Don't own anything but OC's and story line. I adopted the plot, but I think it is scared of me. The little bunny just ran away on its own.
If you Ignored the warnings in the first chapter:
THAT'S YOUR OWN FAULT, YA IDJITS!!!
Chapter 2: HVAS
When I was done with her for the night, my mother held out a hand to me with the same mixture of oil I had used on her own sore back those two years ago, and a clean rag for the bucket of water she had put next to us when I started taking her earlier. With it, some clean rags were not far from that in my saddle bag. I took the items, kissing her cheek, and walked back to the broken down girl in front of me. she was curled in on herself, poor girl, trying to protect herself, no doubt, from being touched in such a way again. When I reached out and lay my hand on her, she curled up tighter with a whimper, and I pulled her up into my arms as I grabbed a cup from the bucket.
"Drink," I told her, putting the now full cup to her mouth, "or you will be sicker in the morning then you should be." She turned away and I knew she was terrified of me. "Drink, and if you don't, I will personally force it down your throat." Her head whipped around to see how serious my face looked and she reluctantly took a few sips. It was upon realizing how thirsty she truly was that she gulped down the rest of the water. I told her to sit on her knees and gave her another cup when she did, then took the items for her back and prepared myself for the task ahead.
"This will hurt," I warned, "but not as much as what caused it." She nodded, and with one hand on her right shoulder, holding her in place, I placed the rag covered in water on the gash on her left. She cried out in shock and leaned away, but otherwise was relatively good at taking the pain. She had obviously been given many scars before in battle, but none like this. None in a state that was not filled with fiery adrenalin and the ability to fight.
I was about half way done with oiling her back, avoiding the wound, when I heard a soft, "Why do you do it?" It was almost not there, but I could hear it as easily as if it were said at a roar.
"Do what? This?" I asked.
"Yes," she said slightly louder.
"That doesn't answer my question," she bit back at me.
"I do it because I'm a monster!" I growled back. "I have needs that I can't resist, desires that I can't deny, and a love so deep for my beloved that I cannot let them loose on her. She asked me to, once, and I will not do it again. She is the only one that I truly care about in this world, and without her, the monster consumes me. The only things she cannot, no, will not give me are the children she is too old to bear and the pleasure I get from seeing someone red from my hands. I can't turn back now, not after taking so many. I can only continue on the path I have chosen for myself and my children."
"How many have you taken?" she asked under her breath in wonder.
"You are one-hundred-one," and after that, we were quiet as I finished oiling her back and wraping her wound in cloth before giving her a pair of my spare clothes and something to eat. She then curled up and went to bed while I sat up with my mother.
My Only lay next to me, his head on my lap while we looked up at the stars, but I could tell that he couldn't see a thing as he stared off into space. "Is everything alright, son?" I asked as he lay on my lap. He sat up and looked at me to ask me what I meant and I continued. "It's just, you've seemed so down lately."
"Should I send them home, mom?" he asked as he looked toward the resting girl. "I mean, not all of them, not all at once, but those who have dragons and are closely bonded with them, and the ones who have been with us for a while and have still not given a child."
Oh, my poor son, I thought. The sorrow and pain you feel about what you do to those girls has finally become too much. He saw the look in my eyes and read it perfectly. "I don't like what I do to them. You have known that for a while now, but I do like what it gives us," he said, looking down. "I hate myself for it, and for the longest time, the two sides of me have been at war, but what if I let the veterans and victims of that war free after a year. I can't just keep them there, and I can't keep bringing more back, the way things are. We are starting to run out of room, and time in a year."
I nodded at my son in understanding of what he was saying, and after a moment of consideration, I spoke. "I see where you are coming from. I have seen what it is doing to you, and I know that you can only get through so much of it in our chambers. If this is what you feel you need to do, I will support you in it." He nodded as well, and lay back down on my lap.
"Thanks mom," he said as he started giving my outstretched legsome much needed attention. After watching him with the newest girl, I too felt a need for my son's affections.
As I lay on the hard ground and tried to stay still long enough for sleep to overtake the terrible throbbing up my spine and in my core, I heard something that I did not expect to hear come from the lips of this guy's apparent beloved. "Is everything alright, son?" At first, I thought it was simply an endearment brought about by the overwhelming age gap, but what I heard next confirmed my first suspicion of these two.
"Should I send them home, mom?" Mom! He called her MOM! All of a sudden, I knew this couple was more sick than they first appeared. They were more than just a man and his lover kidnapping and beating and raping women, they were Mother and SON! I tried to ignore them and get some sleep, but about five minutes later, I heard something that sent shivers down my spine and my meager meal back to my mouth. The sound of skin hitting skin made its way to my ears, but not like a strike, or a slap at a bug, or anything innocent like that. This was the repetitive, wet slap of two people in the throes of passion, and moments later, moans and cries and begging for 'More. Harder! Faster! OH!!! Right there!' could be heard all throughout the camp site. I wondered how the dragons could stand to be so close when I realized the black one was standing in front of me with his nose in my face and a sneer on its lips. It started growling, and I somehow knew that it was telling me to get up and follow him.
I tried to stand as the dragon wanted, as quickly as possible so that I would not be caught by the two behind me, but as I stood, my legs gave out and I fell right on top of the dragon's nose. For a moment I thought he was going to eat me, or at the very least, kill me, but the man who soiled me and took me from everything I had ever known was proven to be right. This dragon wasn't about to kill me, but was instead pushing me toward his rider's saddle and helping me into the seat. I was tender as I sat down, so I stretched my legs out toward the dragon's tail and prayed to the gods, if they were even listening to me, that this dragon would not take off in flight. It was not until he turned his left side to the fire and walked off toward the woods that I caught a glimpse of a strange device attached to the saddle's stirrup before all the world faded to black with our disappearance into the underbrush.
He kept walking as I lay on his back, wondering what that contraption was. As he walked, he picked up a decent-sized stick/log and passed it back to me. "What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked as I took it, and he swatted the large bags to either side of his hips with his tail. I shrugged and put the Item in, and a moment later, he did so again on the other side of him, so I put it in the other bag. I wondered what we were getting all this wood for, but as we came to a stop in front of a shack with a front deck, he pointed me off of him and I slid from his back to the deck a few inches from him. He then pulled the two sacks off his haunches and walked to the door, pulling a rope with toothless gums, huh, and pushing the door wide enough for him to slip through. A second later, I heard a roar and took that as my invitation inside.
When I stepped through the door, I saw seven dragons of all shapes, colors and sizes in the large room. Five were common breeds, ones I realized were the very same as those that were just freed from the arena in Berk, and two uncommon, or more properly, rare dragons that most people on Berk had never seen before. I recognized one as the Night Fury connected to the stories of the man who killed Drago Bludvist, stories that made Stoick, our beloved leader, both overjoyed with relief at his death and filled with terror that it was someone who controlled dragons that killed him, without using the dragons to do so. the other was a dragon that only one person on Berk had ever seen. Stoick. I couldn't help remembering the tales of warning that he told every year around this time. In fact, I had heard it just last night. It was the story of how a dragon had broken into his house. His wife had run in to save their son, but when he made it to her side, she was staring, hypnotized by the beast. He threw his axe at it, which broke its control over his wife's mind, but after she grabbed their son and the dragon was about to kill him, she ran up to it and called out for it to stop, and putting her hand on its leg, it did. The demon that was there that night stared into his beloved wife's eyes, and before he could reach her through the flames the beast had set to the house, It grabbed her and... his... son~.
"His wife and son!" I exclaimed out loud, disturbing and frightening the dragons in the room with me and I shrunk back. Surprising me for the umpteenth time that night, or day now, the Night Fury came around the fire pit in the middle of the room to stand in front of me and growled lowly at the other dragons. They started to calm down and he went back to the stacks of wood, dropping a few more pieces in the pit before lighting it and coming closer to me.
He pushed his head against my back and nudged me closer to the flames and away from the cold door, which he shoved closed with his tail, and I realized with the warmth on my skin just how cold I really was. He then left again and came back moments later with a large fur in his toothless mouth. I was greatly curious as to why this dragon didn't have any teeth, but I was too tired and in too much pain from my day to really care. He lay the fur out a few feet from the fire and patted it with his tail, staring at me, and it was then that I noticed a bar, connected to a wire, connected to his saddle, that was lined up perfectly with the outermost bon of his left tail fin and clasped on to it with a few hollow rods that looked like they could be slipped on and off of the tail easily. I sat down on the soft 'bed' to get a closer look at it, but it pulled its tail away quickly and snarled lowly at me. 'It's okay," I said gently. "I don't want to hurt you. I won't mess with it. I just want to see. I've never seen something like it before." He slowly moved his tail back to where my hand was left hanging and I let my fingers run across the cold metal and warm scales that ran together to make the device work.
"Dose he control you with this?" As soon as the question was out of my mouth, he turned on me and growled right in my face with displeasure at the comment. I quickly pulled my hand back and leaned away from him at the sight I saw. "Teeth," wheezed past my lips as I saw the rows of razor sharp, glaringly whited teeth that lined his once toothless gums. I heard a creak and the dragon bounded happily of in the direction of the door. I was too shocked to follow the thing, but if I had, I would have noticed what was the cause of his sudden change in demeanor.
"It's a brace," came a male boice from the direction of the door. My head shot around to see the man who took me, my own chief's son, standing in the doorway, with his lover, mother, and petting the dragon's head. "We usually only use it for long flights or dangerous expeditions," he continued, walking toward me. I shied away, but all he did was sit on the opposite side of the fur, staring into the fire. "It helps keep his tail stable and strong when he can no longer do so for himself."
"What happened?" I chanced asking, hoping I was not overstepping my bounds. "The alpha of your dreaded Dragon's Nest happened," he said under his breath before trapping my gaze with his own and telling me more. "About five years ago, my love and I were in the area of Berk. It was coming on the end of the harvest season when we flew too close to the mist you people call Helhiem's Gate. Our dragons became nervous and antsy, and before we realized what was going on, they took over our flight path and dove right into it. When we made it there, What we saw terrified us. The dragons of that nest were being controlled by a giant dragon, one that could swallow five of CloudJumper here in one bite, without even chewing." I looked at the giant owl-like dragon that he pointed to and wondered how that could even be possible. I mean, to me, this dragon was huge! I could only IMAGINE what the one he was describing looked like.
"We watched as all of of the dragons that came back from the raids dropped their food that they had stolen into the pit of the volcanic mountain, and we wondered, 'Why are these dragons just dropping all of their food down a hole?' We soon had our answer. the last dragon to come in, a slow gronckle, dropped a tiny fish into the hole, and what happened next scared even Toothless," he said. once again scratching his dragon. "A giant beast of a dragon came up out of the hole and swallowed the gronckle whole. It was mad because it had not brought back enough food, and it ate it. He was not satisfied with their meager pickings, so he came back up and choped at the rest of the dragons as we all fled from the top of the mountain. A zippleback from that nest was not as lucky as the rest of us and was grabbed in its maw just as Toothless and I sped past its mouth. Thankfully, they were the only two that died in its grasp since then."
"Two days later," he continued, "we decided that we had to go back and put an end to that thing's reign. If we didn't, more people and dragons would die, and we do not cross that line lightly. When we do, we are followed back by a great sense of sobriety weighing us down for days afterward, so we went back, and we did, we almost didn't return. I was able to get the thing in the air after saving my love and CloudJumper from being pulled into its mighty maw by its intake of air. I shot the thing to get them free from it, but in the process, Cloud hurt one of his wings and I had to catch my love in mid-air. I left them on the ground and Toothless fired on the beast's wing to get it to follow us, and it did. We got it to follow us up into the cloud cover and fired continuously at its wings, making weak spots that would never stand up to a rapid drop in elevation. The dragon got mad and fire spewed all around us, catching the cinch of the saddle on fire and slowly burning away at the only thing that held me on."
"Our time was up, so I told Toothless to take us in front of the beast and take us into a dive. It followed us, and just before it fired on us, Toothless flipped around and shot into its mouth. It's gas caught fire, and we pulled out of our dive just before it hit the ground and exploded. We tried to get away from the flames, I tried to keep up, but just before our last turn, the saddle came loose, and the dragon's clubbed tail hit me off his back. Toothless turned and grabbed me just as the fire surrounded us, but we continued falling because the only thing keeping me from burning up in the flames was the protective layer of his wings wrapped tightly around me. I ended up getting burnt anyway though," he said as he pulled the pant leg on his left side up to his knee. He was no longer wearing leather, but a pair of baggy wool pants held up by a lengh of rope tied at the waist, and what I saw beneath them was a terrible scar made of wrinkled and melted flesh. "Almost lost it, and in the fall, Toothless' tail fin was crushed. The King of our nest tried to fix it with his dragon magic, but the damage was too extensive and left untreated for too long. He will still be able to fly on his own, but he will never have full use of it again, just like I will never have full use of my leg. So," he said, cheering up his tone as he stood, swinging his arms back and forth, "he helps me walk and I help him fly. We work that way. It's just how it is."
"I never knew that the dragons were being controlled, Hiccup," I said, not realizing that I used the name his father had given him when he was a baby. He frowned, and I wondered why until I thought over what I said again.
"Where did you hear that name?" He asked as calmly as I imagined was possible. His mother, too, had stopped petting her dragon to frown at me, and both dragons let out a low snarl at his name.
"I- I didn't..." I stuttered before he grabbed me by the shirt he had lent me and snarled in my face like the dragons behind him.
"Where. Did. You. Hear. That. NAME!"
"A- At Berk," I tried. "Your father tells stories about you and your mom being taken every year. I- I heard it again, just the night before. I'm s- sorry. I didn't mean to offend y- you."
"How did you figure it out!" he shook me. "No one's ever figured it out before now. How did you!?"
"I'm sorry!" I cried out in fear as I pulled at his hand. I knew how strong he was and how badly those hands could hurt. I didn't want to experience that again. "I didn't mean to. I overheard you and your mother talking last night. I really am sorry. Please, dont hurt me again? Please? I didn't mean to!"
"DAMNIT!" he shouted as he threw me back to the floor and tears flowed down from my eyes. I pulled away until my back pressed up against something warm and I looked up to see nadder wings closing around me. I was scared at first, but I was also greatful for the protection and warmth it granted me. I heard his muffled voice continue from inside of those wings. "How could we have been so STUPID! All these years of being certain that none of them hear us talking about it, and the one time I start to truly enjoy one of them in an entire year and I let my guard down! And our luck, she just happens to be from BERK of all places!"
"Son, Hamish, please calm down," I hear his mother say. "We can't do anything about it if we aren't thinking rationally, so we can come up with a plan."
His roar to the skies like the dragon he rides made me flinch before I picked up heavy, breathless gasps as he tried to quell his rage. The floor creaked, and I heard fabric ruffling and hands sliding through hair, then the strong moan of an even stronger kiss. "I'm sorry, mom," he sighed. "Thank you for grounding me, my beloved Valery," and clothes shuffled again as I imagined him pulling her into a tight hug. "You can come out now, Astrid. I'm sorry I scared you, but I promise, I won't hurt you again until you heal." I huddled back into the dragon behind me, not knowing how honest this man was yet, only to have said dragon open its wings and reveal me to the dragon boy with his hand rubbing his face as he looked up at the roof of the house. From this angle, he actually looked kind of cute, with his shoulder length auburn hair, his baggy woolen clothes, his sharp features, and even the way he held himself. If I hadn't seen his other half last night, I would think this guy would be unable to even lift a sward. All of his clothes were held up by a cord. His waistband on his pants and shirt, the sleeves, the pantlegs, and even around his collar had a cord tied on it.
He never looked at me as he stood there, only threw his right arm over his eyes on top of his still-upward-facing head and held out his left. Strange, I couldn't help think. If he were trying to make himself vulnerable, wouldn't he offer his fighting hand? Then it hit me. The strike on my left shoulder, no doubt a claiming mark. Alwayse starting on the left side first, his whip placed on his left instead of his right, even the fact that he alwayse seems to stand on his mother's left and yet almost anyone else's right, though granted, I haven't seen him with many other people. This young man was left handed, and he didn't act like it bothered him like anyone else I had seen. That's why I hadn't noticed it till now. It was so natural to be a lefty that it didn't even seem to register to him anymore.
"Yes, I am left handed. I find it an advantage in most fights, and now, I offer you my stronger hand as a show of trust. Now are you going to grab it or not?" Well there goes that theory. He knew, he just didn't let on he knew. That, or he's gloating about it.
Well, he's shown almost nothing but kindness since he was done with me last night. He's let his guard down. I suppose, for now, I can afford to do the same, so I took his hand with my right and pulled myself up, then pulled him down so that I could speak in his ear and said, "I hope you can prove me wrong about my first Impression."
He then grabbed me by the back of my head, fisting my hair, and whispered in my own ear, "We'll see. By the way... I'm ambidextrous." He then brushed a soft kiss over my cheek bone and turned, saying as he walked out the door, "We leave in three hours, so try to get some rest." His mother then lay something on my makeshift bed with a note that said, 'This will help you sleep. The nadder will protect you and ensure you are not disturbed until it is time to leave... Even from my beloved.' I looked at the strange root in the dear-skin pouch. It smelled odd. Actually, no. It smelled like a skunk, but I recognized the powerful sleeping aid used in root tea*\ and gladly chewed on some of it till I felt tired enough to sleep. The nadder then curled around me and hid me from the world until I was once again ready to face it.
It has been only seven hours since we heard Astrid call out to someone from the direction of the training arena. 'Hey, who's there!" was heard, even from central village, as the dragons had already left. 'Come out of the shadows and show yourselves!' That was the last thing we heard from the girl before we saw the outline of a figure on a black dragon in the sunrise, and we knew he had taken her too.
Being that the damage from this raid wasn't too bad, the first thing we did was call a town meeting. Everyone gathered there, and I broke the news that our most promising young warrior, Astrid Hofferson, had been taken in the night, just as her sister was two years before only a day after her honeymoon with her new husband. Everyone had been devastated at the loss of Agnes Ingerman, and they were all that much more so for the youngest Hofferson girl. Her parents and brothers cried for the first four hours after she was taken, only able to imagine the horrors of what that man might do to her. Her betrothed had all but destroyed the doorpost of the near-finished house that would be his wedding gift to her when he tried to imagine her suffering, but I have a bad feeling that what they imagined was nowhere near the pain that she would suffer at his hands.
We had all heard from rumors among the old dragon hunters that he had an old maid as his companion, even though he appeared to be no more than sixteen at the time, and I had my own dragon hunter, Astrid's betrothed, to verify that fact. The young Eret, son of Eret, had been there that day, and guaranteed that the rumors going around were largely false. What he did verify is that he rode on a twenty-fisix foot long, black as night Night Fury that just so happened to act like a loyal puppy with his master, and with strangers. It was a terrifying beast when angered, but fell like clay in his master's hand.
He could also verify that he was only, really, a scrawny, inexperienced, seventeen year old boy who had been enraged after Drago broke his companions leg. He had told his dragon to stay back, grabbed a whip, and ducked under Drago's swing with a dragon's grace to wrap the whip around his throat from behind, swing under his legs, and hoist it up on the other side to crush his windpipe. He then removed a knife from his belt, shallowly cut open his chest, and pluged his hand in, squeezing his heart slowly until he spasmed into the afterlife. The boy then stood, wiped his hand on the man's vest, took the Night Fury skin cape and whip, and left on his dragon. According to Eret, he had a look of being dead on the inside as he hopped on the Night Fury and flew away, whereas when he arrived, he had a somewhat normal teenage boy appearance. He said it was like Drago was the boy's first kill, and from what he described, his actions told me to believe and his opponent told me to remain a skeptic.
Over the past two years, I have only seen him a handful of times, so few that I could count them on two hands, and I find myself believing it more and more. He moved like a dragon, himself, and I wouldn't find it hard to believe that he grew up with the beasts, and the woman with him, if I didn't know better, could have been the boy's mother. I had seen her only twice in the two years they came here, and in those years, she was always standing on top of that blasted dragon that taunts me of my own wife's death, the loss of my son and heir, and the fact that I was forced to make my brother's brat kid the heir apparent.
Of the few times I had seen the boy, I fought him only once. It was about two seasons ago now, and he was very easy to underestimate. He was clad in dark leatherfrom head to toe, and his mask covered his entire head like a roman helmet. Though he was tall, a good six-foot-three and reaching just below my nose, he was slim, and it appeared as if he would crumble under the weight of my axe, but I suppose riding on that beast that stood behind him and snarled the entire time gave him muscle that was stronger than ours without giving too much bulge. 'Hello, daddy-o,' he taunted as he took up his whip and disarmed me from a good nine feet away, and when he got close to me with a knife under my chin, he beamed at me from under his helmet, and he said something that disturbed me. 'My father looked like you.' He said with all the nonchalance in the world. His voice then became dark and sinister as I felt my blood run cold. 'Before he died.' He then hit me on the back of the head with the hilt of his whip and my world went dark.
I woke up a few minutes later to Gobber shaking me and saying, 'He took another one! He took another girl! He and that black demon of his grabbed the younger sister of Gustav Larson and took off!' I was in shock. The very girl I tried to protect from being attacked by that color changing dragon was taken. All because I was so helpless in the face of a teenage boy with a whip and a knife. I was defeated by common farm tools while he faced an axe and a battle hardened viking. I cursed the day that man was born as I called a meeting to discuss what to do about this menace and his Night Fury, and now I knew that I had to do something, for if not, our people would die out.
The next raid, we were going to catch ourselves a dragon and its rider, and if they don't make it stop, then the one we hold will die.
*Valerian Root: Common sleep aid