Chapter 28- I'm Sorry
"…I'm sorry."
Hiccup started, speaking into the settled quiet that had sprang up between them, life and death falling away to reveal the just as vital struggles the recent battle had forced them to run away from. He sifted through everything he wanted to lay bare, everything he wanted to make amends. Pressing aside the guilt that would've otherwise silenced him, he felt the Sky Dragon's piercing eyes lay upon his soul. If nothing else after all that had happened, he had to say this.
"I should never have been afraid of you… I should've comforted you, and been there when I knew how scared you were. I shouldn't have gone to confront Grimmel on my own- I shouldn't have brought Freya along with me. Should've noticed you were having trouble with your- OW!" The Sky Dragon deemed it necessary to stop him with a firm flick to the forehead, before he could even mention how he let him down. Snapping the Viking out of his thoughts before he could spiral too deep into distress, seeking a forgiveness that was no longer needed. Apology accepted.
"Yeah, that's what happens when I snarl down your throat, and toss you into the dirt…" He muttered, a mirroring of shame in his own eyes, the levity in his voice slightly lifting the mood. "…aaand I'm pretty sure I lost your helmet." He added as an afterthought.
Hiccup shook his head at what was somehow the least surprising thing to happen today, though it did spark an odd thought. Hold up-.
"I think I lost my leg." He noticed. The hard press of steel conspicuously absent from his half kneeling form. When had that happened? Probably somewhere between turning into an actual freaking dragon and shifting back again, if he had to guess.
Jack cracked at the sheer bafflement in his voice. Hiccup's own laugh bubbling forth at the absurdity of the situation. Everything that had gone on those past few days and he somehow managed to drop his leg.
The Sky Dragon left the cradling of his burnt fingers to just one hand as he reached the other up to rest upon his face. The brief bought of joy slowly fading into the background, as he placed his fingertips oh so carefully against the angry red lines his fire-proofed armour hadn't quite managed to guard. Hiccup slowly melting under the Sky Dragons gentle care, fingers delicately placed in all the necessary places.
When everything was settled, and resting beneath his soothing touch, the Sky Dragon took a deep, steadying breath… and offered up his own shame.
"I shouldn't have left you on your own- I should've been there when you needed me the morning after… I shouldn't have made you feel like you had to go after that Hunter alone. I shouldn't have yelled so hard when I just wanted to be relieved you were safe. I shouldn't have ran off into the caverns without at least trying to sneak you in first. I shouldn't have let you go alone at any point during that battle…" He paused, pointedly.
Waiting for the Viking to cut him off, much like he'd done. Hiccup purposefully let the expectant silence drag out.
"Yeah, you really shouldn't." He told him, finally putting him out of his misery. Bluntly refusing to give him what he was after.
Since when had he ever played along with the Sky Dragon fishing for pity points. Jack snorted with laughter, narrowly avoiding poking him in the eye and accidentally prodding a burn spot or two… and yet somehow, it was that more than any genuine or forced platitudes between the two, that reassured them that perhaps they really were going to be okay. That was more like the them that they knew.
The feeling rinsed over their beaten, tired minds like fresh rain in the summer heat, and the releasing dam of emotional damages just kept pulling and pulling forth. Whispers of careless, battering wings, a distant white silhouette fading so far, far away-. A frigid, grounding touch slipped under his shoulder pad, abruptly and effectively snapping him out of his thoughts.
The Sky Dragon, real and present, and right here and now in front of him, rested his patient gaze upon him, the wondering stare somehow carrying more weight than the hand upon his shoulder. It asked him to offer up his deepest thoughts, only if he thought it would help.
His burned hands curled around the one still soothing them, watching his near deathly pale skin run over the raw red tissue over and over again.
Almost as pale as frozen snow… and yet, he could recall a time when it had been even paler. When it hadn't been almost deathly…
'In… in my nightmare... Everyone was gone…' He began. He didn't have the courage to speak. 'Everyone was leaving- you were leaving, and it was like-…' He didn't finish the thought. It was like all the times he'd continuously left Berk to leave him to struggle with life on the island without him.
It was so many years ago now, but he still bore the marks of that continued absence. Hiccup knew Jack's nightmares involved him dying in front of him, had seen splintered echoes of that horror as the threads of their soul re-intertwined... But the Sky Dragon wasn't the only one to know the fear of the other dying in front of him… and unlike Jack, he didn't have the luxury of it being a dream.
He'd watched him die- sat there next to him, lying cold and still all night… and in the morning, he'd had only a glimpse of his living self, brief enough to have him wondering if he wasn't just going completely insane… And then for the rest that day… and that spring, that summer, all the way until winter, for not just that, but several years afterwards, he'd been left watching… Waiting… Petrified he wouldn't return.
Maybe that was why he accepted Grimmel's despair so easily. He'd grown so used to the idea of the Sky Dragon leaving him behind, some part of him just kept expecting it to happen. Wondering if it might be permanent despite him not having done so in years. He'd been running with the fear of losing him forever for so long, that somewhere along the way it started to feel like an inevitability.
He was far from without empathy for the fear that had been driving the Sky Dragon these past few days (he'd known it long before he did), but it was just… almost… bizarre to him. To think of the Sky Dragon only just now feeling something that had haunted him for so long now.
It had been years since he stopped leaving. The Sky Dragon had remained a permanent fixture in Berk almost as long as the dragons themselves at this point, and yet still… every time he took off, went beyond his line of sight… he still felt a little flicker of fear.
'How many times do I have to return before realise I'm going to stay' he remembered the Sky Dragon saying a small battle ago… 'probably about as many times as you left' he'd answered in turn.
He'd left, but he'd returned- he'd returned, but he'd left… Not a good thing to be left sitting, eating away at vast array of trust laid on top of it.
'No more.' The Sky Dragon said.
He'd planted this small island here as dedication that they would never be drifted apart again. He regretted that he'd ever caused him such pain, and he would happily spend the rest of his lifetime proving he was here to stay. He wasn't going anywhere... If he be willing, and he was going to fight for it… he was here now.
He was staying.
Like the snow and hail that rained on Berk, the ice dragon wasn't going anywhere.
The Sky Dragon reached out, pressing the echoes of his own fear up against the terrors of Hiccup's still-fresh nightmare, like he was pushing them palm to palm… They were exactly the same. It was the same fear they held… that the other was going to leave.
Hiccup rolled his eyes skywards with a grumbling, amused sigh, Jack blowing out a bittersweet huff. What a pair they made, huh. Trust them to have each other's worst fears basically contradict each other, but still find a way to have them both worry about it anyway.
They could never actually, willingly, leave each other… and yet they were still so stupidly afraid of it. Gods damnit, Freya was right again… They really were just two stupid idiots, weren't they.
Idiots or not, there was only so long they could remain on this little ice bubble. They couldn't just ignore the situation in front of them. The looming Recall. The stress and strain go the humans and dragons beyond their little island of Berk…
The Sky Dragon grew a little lost in themselves. Haunted, not by the past, but by the future. The Great Homecoming was slowly putting out its call, and more and more dragons would be compelled to answer.
So, what did they do? …
He could feel Hiccup prodding at his thoughts, but he almost didn't quite know how to respond. Not with how the Viking had answered him before...
It hurt to hear him say Vikings and dragons couldn't work together. The words had pained and confused him like nothing else. They'd left him unmoored- suddenly lost in a future, he once believed so certain, falling away around him.
Because if it were true- or even if it weren't, if he believed that at any point whatsoever-… then where did that leave them?
Up until the moment those doubts fell from the Viking's lips, everything that was happening was just another (particularity horrendous, but nothing unmanageable) bump in the road that came with the chaos of living on Berk. But those words turned everything on its head. Things suddenly went from miserable to dire… and worse, his greatest comfort- the one he could always lean on, and depend- was now one of those hopeless naysayers he had to battle on top of everything else.
Through everything, there would always be the two of them… until there wasn't. There was suddenly a very real possibility that it would all just disappear. Everything good that'd been brought into his life- Berk, a purpose- all that he loved, unravelling in before him, with Hiccup standing at its centre.
When Hiccup floundered in their dedication to a united Berk, it had been the cruellest betrayal. Because how could he carry on with this if he didn't know whether Hiccup was backing him one hundred percent? He couldn't. Plain and simple. He couldn't do this without him- he was just one tiny Sky Dragon, how was he ever meant to do anything? With that Viking at his side, he could do it, but without…
How was he supposed know if those doubts still lingered?
He had to know… once and for all, where his precious Viking stood on the matter. His heart, mind, thoughts and soul... Did he still see a future with dragons and Vikings living together, as they did on Berk? … Or should he be bracing himself for the unthinkable possibility…
For all his talk about never letting go, and finding a way… Was he really going to follow through with it?
"What do you think, Hiccup?"
He hardly needed to bring up any context. The situation had been heavy in the back of their minds from the moment Grimmel made his sweeping declaration, and the Recall first became known.
He was done hearing Grimmel's words through his Viking's mouth. He wanted to know Hiccup's thoughts, not anybody else's.
"You- not anyone else… What do you think?" He asked, imbuing the words with more seriousness than he had anything else in his entire life.
"What do you want?"
The Viking cleared his mind, breathing out as he closed his eyes to turn his gaze inwards. Somehow reminded of another pivotal conversation. That sense of scouring the face of one who was asking, needing to know an answer.
He couldn't remember what in the Sky Dragon's answer had even let him down before, but didn't he want to disappoint him the same way… and yet, he couldn't be anything other than wholly honest… They both deserved as much from this.
What did he want? What should they do next? It all went hand in hand. His actions would be guided by his desires, as they always would and had ever been.
So, he took the time to truly give those questions the consideration they were due… What did he want?
It was really simple, in some ways. This, right here and now, was exactly what he wanted. The two of them just being there, exactly as they are, and yet… when he thought beyond the now, things quickly got more complicated.
"I want to see Berk restored- the way it should be. I want to look up to the sky and see dragons flying, with Vikings on their backs, and be able to fly join them up there, just for the sake of it, just because I can… I want to look down from scaled wings to see men and dragons working together. And…" He paused, knowing this was where any sense of realism ended. Anyone could return to what they had before- it was a whole lot harder to try and build it back as something more.
What came next was nothing but selfish dreams… but the Sky Dragon was asking for more than just practical- he wanted to hear each and every desire of his impossible heart. He had always pushed for him to be selfish where once he held himself back- spoken out for him in times he was content to stay quiet- dared him to be brash and bold and demand.
So here he was… being selfish.
"…I wish everyone else could see it."
"All people, and all dragons. No traps- no cages- no fear."
Jack's face slowly wove through a myriad of emotions: pensive, relieved, hopeful, unsure.
"…What about you?" He asked back. Baring his soul, for once, just a little more difficult than it used to be. "What do you want?" He wondered.
The Sky Dragon's arctic blue gaze resting up and out on the distant clouds above them, not taking nearly as long to reply. Maybe he was always thinking about that- maybe was just good at knowing everything that he wanted.
"I want us to be able to share the sky together." He said. So soft and sincere a request that seemed to speak of everything.
The Viking and the Sky Dragon. Those of skin and those of scales. What else was it they wanted if not for that beautiful, endless sky? It filled his heart with such a gentle yearning… oh how he wanted that…
But they were talking of dreams here. They sadly had to be realistic at some point if they wanted to achieve anything- and the simple want for them to play nice… that just wasn't the truth or the reality of the situation.
"Me too.. but I think… Grimmel wasn't entirely wrong." The Sky Dragon's stunned face snapped to him. "'Humans and dragons can't live together' right? Well… he's not wrong."
He watched their face start to fall into suspicion and devastation and didn't delay the point. He thanked the faith between them that the Sky Dragon allowed him to see his thoughts through.
"Maybe some humans and some dragons can get along… but not all of them. Some dragons are never meant to be ridden, and some humans don't deserve the sky… Some of them will just never accept our way of life, no matter what we do. That's just the way it is…"
The Viking took a deep breath, on the precipice of being overwhelmed by it all once again, but he held himself steady. He wasn't about to falter again. This wasn't just about himself anymore- this was much bigger.
When it came down to it. Life and death, hopes and dreams? That was the easy part. The tricky bit came with what was coming next. Actually having to see it through. Putting in the hard graft to dare and reach towards it, only having reality come down hard on you in spite of everything you did. It was in keeping going on from that, however, that things of true meaning came about.
"I don't know what exactly we're going to do next, but I don't know if we can think about just Berk anymore." He muttered, trying not to think about the sheer scale of what he was implying.
It was a large world out there, and there were so many out there he wanted to try and help. He had never been one to just leave a dragon suffering, even at a time when they'd been his greatest enemy… and now, when they were the thing he loved most, it only drove him even further.
He couldn't just go back to Berk and pretend there wasn't so much more going on with the Sky Dragons, and their dreams of ever elusive peace, than he ever thought there was. There was so much still to do.
He didn't know how he was supposed to do any of it, or what that meant for his duties as future chief, but he couldn't stand idle and allow this Great Homecoming to go ahead.
He looked towards the place where the sea current moved strangely- being pulled towards an unseen entrance.
The dragons down there had no idea what it was they were letting go, but wasn't about to let them forsake it. He watched as a few dancing dragons and riders spiralled lazily into the sky, crowing victory- a distant, blaring horn ringing out in the dawn's light.
Dragons riders were not going anywhere, so long as he had a say in matter- and he very much intended to make sure he did.
"HICCUUOOP! SKY BUDDEY! MY FRIENDKINPRECIOUS!"
The words bumbled out over the ocean they forgot was still rolling next to them. Yelled over the sloppy plip-plaps of a noisily swimming Night Fury, near drunkenly paddling his way over.
"Toothless!" Jack grinned, barely breaking away eye contact from his thoroughly amazing soulmate- only making half an effort to mask his heart tightened throat and affection misted eyes.
Quick-freezing tears littered the Sky Dragon's face, and Hiccup wished mimic the gentle gesture of his thumb on his cheek- if only his searing hands weren't likely to make him cry for the effort. He almost felt bad- he hadn't meant to make him cry… but the Sky Dragon seemed entirely unfazed by by the new, tiny gemstones on his cheeks. Quietly reaching out to throw an ice platform towards the clumsy-swimming Night Fury. Pulling him in to bump against theirs, before returning his hand to its place.
"How are you, buddy?" He enthused, genuinely, his thoughts and emotions still very much scattered.
The black dragon groaned almost as much as the ice beneath him, feeling some very loud emotions dragon at the moment.
"Bad-bad-bad dreams." He rambled, shaking to rid himself of the memories (or the salt water). "Nasty creatures." He hissed, brain still trying to catch up with the fact that he was on steady land. Jack chuckled, pulling away the face-soothing hand once more to pat him on the head. The Night Fury crooned, melting in a cooing puddle under the touch.
'Not stung.' Jack reassured him after a quick sniff. 'Just heavily misted.' Hiccup let out a long, grateful sigh at that. Glad the Night Fury didn't have to suffer as he did.
The baby hatchling, skidding, sliding and bounding, was racing over to Toothless the second he joined their little ice slab.
"Mini-me!" The Night Fury lit up like five separate Snoggletogs had all rolled together to come early. Bumping his giant snout against the hatchling's tiny, round body. Rubbing their noses together with happy little Night Fury noises.
"Thank you." Toothless warbled contently. "For saving my-"
"Noway!" The tiny bundle shouted.
Toothless' jaw dropped open almost comically.
Had.. had the hatchling ever spoken before?
"He.. call me.. Noway." He declared, with all the stubborn demand of a toddler who would not be told differently.
Did he just declare his own name?
Hiccup stared, dumbfounded, as the fearless little tot rubbed it's head into his leg. Did he say that? Hiccup thought absently, raising a hand up before its snout ('uh, Hiccup…?'). Unlike a much more skittish Fury many, many years ago, the hatchling had absolutely no misgivings about ramming his hand with a full body slam. His briefly toasted hand did not like that.
"OW!" He bellowed.
The little Fury drawing up short to stare at him in pure shock. Toothless jumping to attention with the sound of pain, as Jack churred out a draconic little laugh.
'Idiot…' He mumbled, half aloud, half in thought, fussing with his hands as he took them right back into his healing touch.
"ARR!" The mini-night roared back. Toothless butting them with his head for being rude. It screeched in response, offended as only children could be.
Toothless shook his head. He had a long way to go before he understood humans half as well as he did. He sure had a lot to teach… and he wasn't the only one who had to learn.
A stray scent upon the wind only those with dragon noses would have noticed, hovered about the plateau with a mixture of fear and uncertainty. Jack, almost surreptitiously, slid a moderately sized extension out to the back of the ice where no one was paying attention. Pretending not to notice as it squeaked and creaked beneath the new weight.
The little hatchling screeched as it slobbery, rolly ice ball slid straight into the ocean with a plop.
Then it stopped. Stared for a moment at the wobbling reflections… Then, for the first time since it had landed upon the crystal ice…
It looked up.
Their eyes grew big and round as Toothless sneaking into his fresh stash of dragon nip. Sparkling like stars. The entire time he'd known it, the little dragon had wriggled and squirmed, refusing to sit still, but there, in its first time seeing the sky… it just stared. He wondered if they'd even felt a breeze, or an oceans spray upon its scales before...
No… he wouldn't allow them to get locked underground. It wasn't right. Not for them, or the dragons. The world might not deserve them- but they deserved the world.
They all deserved the sky just as much as they do.
The little hatchling- Noway- quickly recovered their excitement.
"Al faa! Al faa! Look-see! Look see!" The hatchling pestered, bouncing beneath the great, new, wondrous beauty of the lavender-gold, dawn bright sky.
Toothless rumbled a heartfelt agreement.
"Someday." The Alpha said "I'm going to show you just how big and blue it really is." He promised. And, well, they simply had to create an eternal, forever lasting peace now. Toothless had promised- and the Night Wing Alpha never let down a promise.
Hiccup just sat there for a moment, still in disbelief that they were still alive. Somehow, in all that mess, after all of the chaos and disasters… it all worked out okay.
For now, at least. The future was still a whole mess of disasters and screws up yet to be made. There was no way of knowing how things were going to turn out. But, one thing was for sure, the sky was only going to grow brighter from here on out. The world was going on without them anyways- time for them to stand up to it.
He grunted- aching, tired, relying on only his one full leg… but still defiantly standing. Leaning against the Sky Dragon who had moved so effortlessly to steady him without so much as a thought.
He stared out towards the guzzling ocean chasm of the Hidden World, with the dancing dragons twirling above. What, exactly, were they about to be in for? Going against centuries of history and hatred? Ending entire empires built on the back of traps and abuse? Convincing dragons their boogeymen weren't so bad- and humans their brainless beasts of mass destruction actually just wanted a good scratch behind the ears? All of that and more. As they always had.
A glittering, ice bridge extended its way towards the gaping maw of uncertainty. The riders crowed and the dragons sang in the birth of a new day. To hope, or to despair, they didn't know, but onwards was all they could go. To their next greatest battle. For freedom. For love… They would fight until the very end.
The Viking and the Sky Dragon, hands clasped tight together, pressed close, as they hobbled along on patient, and imbalanced, feet. Clinging to comfort, in the madness of a world that would try to tear them apart.
They would not be broken.
Behind them, a silver-white shadow finally found the courage to step into the glow of the sunlight. Uncloaking her scales. Vulnerable and visible, in the presence of a human, without desperation or need forcing them together.
A small step she'd taken. But great, nevertheless. The Sky Dragon glanced back and said nothing, keeping his 'I told you so' for later. A sign, perhaps, that minds could be changed? … he could hope at least.
The wind blew, sunbeams danced in the radiant, wakening sky. They would no longer waver. A new day had arrived, they would rise up to meet it.
No more barriers. No more fear. Not when they had something far greater, far more precious, for them to hold on to.
They had each other- and with that? They might just be unstoppable.
A/N: Did you really think I had it in me for a sad ending? We got plenty of that in the original movie XD THE DRAGONS STAY FREE BISHESSSSS and our lovely idiots finally got their shizz together. So this is it? the end of the story huh... but of course, we don't want to end things just yet- how about an epilogue? Lets see how they're doing a good decade or so later...
