Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic depictions of the aftereffects of violence. This can be found in Hiccup's section.
To skip said graphic depictions, stop reading when Hiccup asks, "What is that?" Then rejoin at the paragraph break in Hiccup's section.
ASTRID
"Astrid?"
Sighing, Astrid pressed her hands more firmly to her ears. The constant shuddering and shaking of the cart jostled her body too often. Still, she curled tighter under the thin blanket and ignored how the bolts holding Eret's trunk together pressed against her back. She had longed for sleep for hours now, it seemed, but sleep stayed far away. At least the path beneath the cart wheels remained level, in comparison to the endless hills and mountains they seemed to have traversed these past days.
"Astrid," came Eret's voice again.
Astrid sighed louder in response.
"I have something you'll like," he called. The tarp covering the cart shifted and then crumpled to the side. Though the sunlight barely triumphed through the heavy clouds above, it still left Astrid squinting and blinking. Fresh, marginally cooler air filled her lungs. She grudgingly enjoyed how it chased away a few wisps in the fog of exhaustion.
"What?" she groaned.
Eret leaned over her, blocking out a bit of the blinding light with his massive shadow. He dropped a bag into the cart by her feet. Astrid pushed herself to a sitting position, yanked at the drawstring of the bag, and pulled out of the bag-
"Shoes," she breathed.
Within seconds, she had unraveled the bandages wrapped tightly around her nearly numb feet. Eret handed her a dampened rag, which she used to attack the mud and dried blood on her skin.
For the first few days of the journey, Astrid had refused to sit in the cart or accept help of any kind. The stubborn insistence against weakness had faded into the stubbornness against the tears swelling within her. She'd tied discarded rags from Mulver's barrels around her feet, as she'd seen several men in the camps do, but the rags proved practically nonexistent.
Prolonged physical pain was... horrific. It was also unavoidable, as enough men had gawked at her bloody feet on this journey that using her hair for healing would have drawn suspicion.
What finally chased her into the cart dragging Eret's belongings was more of a "who" than a "what". Astrid had counted herself lucky that in all her walking, she had, at first, not seen her moth- Gothel anywhere. When Gothel did appear, she fastened herself to Astrid's side with loaded questions that Astrid could not comprehend and cool comments on Astrid's physical wellbeing - how a man's tunic and trousers did her figure no favors, how walking for so long without shoes would surely endanger her condition, and other equally ridiculous statements.
After a few hours of Gothel's nonsensical badgering, Eret approached Astrid for perhaps the tenth time in four days. This time, when he insisted that Astrid ride on the cart, Astrid launched herself underneath the tarp. After curving her body to fit neatly among the luggage and supplies, Astrid listened with a grin as Gothel tried and failed to craft comments that would stir Astrid's reply. Without being able to see Astrid's grimaces and flared nostrils, Gothel couldn't stir up the responses she wanted and eventually stomped into the distance.
And so here Astrid lay, days later, with an aching back and numb fingers, scrubbing at her feet to make them suitable for a long-desired pair of shoes.
Finally satisfied, Astrid leaned back slightly and dropped the rag to survey her feet. From a satchel on what was formerly Eret's belt but was now definitely hers, she pulled a swath of fresh bandages and began wrapping her feet.
Eret hummed.
Astrid growled and continued wrapping.
Eret cleared his throat.
"What?" Astrid snapped.
"First of all, you're welcome for the shoes-" he was getting too comfortable around her, though she supposed it couldn't be helped "- and second, you need to start at the bridge of your foot and wrap towards your arch, not away from it."
Astrid mustered what little energy she had left to shoot a glare at him. "What are you even talking about?"
With a grunt, Eret hopped into the cart. The two oxen pulling the contraption bayed in protest, but Astrid paid more attention to Eret's fingers sliding the bandages out of her hands. Astrid couldn't completely keep her feet from twitching at the touch of his rough fingers. He tucked the soft, curling end against the inside of her foot, pulled it over the bridge, and wrapped it under her foot and towards the arch. Not a single one round perfectly overlapped the layer beneath. When the bandage brushed against her bony ankle, Eret began wrapping it in a figure-eight pattern around her heel and ankle.
An unspoken question struggled behind Astrid's thinned lips, but Eret answered it nonetheless. "It gives better support this way."
He didn't have to do that, came the entirely unwanted thought. She stared at the shoes: thick soles, neat stitching, flexible fabric. He didn't have to give me these either.
Astrid felt another question coming, one she wouldn't be able to flatten, so she grabbed the shoes and slid her toes inside before her curiosity made Eret snatch the shoes back.
She'd never worn shoes before. They suffocated her feet, wound tight enough to feel like an extra layer of thick, heavy skin. She frowned. But, striking her heel against the wooden base of the cart, she felt the strength of the soles. Uncomfortable, maybe, but certainly necessary - and far more comfortable than the rocks, branches, brambles, and thorns that had been ripping into her feet for days.
"Why are you doing this?" she said.
Eret shrugged. "You've never had shoes, have you?"
Why can't he just answer normally? Eret could answer a question about the weather, food, or bandages with ease, but any quandary about Eret himself was deflected and evaded. Astrid would give up if all the evasiveness didn't scratch at her mind in the worst way. She wouldn't bother if it didn't feel like there was a pitch black hole inside of her, where Eret could stand above and see nearly every detail of her infuriating life while he remained a distant figure far above.
"So you pity me?" Astrid muttered. She tried to summon the fury, but it wouldn't spark. No kindling.
"No." She waited, but Eret only followed by saying, "Enjoy the shoes. Try to rest." He jumped off the cart, back into the throngs of his men.
Astrid sunk back down on her back. She reached up to yank at the tarp until it blocked out the light again. The furs Eret had strewn across the base of the cart provided some welcome cushion for her bones and skull, but the cart's dealings with inclines and constant motion would still keep her awake. Eret's men slept on carts in shifts and rotated animal teams to keep their procession moving. As much as exhaustion sludged through every muscle in her body, Astrid couldn't fathom how anyone could sleep through the constant bouncing and rattling of a cart.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she made yet another attempt anyway.
Shouting and laughter woke Astrid from the rest she'd so craved for the past ten days. Her bleary mind lashed out at whomever was disturbing her slumber. Then her memory caught up with her: Eret this morning, taking a bite out of a piece of bread before tossing it to her, and murmuring something about "arriving this afternoon".
Astrid pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and rubbed at them, taking her time to drag her mind back to full consciousness. Part of her wanted to stick by Eret's side, and no doubt she'd have trouble finding him right now in the midst of chaos. Yet she also grimaced at the thought of clinging to Eret like some weakling. She'd rather find her own way around this new place. What was the name Eret had given her? Kalda? That sounded right. He'd described it this morning as Drago's base of operations.
Maybe she would get to see this infamous Drago person face to face today.
She pressed her fingers to the many loose strands barely holding together the braid in her hair; rebinding it would make her arms ache, so she left the shoddy braid alone. After a thorough stretching of her arms and legs, and after tightening her belt, Astrid brushed the crumbs of breakfast off her pants and shirt before sliding to the back of the cart.
The moment she lifted the tarp and slid onto the ground, the world seemed to erupt in chaos around her. Men in armor very different from what Astrid had seen so far hoisted supplies over their heads, dragged screeching and writhing dragons into different cages, and greeted their traveling brothers with grins or glares. All these actions culminated in a roar of noise that swept over Astrid's head and flooded her ears. She clenched her fists at her sides to keep her fingers from curling over her ears. The weight of her dagger hung securely on her belt, and she breathed a little easier feeling its presence.
Eret and Gothel were nowhere to be seen. Astrid almost put a step forward, but something swayed within her - the same feeling she had looking over the edge of her tower window as she prepared to leap off and into the world below her. Shaking that feeling away, Astrid plunged into the writhing crowd.
Whatever this place was, it was permanent in the same way that Eret's previous camp was temporary. Simple houses stretched alongside what Astrid found to be a street. None of the buildings shone with any colors other than brown or gray, and they stretched only fifteen or twenty feet above Astrid's head, but their strange shape still held her attention. Most of them had two sides curving upwards over a dark wooden door into a point that poked at the heavens. The sharp angles and more square-like designs of Berk's capital city were conspicuously absent. Beneath the soles of her shoes, the path she tread was dirt rather than the stones of the capital. As much as she stretched to catch a glimpse of anything over the heads of the men swarming around her, Astrid could not see much more than the houses.
She turned her attention to the crowd. Everyone stunk badly, but Astrid checked her own clothing and grimaced at her own odor. Like the camp she'd left behind, she counted only herself among the women of this place. Keeping a hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of her dagger, Astrid moved up the path to follow the flow of warriors. That at least was clear: though Astrid had only once ventured into a blacksmith's forge, she remembered enough of the experience to see every weapon she knew represented on the belts of the people - and quite a few weapons she did not recognize at all.
An itch in her brain hissed that she was forgetting something, a massive something. She scanned the horizon. The horizon - it hit her then, how open it seemed. Pivoting to face the direction from whence she'd come, Astrid gaped at what was clearly the end of mountain range. The mountains had stood as a permanent fixture in her vision for weeks now, so to see them dwindle into hills shook Astrid. Where were they? She'd seen only one or two maps of Berk in her life but couldn't fathom her place on them.
The smell in the air gave her the answer. Flowing beneath and weaving through the stench of unwashed warriors was a salty strangeness that, once Astrid noticed it, seemed to overwhelm her. She had smelled this before, back in the capital city. This chilled breeze dripping with brine was the ocean. Astrid sucked in several deep breaths of the ocean air, familiarizing her mind with its smell and, she found, its taste too. Heat clung to her bones, thicker than usual. She'd learned to detect the strange smell and weight of this particular heat. Rainclouds had never approached her tower. Only once she'd escaped the tower had rain touched her, and even then only briefly. This past trek had weathered at least three violent thunderstorms, and the air had this smell each time just before the rumbling began above them.
Astrid surveyed her shoes. They could survive water, right? She had no idea what to do with them or how to make her feet stop aching. With another glance at the clouds above, Astrid groaned, turned, and began walking back toward the cart. All she needed to do was to follow the men unloading Eret's belongings. Thankfully, she hadn't moved far enough to lose sight of the cart, and only the chest had been unloaded so far. Spotting the two men carrying it, Astrid took off after them, dodging and shoving her way through the crowds.
Though the taller people around her continued to limit her vision, what little Astrid could see of the area didn't change much from her initial impressions. She heard confirmations of her early prediction in the chatter and grumbling of the crowd, most of them peering narrow-eyed at the sky and muttering about rain.
Only a few minutes passed before the men carrying Eret's chest stopped before a squat two-story building. The smooth gray stones forming the walls reminded Astrid in some ways of the outside of her own tower. The door creaked as the men pushed it open, and Astrid slipped inside behind them.
Wooden planks stretched across the ground floor of the house. A few of them creaked under Astrid's steps as she moved about the fairly sized room. She eyed the metal chandelier, its anchoring chain just long enough that Eret would have to duck under it. Unlit candles puddled on the chandelier, their drippings immobile on the metal arms. Astrid poked the toe of her left shoe at a gap in the flooring as the men carried the chest up the set of narrow, creaking stairs pressed along the right wall of the room. Spotting dust and webs in the corners, Astrid allowed a thin smile to span her face. She would not be cleaning any of this herself.
A knocking noise had Astrid spinning to see Eret with his knuckles to the door-frame, through which he barely fit. "Staking out your area, I suppose?" he asked. Even as Astrid crushed the smile that had lingered on her own face, a similar small grin grew on Eret's.
"Is there only one room upstairs as well?" she asked.
"Almost definitely. Most of these houses are built the same."
"I'll sleep down here then."
Eret snorted. "Not likely. Most of my meetings will likely take place in Drago's quarters, but I'll still need this room for delegating my own men."
"Meetings about what?"
Shaking his head, Eret said, "You'll find out soon enough, being here. There's not much to say, anyway, other than what I've already told you."
Astrid opened her mouth, but Eret pressed forward into the room and glanced between her and the men bumbling down the stairs after having dropped off Eret's chest. Though she gritted her teeth, Astrid let Eret's clear request for discretion go unchallenged. When the men had disappeared into the street no doubt to retrieve more of Eret's belongings, Astrid asked, "Drago's working to take over the country? That's it?"
The resulting chuckle was dark and quick. "You make that sound like a simple enterprise."
Clearly it wasn't, then, and Astrid held her tongue rather than reveal her own ignorance. Instead, she ventured to ask, "How long will your meetings here be, if I can't sleep down here?"
Eret scratched at the back of his head as he cast his eyes around the room. "I suppose it would be alright." His gaze cut to her. "But if you want to continue the ruse of being nothing more than a simple and uninteresting prostitute, you would not comment or show any interest in what my men and I discuss."
That, Astrid admitted to herself, would be a challenge. It also posed the question of how long she wanted to continue this ruse. Her determination and ferocity couldn't cover the vast holes in her fighting expertise. Yet asking Eret for training shot a spike of pain through her gut.
"Astrid, I propose a deal."
"Don't we already have one?"
"An addendum, then." Eret paused when two more men appeared, carrying the two chairs from Eret's quarters. He nodded to them and waited until they left before dropping into one of the chairs and gesturing toward the other. "Please, sit."
With her arms crossed, Astrid sat.
"You clearly don't want to stay in my quarters playing a fool for the rest of your days. For now, however, a fool is exactly what I need." Eret leaned forward to prop an elbow on his knee. "I need someone who evokes no suspicion to listen around this camp. While all my men know of your connection to me, there are many others at this camp whom I don't know. And as I'm sure you can imagine... to share quarters and, potentially, fight alongside those I neither know nor trust is an issue to me."
Astrid didn't have to imagine, and based on Eret's lifted eyebrow, he understood as much. Leaning back in her chair, Astrid asked, "So you want me to sneak around and gather information for you?"
"Essentially, yes."
"What makes me the right choice? Nobody else at the camp would recognize any of your men as yours either."
A few more of said men entered, pivoting Eret's table sideways to fit through the door. Astrid lowered her gaze and dropped her hands to her sides in an effort to hide her emotions. The men dropped the table between Astrid and Eret, the latter of whom offering smiles and quiet words of gratitude to each as the men departed.
Once Astrid and Eret were alone again, Eret tipped his head back to study the chandelier. "My men have many talents, but subtlety and subterfuge are not listed among their skill sets. Despite Drago's insistence on unity among all ranks, my men are loyal to me first and insist on making that clear, sometimes to my detriment."
Astrid questioned the blind loyalty again but didn't bother fishing for an answer in a vacant pond. She opened her mouth for another question, but Eret continued: "And... I don't know what you've seen of this army that Drago's building, but it's probably obvious that Drago employs no women." When Astrid gave a slow nod, Eret said with a shake of his own head, "These men tend to follow his mindset of underestimating women and their role in society. I want to exploit that weakness."
Her memories of the library and the people she'd spotted on her lantern journey held many images of fierce women armed to the teeth and warrior queens from Berk's history and beyond its shores. Drago's bias seemed odd by comparison, but then nothing of what little Eret had explained so far about Drago made much sense to Astrid.
"Well?" Eret asked, gesturing to her with an open hand.
"What do I get out of this?" Their current deal meant that Eret wasn't bothered in his quarters or forced to deal with other women of the night and that Astrid had protection and sanctuary, Asking Astrid to go beyond sanctuary into potentially more dangerous situations added more risks to her situation.
Eret smiled again, this time without much warmth. "I train you to fight."
Astrid couldn't help perking up, as much as she wanted to remain unmoved and sour-faced. She tried to soothe her voice down into something low and suspicious. "Really?"
Nodding, Eret said, ,"I can hardly send you to gather information without teaching you to protect yourself, can I?"
He could, Astrid thought, but she wouldn't last long without basic means of protection. She frowned. "If I agree, when would we start?"
With a roll of his eyes, Eret said, "As soon as the men finish bringing in my furniture." His gaze dropped to the belt that was once his, now looped twice around Astrid's waist. "We'll start with your dagger. In all the clamor of the past few days, I've barely taught you anything beyond flipping from outward to chambered position, have I?" She nodded, and he tapped at his own dagger on his belt. "I meant to teach you more anyway. This just makes it official."
Was there any point in pretending to think about the proposition? Grunting, Astrid replied, "I accept your offer."
"Good."
"You have to train me in more than just the dagger."
"Of course."
"And find a way to keep Gothel busy and away from me."
"Your... mistress? The woman with the dark hair?
"Yes."
Eret huffed a half-laugh. "I'll do my best."
A larger group of men filed through the door with the last of Eret's belongings: his bed, his rug, and Astrid's mattress. Eret stood to direct the men on placement of each item while Astrid fidgeted in the chair and again forced her eyes to the floor.
Once Eret hummed his approval and slapped each man on the back as he ushered them out with an abundance of winks, Astrid stretched out her legs and rolled up onto the balls of her feet. Sliding her dagger from its sheath, she flipped it a few times with a grimace.
Eret turned to face her, his arms on his hips and his stance wide. "Alright. We'll start with the basics. What's the first step to surviving a fight with a dagger?"
Frowning, Astrid replied, "Don't you mean 'winning'?"
"No." She waited for elaboration but received none. Flipping her heavy braid over her shoulder and huffing, Astrid chewed her lip over his question before venturing to say, "Aim for vital joints rather than vital organs."
Eret stared her down, all lightheartedness gone. "No. The first step to surviving a fight with a dagger is to avoid the fight."
"What?"
"Only fight with a dagger - or a knife - if there is absolutely no other option." When Astrid opened her mouth to protest, Eret shook his head, lips thinning, and cut her off with a hand on her shoulder. "The shorter the blade, the more you have to fight close-range. And in a close-range fight, you will not walk away without injuries, and most likely fatal injuries at that."
Astrid folded her arms across her chest and grunted. "So what, run away?"
"Yes."
"That's a sign of weakness," Astrid burst out.
Eret's hand on her shoulder tightened. "More like a sign that you're not an idiot."
She snorted. "It's only fun if you get a scar out of it," Astrid sniped.
Eret shook his head at her and said, "He who loses a knife fight dies in the dirt immediately. He who wins a knife fight dies in a healer's hut a few hours later."
His jaw tensed as he pressed silence between them, to let the chill of his words clatter down the ridges of Astrid's spine.
"Eret, son of Eret!" roared a voice from outside the house. Eret's face paled. His eyes widened. Astrid felt tension stiffen his body and stretch out to grip her shoulder even tighter. He swallowed, and the sound seemed to fill the room.
"Aye," he managed to call back. Lifting his hand from Astrid's shoulder, he twisted to face the door. His fists clenched and trembled at his sides. Then Eret took three wide steps to the door and pressed it open. "I could have saved you the trek. On my way out the door to you just now," he continued, the trembling of his hands not reaching the even tone of his voice.
Astrid stood, dagger still in hand. Before Eret stepped out the door, he turned his head to the left just enough to make eye contact with Astrid. The look he gave her said enough.
Don't be an idiot, his eyes said.
He left Astrid standing stiffly in the encroaching darkness, watching through the cracks in the walls how the sunlight cowered and slunk out of the sky even as Eret strode out to stand before Drago Bludivist.
HICCUP
Hiccup pressed his hands to his eyes and then peeled them away from the skin made sticky by cold sweat and condensation.
He rubbed at his eyes next, scrunching his entire face into a conglomeration of freckles and tiny, pale scars.
When nothing changed, he flicked his middle finger into his cheek. Again. Again. Again.
Regardless of his tinkering with his vision, the smudge on the horizon remained. When Hiccup squinted at it, he watched how it curled and moved, a tower of darkness billowing up from the ground into the fluff of white clouds: a soot-stained bed sheet among cleaner linens.
"Dragons?" he asked himself. The wind ripped the word away. Pressing his knees into Toothless's sides and lifting his voice, Hiccup directed the dragon: "Faster, bud. We need to check out what that is."
Usually dragon fires speckled the land and pressed a smaller swarm of individual smoke beams into the sky. A single smoke signal almost too weak to reach the sky would reveal the presence of village fires for celebration, funeral, or waste removal purposes. Whatever this was was provoking a single pitch-black column, heavy enough to kill and thick enough to raise eyebrows even in Asgard.
The closer they flew, the more a smell seeped into Hiccup's skin - what little was showing under his flight suit. Hiccup wrinkled his nose. Burning, obviously, but of what material? He unclipped his mask from his belt and strapped to his head. It did little to block the stench, but he was grateful for the minuscule protection all the same.
"What is that?" he asked. Again, the wind ate his words, but as they ripped themselves from his lips, trouble congealed in his gut and burned up his throat.
The smell hitched on something deep in his memories, something tiny, something painful-
Three years ago, Hiccup had the delight and the misfortune of discovering an abandoned nest of fireworms babies. He'd found their queen mother not far away, fatally wounded, and stayed at her side until she passed. Then he'd tended to her babies, who were just mastering their abilities - including heated skin. One of the more affectionate ones tried to cuddle with Hiccup while using her abilities. He'd ended up with a nasty burn on his hip.
That smell.
That was burning flesh.
Hiccup stared wide-eyed at the column of smoke until a wave of nausea sent a violent tremor through his bones that he couldn't control.
"No," he whispered to himself.
Then he was repeating it but yelling, and urging Toothless in a manic scream to hurry and get there immediately, feeling his frantic pulse in the palms of his clammy hands.
Time oozed so slowly past them, and though Hiccup begged Toothless to go faster, and though he watched the dragon's wings beat and twitch to accumulate more power, they did not seem to move any more quickly toward the plume of smoke. Hiccup scanned the horizon a few times, trying to get his bearings. A glimmer of rare light breaking through the thick clouds illuminated the river stretching past the smoke. Another shudder wracked Hiccup's bones when he recognized the river. With the southern sea to his right and the river stretching out to the north, Hiccup had flown through these lands enough to know that only one town hung on the edge of the river in this particular area: a middle-sized fishing town named Sumar.
The stench of burning flesh grew in his nostrils, and Hiccup nudged Toothless to fly lower as they approached. Hiccup's face contorted as he squinted hard to see Sumar, to see what could cause the smoke and the smell. He spotted many large heaps swathed on fire. Some were clearly buildings, then, of varying sizes, but the other piles-
No.
He could move or he could throw up. No other options. Hiccup pressed the tremors out of his fingers enough to unhook his belt from Toothless's saddle and click Toothless's tailfin into solo gliding. He let his torso drop to the side. Then Hiccup was in the air, plummeting. Numbness tingled in his hands as he tapped at the buttons on his suit. His fins and wings popped out as he angled his body to fly faster toward Sumar. Toward what was left of Sumar.
Just as he passed the outer farms ringing the center of the village, a feeble cry wavered in his ears. Someone was screaming for help.
Thank Thor for hay piles. Hiccup spotted one, aimed, and dove into its sickly sweet depths. He didn't bother brushing the straw out of his hair when he clambered out and stumbled as his leg and prosthetic grew re-accustomed to walking. Turning to face the area where he heard the noise, Hiccup tried to ignore anything in his peripheral vision as he sprinted.
What he could see - what he allowed himself to see - was charred and broken. Half a house trembled before him, with only the front door and part of the wall still standing. Soot coated everything around him: the charred glass, the shattered beams of wood from wagons and homes, the scraps of food and cloth, even the air with its curls of darkness and twirling sparks.
"Please! Please! Anyone!" The scream of a broken and strained voice tore through the air again, and Hiccup heard how young the person was, and he ran even faster.
"I'm here!" he yelled. "I'm here, I'm coming to help!" He dodged around an overturned wagon, certain the voice had to be just ahead.
Hiccup slapped both hands over his mouth but couldn't stop the bile. He ducked back around the wagon, spat his meager breakfast onto the dirt, and pressed his lips to his sleeve to wipe away any residue. Then he turned back at once, back to the boy with the charred legs-
Horror struck him just as relief did, because it wasn't the boy himself who had been ravaged by fire but instead the person the boy was clutching to his chest.
Looking up through dark and sweat-drenched bangs, the boy gasped out, "Please, you have to save him, he's my father, please-"
But Hiccup was already shaking his head. Not because he wouldn't help, but, looking into what was once the man's face, because he couldn't help. "I'm sorry. I can't," he murmured, taking a step forward.
The boy's mouth, crowded with teeth dropped open. "What- but he needs help, he needs it!"
"I'm sorry," Hiccup repeated. "He... doesn't."
As if ice had overcome the boy's body, his trembling and jerky movements stopped. Only the creaking of shredded houses, the wind billowing through the thick smoke, and the distant thud of Toothless's landing made any sound. Then a shriek exploded from the boy, who- oh Thor, he can't be much younger than me, a few years at most, Hiccup thought, and he took a step forward and knelt at the boy's side. The soot-covered boy screamed again and again in short, frame-wracking bursts.
With a hand to the boy's shoulder, Hiccup gently pulled him out from under the father's body, trying not to dwell on how the man looked. Once standing, the boy stared out at the village before clenching his fists, wailing, and crumpling into Hiccup.
"I'm sorry," Hiccup said again. He could offer nothing else except his arms wrapping around the boy's shoulders as the weeping filled the air.
Hiccup glanced into the sky again - a habit he couldn't stop from developing over the past few hours - and huffed. The sun stayed long past its welcome during this time of year. While in the winter, the darkness of night might have given them a small mercy in swallowing the plume of smoke into its depths, the sun was cruel and offered no such grace.
He turned back to the small fire, poking it again with his stick. Toothless lay curled up in the underbrush behind Hiccup, wisely maintaining some distance even in the forest a mile from what once was Sumar. Hiccup had expected some exclamation or fear from the boy once he'd awoken, but the boy had only stared milky-eyed at the dragon and accepted Hiccup's explanation and reassurances without a word or really any indication of hearing. That could be the exhaustion. The boy had passed out in Hiccup's arms back at camp, and only by Toothless's strength had Hiccup been able to get the boy far from the village.
But not, I guess, Hiccup thought, far away enough from the stench. Was it his memory that kept it hovering over him now?
He'd had to use double-rations for them and pull out his blanket roll too, for the boy had begun to tremble and gasp the moment he'd awoken to see their campfire. Now Hiccup watched with an ache in his already full stomach as the boy stretched a hand out from beneath the blanket that covered him almost entirely and snatch a piece of bread off the wooden plate from Hiccup's supply pack.
At least I packed a plate, Hiccup thought. Why he'd brought one at all, he couldn't say.
Each snap of the fire made the boy jerk and twitch, so Hiccup pulled out the questions he'd been so desperate and yet so reluctant to ask. "What's your name?"
The answer came quickly. "Varian."
Hiccup nodded, not that the boy could see it. He opened his mouth to offer his own name and then hesitated. Hiccup had not given his royal name to anyone whenever he moved beyond his father's presence, and yet his father's actions had ensured his nickname would arouse suspicion, and Hiccup didn't want any carelessness on his part coming back to bite him later.
He winced. Having sorted through his memories, only Tuffnut's terrible nickname he called him for a year some time ago surfaced. He'd have to resort to it. "I'm Hikki."
Varian made no indication of taking his name seriously or not, though the pause before Hiccup gave the fake name probably revealed enough.
Though Hiccup's tongue ached with the need to say, "I'm sorry" again, he had said it enough times. It hadn't mattered much to Varian then. It wouldn't matter now.
Hiccup dropped his head in his hands. He had devoted everything in his brain to caring for Varian. He had beaten any wandering thoughts of the village out of his mind. Now, though, he would have to venture forward.
"Varian... I need to know what happened in there." Hiccup's voice barely rose above a whisper.
The boy under the blanket trembled.
Rubbing at his jaw, Hiccup asked a question that he would have put forward earlier if not for Varian's pendulum states of unconsciousness and hysteria. "At least tell me if the people who did this are still around?"
"I don't- I don't think they are." Varian paused and then added in a rasping, wobbling voice, "I passed out. When- when I woke up, they were gone. I looked around, and I found my fa-" A fresh sob broke forth.
Hiccup held up his palms even though he doubted Varian could see him. "Okay, I'm sor- Thank you. That's all I need to know for now." Pressing for information past that made Hiccup's skin crawl. He couldn't do that to this kid.
Continuing on his journey to Laghne or leaving Varian alone also weren't options. "Come with me. Toothless - my dragon - he's nice. I'll take you somewhere safe. Somewhere that's not... here."
Varian's head jerked up, and he yanked at the blanket until it formed a deep hood around his face. "Where?" he hissed.
Twitching at the sudden movement - and noticing Toothless lift his head - Hiccup scrambled for an answer. "My home in the capital city-"
"No!" Varian snapped, scrambling to his feet. "I'm not going anywhere near there!"
"Okay! Sure! Not the capital city!" Hiccup tried to sort through the questions and thoughts ricocheting around his mind. "I'll find another place, but- why not the capital city?"
His small, pale fingers clutching the blanket tighter around his thin shoulders, Varian trembled even as his eyes sparked. "They did this."
"I- what- who?"
"They did this to us." Varian's voice dropped low. "They killed my village."
Hiccup sighed. "Who?"
"I saw them!" Varian yelled. "I saw them talking with my fa- with my father! And then they attacked!"
"Varian, you're not answering any of my ques-"
"You're one of them, aren't you?" Varian backed up, tripped over the stump that had served as his school, and began fumbling in the folds of the blanket to get back onto his feet. "You are. You're here to finish the job!"
Hiccup held out a hand. "No-"
"Get away from me!" Varian turned and began to run.
"Varian!" Hiccup stumbled forward, wincing at his aching leg. He turned and whistled to Toothless. The dragon bounded forward eyes on Hiccup's bent frame. He waved his hand at Varian, who was almost at the tree line of the small clearing.
Within moments, Toothless stood between Varian and the trees, neck and wings fully extended. The dragon did not snarl or growl but only surveyed Varian coolly. Skidding to a stop, Varian whipped his head around to glance around with a frantic energy that, when Hiccup squinted, he could see had Varian's entire body shivering.
"I'm not one of 'them', whoever 'they' are," Hiccup said, lifting both hands in a placating gesture. He eased forward with careful steps. Too much weight on his prosthesis shot a twitch through his frame. "I don't know what you saw-"
"Everything!" Varian snapped.
Hiccup stared at the freckles splattered across pale, dirty cheeks and a big nose, and he surveyed the bloodshot eyes, and he sighed. Hiccup hated looking in mirrors.
Poking a finger at Hiccup, Varian edged away from Toothless. The dragon rolled his eyes and shifted to the left, effectively blocking Varian's potential path toward the trees. The boy's glare snapped back and forth between Hiccup and Toothless. "You're lying to me," Varian said.
"Yet again, no, and I am not going to hurt you."
"Prove it."
Hiccup tossed up his hands. "How can I possibly prove it beyond what I've already done? I've literally cared for you, bandaged your wounds, given you food-" Rolling his eyes, he grumbled, "As much as I might not enjoy admitting it, I'm not exactly a physically threatening person."
"You're controlling a dragon! How is that not threatening?
Hiccup bit down on a snort. "You think I'm controlling him?" Glancing over at Toothless, he said, "You hear that? The kid is apparently apprenticed to a jester."
With a deepening frown and shoulders climbing up into his shaggy hair, Varian huffed. "It's probably scared of you."
"Are- are you even hearing yourself talk right now?
"You're wearing dragon skin. Clearly you've killed dragons before."
Sparks peppering his hands, giant plumes of smoke choking the clouds in their grip, yellow eyes darting around in panic-
As he ran his fingers down the sides of his flight suit, Hiccup swallowed the sting in his throat before replying, "This isn't made of dragon skin. I harvest crushed dragon scales and spit to create a salve that makes my clothes flameproof."
Varian's eyebrows shot up as his eyes widened, and he leaned forward to study Hiccup's clothing. Then the moment passed, and Varian shook the look off his face so he could resume glaring. "Yeah, sure."
This was getting them nowhere. "Varian, come on. You need to have someone look at your wounds, and we need to let everyone know exactly what happened here."
"Don't you get it?!" Varian's voice swelled into a yell - something that could have been a roar if not for his shattered voice. "They already know! They're the ones that did this!"
Varian lunged to the right. Toothless bounded forward to stop him, but Varian had already leaped back to the left and dodged Toothless's sweeping tail. In seconds, the woods swallowed him whole.
"Varian! No!" Hiccup took half a step forward before stopping. He stood listening as the rustling of trees and plants shoved aside in Varian's wake gradually faded into the buzz and hum of the wild night.
Toothless chirped, head twitching, and Hiccup groaned. "We're not going to find him," he grumbled, but he ambled to Toothless's side and swung himself into the saddle anyway. Finding a person in the thick of the trees under the blanket of night wasn't a particular hobby of Hiccup's. He liked challenges, not impossibilities. Nonetheless, Varian had burns and open wounds that needed treatment, and traveling by foot in this region wouldn't bring him to helping hands for at least half a day. Hiccup had to try.
And then, once he'd failed to find Varian, he would have to turn back to the capital. A further survey of the lands could wait. Reporting that the entire village of Sumar, save one terrified boy, was gone- no matter how his father might feel about him, Hiccup had no choice but to yet again be the bearer of bad news.
An ache in his stomach helped distract Hiccup from the question of how much more bad news he would have to bear.
Author's Notes:
If you skipped the violent bit of the chapter, you would have missed the part where Hiccup discovers the entire village of Sumar is gone. The only survivor is a young boy named Varian.
If you watch the Tangling TV series, you would recognize Varian as Disney's absolutely shameless attempt to create a knock-off Hiccup. Well, it worked. I love Varian.
What Eret said about knife fighting is true - don't do it. I did some very minimal research on knife-fighting for this chapter. Here are the videos from YouTube that I used:
- "Real Combat Knife Fighting for the Street - How to Hold a Knife or Dagger" by RealKungFu
- "Knife Fighting 101- Black Scout Combatives" by BlackScoutSurvival
- "How to Fight with a Dagger" by ModernRogue
Seriously though - don't get in a knife fight. The only ones to appreciate how cool your scars will look will be the worms in your coffin.
Thank you for all kind and supportive comments thus far. There's a saying that once you start writing fanfiction, you start speedrunning all the craziest events of your life. My mother did survive heart surgery today, thank God. Thank you for supporting me with kind words through all the wild events of my life. I'm sure there will be more to come.
