Chapter 31: Nightmare Fuel

Hiccup arrived home from the Great Hall with way too much on his mind, entering his house as casually as he could before leading Toothless inside. It had been a rough day to put it delicately, and the last thing he needed to cap it off was a long talk with his father about his social woes. He felt strangely ashamed of his situation and headed upstairs intending to hide this bit of trouble from the Chief for as long as possible.

Hiccup closed the door to his room and Toothless immediately took the opportunity to bound up into the rafters, hanging himself upside down to try and get some rest. His rider quickly crawled into his own bed after kicking off his boots, reflecting on what he'd done wrong to receive such a punishment from the gods. No matter how hard Hiccup tried, however, an answer escaped him.

He closed his eyes and yet sleep still eluded the young Viking, so he employed the usual solution to this problem and grabbed his sketchbook from his desk, finding a blank page before watching his pencil go to work seemingly on its own, creating a new picture for his bank of memories. Predictably, this did the trick, and Hiccup's eyelids began to droop slowly as he looked upon his work and decided it was good. It was not long after this he felt his consciousness begin to fade away, and he reached out for the world of dreams like it was a lifeline.

But there was no rest for the weary.

Frantic, loud, obnoxious knocks peppered his front door on the floor below, jolting him awake in an instant. Hiccup was barely alert enough to know where he was, let alone what the problem might be.

"Hiccup!" Two separate but muffled voices were yelling his name from outside in an effort to get his attention. "HICCUP!"

The Haddock hurriedly sprang out of bed and shook Toothless awake as well, rushing downstairs with boots in hand to find his annoyed father already heading for the door. Despite being a deep sleeper, the Chief had evidently been aroused by the racket as well. The large man flung it open as Hiccup pulled up next to him, and both were surprised to find Arkyn and Astrid on the doorstep, expressions of worry crossing their faces.

"What is so gods damned important that you two had to wake us up at this hour?!" The Chief demanded, eyeing the pair of teenagers disappointedly.

Astrid panted a response, urgency in her words. "T- the Flightmare." She began, trying to catch her breath after the flight over. "It's coming."

The Chief's expression immediately changed from one of annoyance to a look of deep concern, his bushy brow furrowing at the news. "Odin's beard…" he exclaimed quietly, trying to process what this meant for the village.

"We saw the river glowing." Arkyn informed them further. "We don't know how long ago it started, but…how much time do we have?"

"A day." Hiccup spoke up for the first time during the interaction. "At most. Maybe less."

"So we need a plan." Arkyn stated the obvious, but no one else seemed to be making any breakthroughs so tried to accelerate things.

"We need Fishlegs." Hiccup said simply, and the rest nodded. "I'll go tell the watchmen to sound the raid siren. You two go gather the rest of the riders and tell them to be in the arena as soon as they possibly can. And dad? Give a speech. Let people know what's going on." The younger Haddock jumped into action, delegating tasks with a calculated grace just as he'd seen his father do before. It was time for him to do his job and be the leader the rest of his friends were relying on him to be.

"And wha' am I supposed to tell the people exactly?" Stoick yelled after the three teens who were already running towards their dragons.

Hiccup turned around and yelled back before mounting Toothless, ready to move. "That we have things under control."

A groggy Fishlegs followed Arkyn and Stinger into the arena before landing Meatlug down in the dirt with a thud. Astrid had already gathered Snotlout and the twins, and it wasn't long before Hiccup flew over the grand stands to join them. The raid siren was now blaring persistently, yet effectively in the background. It would have been about this time that the villagers began to hustle into the Great Hall, where a waiting Stoick would be ready to inform them of the situation.

"What are we doing here? It's practically midnight." The Ingerman asked timidly, rubbing his eyes. "The raid siren hasn't gone off since the Red Death died. Please don't tell me there's a problem…?"

"I'm afraid so." Hiccup replied, remaining on his dragon as he addressed the circle of friends. "It's that time of the decade again…the Flightmare is coming back."

There was an audible groan from the twins while Snotlout smiled quietly to himself, but said nothing. Astrid shot him a side glare for this.

Fishlegs grimaced. "Well that's not good…" He said quietly, absentmindedly scratching his chin. "Soooo what do we do?" The boy asked cluelessly, seemingly unable to read the situation.

Hiccup frowned. "Well…I was sort of hoping you knew. I thought you'd been reading about it."

"Yeah, Legs. You're the big nerd!" Snotlout added unnecessarily, at which point Astrid let out her annoyance and stomped on his foot, causing the Viking to recede into his pain.

Fishlegs looked worried. "I- I don't know what to tell you guys…the Flightmare only comes once every 10 years- almost nobody knows anything about it."

"We don't need a lot," Hiccup pressed him encouragingly. "we just need a place to start. No matter how much or how little, the rest of us need to know whatever information you have."

"Oh Thor…" Fishlegs began to worry, not appreciating the pressure that was being placed upon him. "Ok. The Flightmare appears light blue in color and is slightly translucent, which luckily makes it easy to spot in the dark. It also always follows the path that glows in the water, is extremely fast, and has two attacks. The first is a toxic acid that can burn through pretty much anything it comes in contact with and the second is a mist that can paralyze any creature if it touches the skin or gets in the eyes. It rarely uses the acid, though, and prefers not to kill its victims despite its aggressiveness. The paralyzation is thankfully only temporary." He finished and took a deep breath, catching his air.

"Is that it?" Ruffnut asked, clearly underwhelmed. "I think we already knew most of that."

Hiccup waved her off and asked a slightly more helpful question of his own. "Do you have any idea what makes the water glow?"

Fishlegs swallowed and shook his head. There hadn't been any reason for it in his books.

"So what I'm understanding is that all we know is roughly when it will be here and where it will be coming from?" Arkyn clarified, looking around at the vastness of the village they now had to protect. "Why don't we just give it the 'Red Death Treatment' and be done with it? There's no point in fighting it ten years from now…"

"It's a little more complicated than that." Fishlegs sighed. "Even with the small possibility that we could kill it, many believe that the Flightmare's ten year cycle is what regulates a lot of the food chains and migration patterns in and around the archipelago. It's too important to kill and nobody knows exactly how many even exist. Dragon and fish populations everywhere would be completely imbalanced in just a few years."

"Well that would have been a good fun fact to include the first time around." Astrid added this time, sounding annoyed as she'd been thinking along the same lines as Arkyn. After all, she was the one who had a real grudge against this thing. It had sort of tarnished the Hofferson name 10 years prior. "So what's plan B?" She turned to Hiccup, who thought for a moment.

"We have to play a little game of Keep Away..." The Haddock replied after a minute, shifting nervously atop his Night Fury. "…with one of the most problematic dragons this village has ever known."

Arkyn rolled his eyes. "It sounds so easy when you put it like that."

"I've always appreciated your cynicism." Hiccup shot back, not in the mood. "All we have to do is position ourselves at even intervals all the way down the island in between Berk's river and the village. This will allow us to cover as much ground as possible, and then once it shows up, we'll do our best to make sure it stays on its path along the water and doesn't wander over town. It'll probably take some 'forced persuasion,' but our number one goal should be to send it on its way as quickly as possible. Hopefully there's no need for it to terrorize the village this year, and with everybody having been warned in advance and safe in the Great Hall, I think we have a pretty good shot at keeping the Vikings safe until next time."

"And remember." Fishlegs spoke up, adding one last thing for good measure. "If the Flightmare attacks you, do whatever you need to do to properly defend yourself, but under no circumstances should we be going on the offensive. It needs to leave unharmed." The rest nodded in agreement, confirming they understood the instructions.

"Everybody needs a shield." Suggested Hiccup, and each rider dismounted their respective dragons to retrieve one from the back of the stables. "I'm sure there is no one here who wants to get frozen tonight."

Arkyn picked up a fresh shield from the dark room and smiled to himself as he noticed the mangled remains of the one he'd used to fight Stinger all those weeks ago. He dwelled on everything that had changed in that time for only a moment before exiting, but Astrid caught his arm on the way out.

"Hey." She started, mild worry in her voice. "I know things are different now that we're together, but…we can't let any of that affect what we do when we go up against this thing. It might get dangerous, and I'm sure you've thought about that, but as far as we're concerned it's just a normal day." The girl finished with a sigh, regretting the notion that she had to say something like this in the first place. She wished their lives could possess some element of calm for at least a little while.

Arkyn gently removed her hand from his arm and held it in his own as they began to follow the rest of the group back to their dragons, giving her a knowing look. "Just a normal day." He whispered. "But I still won't let anything happen to you. And look…I understand you and your family have a history with this dragon. Don't make it your mission to get even with it." Arkyn said reassuringly, predicting the girl's drive to avenge her uncle's honor might motivate her in the heat of the moment. They finally parted ways and walked to each of their individual companions, but Arkyn called back one last thing as they mounted. "Be careful not to lose yourself out there, Hofferson."

Astrid nodded in return, giving a slight smile to confirm she understood what he was trying to say. Sure, it felt nice to know that someone would be watching out for her specifically, but she didn't want that to mean better judgment would be clouded. If bad went to worst, Astrid was reasonably comfortable she could find her own way out of a jam.

Hiccup looked on with a face of stone, still not appreciating the fact that he had to see them with each other on a daily basis now. He figured Astrid didn't even need to be told the last line Arkyn spit out, but he wasn't about to say anything on the matter. There were more important things to worry about, at least in that particular moment.

He raised his shield to regain the group's attention before laying out his orders. "From north to south, the order of rider positions along the river will be as follows: I'll take the lead, then down the line will be Arkyn, Astrid, Snotlout, the Twins, and finally Fishlegs. We need to put the most aggressive dragons near the front of the line so the Flightmare gets the message that it needs to leave as quickly as possible, and the less threatening dragons should go at the rear so it feels like it can escape without much more resistance. It wouldn't think twice about trying to slip by a Gronckle, especially if that's the way the water goes."

His logic seemed sound enough and the rest of the crew committed the plan to memory as he continued. "I realize none of us truly know what to expect. It's been a whole decade for Thor's sake…we were all either 5 or 6 when we last saw this thing, and Arkyn has never encountered it, but this time we have 2 things that we lacked last time: the first is each other, and the second is our own dragons. It may not be pretty, but we've dealt with bigger threats than the Flightmare before, and I know we can make it through this." He tried to hide a sigh and appear as confident as possible through this little speech, but looking at his friends he could do nothing except hope things didn't go wrong.

"I'm going to fly to the Great Hall and tell my dad the plan. Everyone is to remain barricaded in there until we give them the all clear. The rest of you can begin to take up your positions and I will join you momentarily. I know all of you are probably tired, but we can't drop the bag on this one. The Flightmare could be here at any moment and we have to be ready. Now before we split up…if anything- and I mean ANYTHING- goes wrong, or you need help, or whatever it is, have your dragon fire a distress call. We should be close together enough that anyone can get assistance in just a few moments." The rest nodded as Hiccup finished his speech, empowered by his words. It was easy to see he'd been picking up tricks from the Chief over the years.

"Well it can't be as bad as the Screaming Death, am I right?" It was Snotlout who finally spoke next, trying to break the ice before they all parted ways.

"I certainly hope not." Arkyn replied quietly, not believing anything could top that sort of monster. "Stay safe, everyone. We should get moving."

And so it was.

Hiccup left first in the direction of the Great Hall, and one by one, each of the other dragon riders took off from the arena to position themselves at their respective points along the river, building a line of defense out of reptiles between the Flightmare's route and the village.

As each teen settled in, there was nothing but the moonlight and river glow to illuminate their surroundings as they waited…

…and waited…

…and waited some more…