragon Riders wandered around the village, checking for any damage the storm might've caused over the last week and making notes on what would need to be repaired when the storm stopped completely.
Suddenly, a torch - which had managed to stay burning even against the wind - abruptly went out. It was weird enough to catch the attention of Stoick and the others, especially once they saw the footprints that had been left behind in the snow.
"I thought it was Raptor and his family at first, but there were too many of them. That's when I realized it was a wild pack."
More torches went out, followed by the sounds of pattering feet and strange, foreign shrieks. Stoick drew his weapon, and Gobber and the Viking Riders all did the same. The dragons took defensive postures, growling or cawing threateningly as they sensed that they were under attack.
"They hid in the shadows, scavenging for any and all the food they could find."
Now that they knew what to look for, they could see the invading dragons. They were nothing but green blurs that raced through the village in quick bursts, overturning barrels and crates to take cured meat and dried fish, and then disappearing back into the darkness before anyone could catch a glimpse of them.
"One drop of their venom was all it took to paralyze a human, dragon, or Pokémon in an instant!"
A scream from elsewhere in the village caught the attention of the Go-Getters as well as the Vikings. Bucket was running towards them, fleeing from something. But there was a quick blur of movement, a small yelp of pain, and that was it. Bucket stopped moving, still as a statue.
Another blur shot out followed by several others, each of them making feints at the Vikings as if warning them not to go on the offensive. Several Go-Getters tried to fend them off, only to be paralyzed as quickly as Bucket had been.
"We tried to hold them back, but they were too fast for any of us to follow. And we didn't really want to hurt them too much."
Stoick ordered the Go-Getters and Viking Riders to flee and lead the villagers away from the danger. Astrid and Stormfly took the lead, while those who had been paralyzed were carried to safety by their dragons. Snotlout ran away screaming after a Speed Stinger had almost gotten him - but another one did get him just as he was about to mount Hookfang, and he fell to the ground in a frozen state. Heat hastily pulled his trainer up onto the Monstrous Nightmare, who flew off before either of them became victims themselves.
Snivels and Verne were about to follow now that their friends had retreated to safety, but a frightened roar from close by gave them pause. Both of them were horrified to see that Ebony and her dragonets had been corralled into a tight corner by a small group of Speed Stingers. The flightless dragons were fearless even though the mother Night Fury was bigger than them, and Snivels knew that the invaders had the advantage.
Verne rushed in to help them without thinking of the consequences, a decision that came to bite him in the butt when he suddenly realized he had no plan of escape. Now he, too, was corralled by the Speed Stingers.
"They were following their leader - his name is Redcap. Raptor told me that he was originally the leader of that pack before Redcap took over and exiled him. That's why he has those red stripes on his back - he was a Lead Stinger."
Stoick ran to save the dragons, driving Speed Stingers away with violent swings of his axe. But once he'd gotten to the Noivern's side, the flightless dragons regrouped and surrounded them, trapping Stoick as well.
Then the alpha of the Speed Stingers stepped into the middle of the pack. Sporting red eyes and a red crest, Redcap stalked forward to finish the job...
"By the time Stoick ordered everybody to the secret cove, the entire village had been overrun. But Raptor wouldn't go without a fight. He tried to face Redcap."
Another Lead Stinger, slightly smaller than Redcap, leapt out of hiding, claws outstretched. Raptor landed squarely on Redcap's back, but the larger Stinger shook him off.
Raptor landed in a heap on the ground, but got up quickly. The two Speed Stingers faced each other, stalking in circles, waiting for an opening.
"I stayed behind to watch. I wanted to be ready to intervene in case Verne, Ebony, or Raptor needed help."
A smaller Speed Stinger, clearly an adolescent, remained crouched in the nearby shadows. Snivels initially thought is was Raptor and Streak's son, Quicks, but a quick whiff of the young dragon's scent told him that this Speed Stinger was a female.
"Redcap has a daughter named Speedy. She was there last night, in hiding. Quicks spotted her."
Streak and Quicks were hiding, too, just a few feet away from Speedy. The young male saw something moving in the shadows, and tensed up. There was a gleam of green scales in the muted moonlight, and Quicks pounced on it.
"He pounced on her."
There was a shriek and a thump, and a beam of moonlight peaked through the storm to reveal a pair of Speed Stingers, one sitting on top of the other.
"I thought they were going to fight. But something happened."
The moment the young Speed Stingers' eyes met, something sparked between them and they froze in awe. The moonlight illuminated their bodies, their scales sparkling like precious jewels. Quicks leaned his head down to sniff Speedy, to which she returned the favor. Unconsciously, their tails twined together.
"The way they were looking at each other...I'd never seen anything like it. Not in their species, I mean; you and Astrid do that sort of thing all the time."
The moonlight faded, and the moment was gone.
A piercing screech broke the silence, and Raptor slumped to the ground. Redcap pinned him under his claws, hissing threateningly.
"I knew, in that moment, that Quicks and Speedy were meant to be together. But their fathers hated each other."
Raptor lashed out with his tail, the barb barely missing Redcap's eyes. The Lead Stinger stumbled back, and Raptor wriggled free. Defeated, he dashed off into the forest, calling for his family to follow.
The moment Quicks heard his father's call, he panicked. He tried desperately to untangle himself from Speedy, terrified of what would happen if Raptor or Redcap caught them in that position.
Speedy somehow managed to slip out from under Quicks, and then took off running. The young male gazed longingly after her form as it vanished into the blizzard.
Another calling shriek, this time from his mother, and Quicks reluctantly turned and sprinted toward the forest.
"After that, I realized that we couldn't fight against the pack," Snivels finished. "Not without tearing Quicks and Speedy apart. What they felt was real, and we shouldn't have to take that away from them."
For a long moment, Hiccup remained silent as he digested the information he'd been given. The Berkians had been driven out of their home - not even the Go-Getters had been enough to defend the village. Now they were all in refuge. And Quicks was in love with the daughter of the Speed Stingers' leader.
"Well...where is Redcap's pack now?" he asked, hesitantly.
Humming uncertainly, Snivels looked uncomfortable - as he usually did when his expansive dragon knowledge - or general knowledge - failed him. "I don't know," he confessed. "Nobody does. The sun came up and they disappeared. Speed Stingers are nocturnal, you know."
He turned to the fireplace, which had a small fire going inside of it. Almost to himself, the Servine added, "They'll be back, once it's dark again."
A frown appeared on Hiccup's face. There was one detail that didn't add up to Snivs's story.
"I don't understand, Snivels," he muttered, causing the Servine to turn and look questioningly at him. "Why did you come back? Why didn't you stay with everyone at the cove?"
His question didn't get an answer right away. Snivels looked down and sighed sadly, before getting up and gesturing for Hiccup to follow him. The team bigwings did so dubiously, Toothless by his side as always, and they ended up outside. Once they were several meters away from the house Snivels had been hiding in, he stopped and pointed to behind the establishment.
Hiccup didn't know what he'd been expecting to see when he followed Snivels's finger, but it certainly wasn't a paralyzed Mortem.
"He was one of the first to be paralyzed," Snivels sighed again. "Probably because the pack was still scared of his mother's fearsome reputation."
All Hiccup could say was, in complete befuddlement, "How did we miss that?"
"I couldn't just leave him here," continued Snivels. "He's only a dragonet."
Hiccup nodded. He expected as much from Snivels - he loved his friends too much to leave any of them behind, or abandon Mortem as the rest of the Berkians had abandoned their village.
Randomly, Johann walked up to them and joined them in staring up at Meatlug. He was silent for a moment, before he spoke up in the exact same bewildered tone Hiccup had used only a minute before.
"How did we miss that?" he inquired.
A little while later, Hiccup, Snivels, and Johann proceeded with their next course of action - getting Mortem into the forest. While Hiccup had found a large wheelbarrow lying around, it wasn't anywhere big or sturdy enough to carry Mortem. Therefore, their only course of action was to push the frozen Red Death dragonet from his spot behind the house and toward the secret cove where the other Go-Getters were waiting.
From there...okay, so Hiccup still hadn't figured that part out yet. But now wasn't the time to be getting ahead of himself.
Of course, pushing Mortem was much more difficult than it sounded, given the dragonet's sheer size and weight. Even with Hiccup and Snivels working from the front end and Johann from the back end, they were barely making any progress at all.
"So he eats a lot, you say?" Johann asked cheerfully. "That makes sense! Why, I recall something similar on my adventures in -"
"Will you please shut up?!" Snivels snapped. "Unless you possess any material proof that your stories are real, we're not interested in hearing them!"
A small whimper emanated from the back of Mortem's open mouth, his eyes bulging a little.
"Movement!" the Servine enthused, redoubling his efforts. "That's very good! It means the paralysis is wearing off! Hang on Mortem, we're almost there," he added in a much softer voice.
Hiccup obligingly resumed pushing, only to collapse from exhaustion. "There's got to be an easier way to do this," he groaned.
"There's got to be an easier way to do this," Sample parroted, his voice a perfect copy of Hiccup's. "There's got to be an easier way to do this."
A few minutes later, Hiccup and Snivels were on Toothless's back. There was a rope tied to the Night Fury's saddle, with the other end around Mortem's neck.
"Okay," said Hiccup, "is everyone clear on the plan?"
"Yes," Snivels said bluntly. "And no offense, but, it's terrible."
Toothless snorted, seemingly in agreement.
"Ready?" Hiccup called out. When he got no objections, he ordered, "Go!"
Toothless sprang into the air, the rope pulling taut. Johann was still on the ground, pushing Mortem's hide with all his might.
Nothing happened at first, but, slowly and surely, the paralyzed dragonet was pulled ahead quite a bit faster than when they'd all been pushing.
"Well, this is going smoother than I thought it would be," Snivels commented. "Remind me to never doubt any of your plans again."
"Snivs, what's the deal with this paralysis?" Hiccup asked idly. "How long does it take to wear off?"
"I don't know," shrugged Snivels. "There's debate over the amount of time it takes to wear off in dragons versus humans. I'd say maybe a few hours." Thoughtfully, he added, "But more importantly, how do you think the Speed Stingers got here? They can't fly, or swim, and they didn't seem to have any webbing between their claws like Raptor and his family."
That was a good point. Hiccup would have found it very hard to answer if he hadn't suddenly remembered what he'd seen last night.
"If I had to guess, it's because that storm ended up freezing the ocean solid by the time it was finished," he explained. "The packed ice would've created a bridge from their island to ours. We need to get to the cove and mobilize the Go-Getters, right away."
Snivels nodded his wholehearted agreement with that sentiment.
But it was still going to be a long way to the cove.
Quicks's heart raced as he tore through the undergrowth at top speed. The young Speed Stinger's nose caught the scent of the one for whom he'd been longing, the striking young female he'd laid eyes on the night before.
He had to see her again.
After a while, Quicks skidded to a stop. He didn't recognize the part of the forest he'd wandered into.
"Hey!"
Quicks froze at the sound, fearing the worst. A Speed Stinger he hadn't seen was stalking through the undergrowth. He looked younger than Redcap, but bigger and older than Quicks. For a frightening moment, Quicks thought he'd have to fight this Speed Stinger. But it turned out the older dragonet wasn't hey-ing him.
"Speedy," he growled. "What are you doing out here in the middle of the day?"
Quicks turned his head to look to where the older dragonet was acknowledging, and there she was. She looked even more beautiful in the muted sunlight.
"I could ask you the same question, Sprint," she replied.
"I'm looking for Raptor's son," he said boastfully. "Your father has been going on about Raptor and his weak little family since that fight last night. I'm thinking, we use Raptor's dragonet as a hostage of some kind, Redcap can get the best of him once and for all. Once I bring Raptor's son to him, he'll be sure to match me up with you, and then I can take over as the pack leader!"
Quicks crouched further into the foliage to avoid being seen.
"I'll never be your mate," Speedy snarled at him.
Sprint snorted. "It's not up to you, Speedy. Your father's decisions are always final, whether you like it or not. Redcap will let me have anything I want when I bring Raptor's son to him."
Speedy's tail twitched as she resisted the urge to sting him. "What makes you think you can do it?" she asked.
"If that dragonet is anything like his father," Sprint said, "then he'll be as weak and pathetic as Raptor. Beating him in battle would be a cinch."
"Well," Speedy said confidently, "you can't find him if you don't know where he is."
"Hiding under his mommy's flank, most likely," Sprint said with a hiss. "Little striped coward."
Quicks flared out his not-quite-red crest in anger.
"Striped?" echoed Speedy.
"Yeah, he's got stripes," Sprint snorted. "He gets them from his daddy. He's about as big as you, I think. And his name's Quicks." It was about then that he noticed just how invested Speedy was in the subject. Regarding her with mild suspicion, he asked, "You haven't...seen him, have you?"
Speedy shifted nervously, her eyes glancing over Sprint's shoulder at the spot where Quicks was hiding.
Could she see him?
"He sounds dreadful," Speedy hastily lied. "No, I haven't seen him; I haven't seen him at all."
Quicks let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"Lucky you," Sprint chuckled mirthlessly. "Come on, let's head back to the cave."
"You go on without me," Speedy said quickly. "I need to...clear my head." She took off before he could answer.
Sprint regarded her retreating form with a suspicious glare. Once she was gone, he turned and headed off in the opposite direction, unknowingly passing by the still-hidden Quicks.
"Speedy," the striped adolescent breathed in awe. He waited until Sprint's footsteps had faded into the distance before starting off in the direction she'd run off to.
He slowed to a stop at the edge of a clearing where a small outcropping of rock overlooked a lonely cliff. And on top of those rocks, gazing down at the roaring sea below, there she was.
"Oh, Quicks," Speedy crooned sadly. "Quicks, are we truly and completely doomed to never see one another again? Why must you be the son of an exile? Why couldn't your father be a noble leader, or a member of my pack, or a very, very, very, very distant cousin of my own father? Why must we live in an imperfect world where we're all doomed to be judged by who our father is? At any rate, that shouldn't be what keeps us apart, should it?"
"No!" he blurted, darting out of the bushes so she could see him. "It shouldn't! I couldn't have said any word of it better myself."
The female's eyes went wide. "Oh my great Alpha dragon, did you just hear all of that? What are you doing here?!"
"I've come to see you again," Quicks declared proudly. "My beautiful beam of moonlight..."
"Are you crazy?!" hissed Speedy. "If my father finds you out here, he'll bury you under the shoreline!"
"I'm not afraid of Redcap," said Quicks. "My only fear is never seeing you again. When I first saw you, I felt things I'd never felt before. If fate has brought you to this island that I live on, why must we be forced to deny our feelings? I come before you, bearing nothing but my heart, to humbly ask for your talons in...Oh, I can't talk like this anymore. Speedy, come with me. We can start a new pack of our own, together."
She looked intrigued by that offer. "As much as I want to, I don't think I can," she said sadly. "I'm Redcap's only dragonet. The fate of our pack rests on me finding a suitor of his approval."
"But it wasn't Redcap's pack to begin with," Quicks said, hissing a little at the thought. "My father, Raptor, was leader before him. But that doesn't mean we should be enemies. I don't care what our fathers think. I want to be with you, Speedy."
"I want to be with you, too, Quicks," she confessed. "But I can't betray my pack. I'm sorry."
Head drooping, Quicks sat down in the grass. "I understand," he crooned dejectedly. "I won't force you to leave your family. But, if we never see each other again, just promise you won't forget me."
"I won't," she vowed. "Even if I tried, I don't think I could." She hopped off the rock and started back into the forest. "Goodbye, Quicks."
"Goodbye, Speedy," her admirer breathed sadly. He sat there staring after her retreating form long after it had vanished into the trees.
The clouds rumbled overhead, and Quicks finally stood and headed for the secret cove, his talons as heavy as his heart.
"...I mean, I like the idea of two people falling in love with each other when they're supposed to be enemies, but WHAT KIND OF CRAZY, MESSED-UP PERSON MARRIES SOMEONE THEY LITERALLY JUST MET?"
It had been Snivels talking, to Hiccup and Toothless no less, in regard to the situation involving Quicks and Speedy's forbidden romance.
"I'm all for marrying for love," the Servine blabbed on. "I mean, every creature should have the opportunity to spend the rest of their lives with someone special. Arranged marriages? Blech! It's like everyone's forcing you to love someone, and you probably don't even know anything about them! If I had to choose between a political marriage that would strengthen the kingdom, or someone who actually knows and loves the real me, I'd choose Amber! Because, of course, she does know and love the real me. I'd give up my crown for her, if I had to!"
When they finally passed through the small opening near the top of the wall of the cove, Hiccup gazed down upon a sight that would probably haunt him for years to come.
It was like something out of a dream. Thin shafts of sunlight broke through the grey clouds overhead to illuminate the cove ever so slightly, giving it a gloomy atmosphere. Paralyzed Vikings, Pokémon, and some dragons, littered the area until it looked almost like some kind of statue garden. Combined with the high walls and isolated location of the cove itself, the entire experience felt incredibly eerie and almost surreal.
Cowed into silence by the surreal sight, Hiccup steered Toothless down into the cove, dismounted the Night Fury, and they walked amongst the frozen villagers, still reluctant to believe that this was really happening. It was so weird that it almost didn't feel real. He didn't even notice that they'd left Johann to his own devices behind them - although he probably would have turned around and taken the bottom entrance into the cove anyway, since there was no way he could get the paralyzed Mortem down a sheer cliff wall.
Snivels noticed. "You know, we could have flown here and asked Camazotz to use Psychic to levitate Mortem to the cove." After a brief pause, he added guiltily, "Probably should have thought of that five hours ago."
Hiccup mentally kicked himself for not thinking of that, either.
The gloomy atmosphere was making him feel as though there was a weight pressing down on his shoulders, and what lay ahead of him was enough to make him stumble back as if it were a punch to the gut.
Near the edge of the lake that took up the center of the cove, standing atop a boulder partially bathed in sunlight, was his father. Stoick was frozen in a battle position, his axe held high above his head and his face twisted into an open-mouthed snarl, like he'd been paralyzed mid-battle cry.
Although Hiccup had already learned that the Speed Stingers' paralysis didn't last forever, it was still a sobering sight - indeed, for a blood relative, even heart-wrenching.
"Dad..." he whispered.
Stoick, of course, didn't respond, and for a few minutes nothing happened - just Hiccup looking sadly up at his father, alone with his thoughts. Knowing that not even the great Chief of Berk had got out of the Speed Stingers attack unscathed was a grim revelation.
But soon, Hiccup found that he wasn't alone. A sorrowful moan from the cove floor directed his attention to Brumous and Thornado. The Thunderdrum was lying at his rider's feet, looking forlorn. The Beartic, on the other hand, was snuggled up to the boulder, his usually glaring eyes looking more washed out and glossy, like a frosted-over puddle.
The distinctive sound of a peg-legged man limping up from behind him reached Hiccup's ears, and he turned around to see Gobber's sad smile.
"He gave as good as he got, Hiccup," his mentor assured him. "It took six of those Speed Stingers to freeze the poor bugger."
To Hiccup's shock, a series of muffled grunts came from Stoick's petrified form.
"You betcha, Chief!" Gobber answered, cheerfully.
Surprised by this, the Chief's son whirled around to face the blacksmith. "What did he say?" he asked urgently.
But he was to be disappointed. "No clue," Gobber admitted with a casual shrug. "Just don't wanna make him feel any worse than he does."
The excitement draining from him, Hiccup glanced once more at Stoick's unmoving form. He couldn't even imagine what it'd be like - trapped in your own body with your thoughts still intact, unable to do anything except stew in your own emotions without any way to vent them. Then Hiccup remembered that it wasn't just his father, but almost all of Berk, that was facing this problem, and he hung his head guiltily.
"I should've been here," he said softly. He turned back to Gobber and added, "Toothless could've helped!"
"Nonsense, lad," he waved him off. "There were too many of them! Nothing would've mattered."
Briefly, Gobber's head turned towards a large stack of barrels and crates standing nearby, with Norward, his faithful Probopass, guarding them. The blacksmith gave the gathered supplies an indicative nod before continuing, "Tell you one thing, though - those Stingers would be dining on smoked sturgeon and yak jerky tonight if it weren't for your father."
Several more grunts could be heard.
"Couldn't agree with you more, Stoick!" Gobber told the frozen Chief.
He gave Hiccup a clueless shrug, making his former apprentice wonder if Stoick could still see everything happening in front of him. If so, then Gobber wasn't trying too hard with his policy of 'not making him feel worse than he already does'.
Something green dashed by, startling Hiccup. He knew it was Snivels, but when he saw what the Servine was running to, his heart sank.
Amber was amongst the living statues, her wings frozen in mid-flap, and her mouth open wide in a silent roar. Only the Charizard's flame was still moving, slightly smaller than normal, with small embers flickering in the air around it.
Snivels stood before the frozen form of his beloved mate. He stretched up as far as he could, trying to look her in the eyes. "I'm sorry I left you," he said to her. "I know I should have stayed, but I didn't want to leave Mortem all alone. We'll find a way to fix this, I promise you."
A series of muffled grunts came from Amber's paralyzed throat.
The Servine slumped to the ground. "I wish I knew what you were saying..."
Amber wasn't alone, Hiccup realized. All around him, he could see the recognizable forms of several unlucky Go-Getters - the Scauldrons were paralyzed, and so was Thunderstrike. Here was Xylia, and there was Kickin Hawk.
Hiccup's eyes scanned the frozen crowd, searching for Astrid. At one point, he turned and found himself staring into a gaping mouth full of teeth. He screamed and leapt back, falling to the cove floor. Only when he had scooted away a good ten feet did he realize that it was Fossilwing the Aerodactlyl, frozen in mid-cry (Not that it made him feel much better).
All of a sudden, Toothless unleashed an alarmed roar and tore across the cove. A series of despaired squeaks from nearby drew Hiccup's attention elsewhere. In another part of the cove, he could see several pairs of black and white wings flashing in the scattered rays of sunlight as their owners flapped them. When he got close enough to see what was going on, he was greeted by yet another sorrowing sight - Starflight, Moonwatcher, Obsidian, Eclipse, and Alba, now joined by their father, were clawing at the ground and generally acting agitated as they flapped around the body of another dragon. Whenever the Night Furies weren't airborne, they were frantically nudging the other dragon with their heads, but to no avail. The paralyzed victim looked just like Toothless, only with a more slender build and two tail fins. And judging by how distressed Toothless and the dragonets was acting around it...
"Is that...?" Hiccup breathed.
"Yes, Ebony was one of the last to go," Snivels confirmed. "Her dragonets haven't been the same since then. Verne almost sacrificed himself getting them all here."
Pushing himself back up, Hiccup approached the desperate Toothless and managed to stop his flapping around by placing his hand on the end of his snout. Toothless settled down, but there was nothing that could be done about the pain he and their dragonets were going through. Hiccup could see the same sense of distress radiating from the little ones' iridescent green and blue eyes. They were the eyes of creatures who'd lost someone precious to them, or at least thought they had. But Hiccup doubted that Toothless and Ebony's offspring would understand if he told them that their mother's incapacitation was temporary.
I guess they have no other choice but to endure a few more hours of pain, he thought, feeling sympathy for the dragonets. He, too, had loved ones currently suffering through the paralysis.
"Hiccup!"
For the second time, Hiccup jumped as someone yelled his name from afar. But although he was initially startled, that evaporated almost instantly when he turned around and saw that it was another of his loved ones. Even so, he barely had enough time to brace himself before the collision.
Astrid ran across the cove, dodging a couple of Viking statues in her way, and flew right into Hiccup with a crushing embrace. The team bigwings staggered under his wife's weight for a second, then regained his balance and hugged her back just as tightly. Although he hadn't been consciously thinking about it, the knowledge that she hadn't also been victimized brought Hiccup great relief.
For several moments, the young couple reveled in each other's proximity, burying their faces into each other's shoulder or neck, and enjoyed how they were able to feel one another underneath their grip. They both tightened their grip even more, as if assuring themselves that they were really embracing and that they were really okay after what they'd been through.
"Astrid," Hiccup breathed in relief. "You're okay. Thank Arceus you're okay!" Positively high with giddiness, he pulled away and then quickly pressed a kiss to Astrid's mouth. His heart never stopped hammering, even sped up a bit, when he felt the familiar softness of her warm lips on his. The kiss lingered for a second or so, and no sooner had Hiccup pulled away when Astrid dragged him back in for another.
The moment passed, and she looked him in the eye with confidence before replying, "You're lucky to have missed the Speed Stinger attack. They're definitely not as strong as any of our dragons individually, but in a group they just overran the village. We had no choice but to take what food we could and hole up in here for the time being."
"How is everyone else?" he asked, concerned.
"Everyone's fine," she confirmed, nodding. Then, a slightly mischievous smile grew across her face, and she added as an afterthought, "Well, except for..."
She pointed towards another part of the cove, her blue eyes glittering with laughter. Curious about what had her so amused, Hiccup followed her finger, and -
Oh, that explained it. Snotlout had gotten paralyzed.
And was being harassed by Ruff and Tuff.
Hiccup would be lying if he said he didn't feel a little bit satisfied about that.
"Stop hitting yourself!" Ruffnut guffawed loudly, as she took Snotlout's immobile arm and slapped him roughly across the face with it.
Tuffnut followed her act and grabbed the Jorgenson boy's other arm, starting to repeatedly smack him while taunting, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Stop picking your own nose! Stop scratching your own -"
While Hiccup watched, Astrid leaned slightly toward him and remarked wryly, "Actually, when you think about it, it's really not so bad."
They shared a quick chuckle at that.
"So, besides the Pokémon statues, and my favorite cousin, is everyone else okay?" Hiccup asked, once he stopped laughing.
"Pretty much," shrugged Astrid. "Fishlegs went back to get Meatlug - got her here in a wheelbarrow - and Ra's recovered from spending a week in the dragon pen...Sonata's been paralyzed, and Heather and Brandyn have been trying to comfort her, and each other...but other than that, I think we're good."
"Thank goodness," Hiccup responded, placing a hand on his chest. "I don't think I could've forgiven myself if one of you got hurt and I wasn't there."
"Other than Snotlout, of course?" Snivels cracked a wry grin.
Hiccup gave the Servine a sardonic smile back and remarked, "Eh."
His wife told him earnestly, "Look, even if one of us did get hurt and you weren't there to help, it wouldn't have mattered. All that matters is that you're here now, and we can start thinking of a way to reclaim our home. Alright?"
The couple hugged, and Hiccup said in her ear, "Yeah. Thanks again, Astrid."
Suddenly, they heard Ruffnut exclaim, "Oh come on, your face isn't that ugly!"
There was an enormous crashing noise from over where her and her twin brother were abusing Snotlout, which made Hiccup, Astrid, and Snivels wince.
"...Oh wait."
You never really appreciate your muscles until you can't move them (for the record, I didn't learn that from personal experience).
I can personally guarantee that Quicks and Speedy's love story will have a happy ending. This isn't Shakespeare.
Hiccup might still be a little bit terrified of Fossilwing. And by "a little", I mean "a lot". Can you blame him? He almost got eaten by the Aerodactyl!
(Thinking about it now, a Pokémon statue garden doesn't seem like a bad idea…)
As for Astrid and Heather's hair, they'll remain short for the rest of the season. I honestly have no idea exactly how long it would realistically take for their hair to grow back to their original lengths. And given how active Astrid is on a daily basis, a wig would be impractical (not to mention embarrassing).
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