Hello, everyone! Merry Christmas!
Here's my gift to you, a 27-page chapter! I'd like to thank LIghtbrightfury, VigoGrimborne, TheFuriousNightFury, Checkingdude, Jeranism888, MysteryWriter175, picothea, and JustAnotherRandomPoster for your wonderful reviews!
Additionally, I'd like to thank my betas Crysist, kwizjunior, Antisept, Dragon Crusader, and ReclusiveShadows for all of your help!
I hope you all enjoy and have restful holidays!
Chapter 13
Toothless
"Come on! You have to at least try."
"I just don't think it's possible, Hiccup."
"I can do it."
"Yes, but you're…like this."
"Try? Please?"
I couldn't help but share a grin with Hiccup, glancing over at a very bemused King. He gripped one of Haugaeldr's winding horns in his paw. His uncomfortable, awkward expression was a mirror of the same look I had seen on Hiccup countless times.
Nothing but flat, smooth ocean swept by below, punctuated by the occasional splash of a whale or sea dragon. I had set a grueling pace for us—one that Hiccup and the King had forced me to slow down for Haugaeldr's benefit. Now, we made sure to wake early, set out fast, and fly until the sun spun up and over us and then set to our westward side. It had been a few days, but the desire to fly as fast as I could still gripped me to my bones.
Haugaeldr turned his long, serpentine neck all the way around to look at the King, careful not to smack him with his horns. With his delicate, long snout inches in front of the King's face, he shouted, "It is not as though Hiccup has a human body, but dragon vocal chords. Try!"
"T-r-y!" I added, joining in just for the sake of it. I had never seen the King so uncomfortable-looking. Quite frankly, given the subject at wing, it was hilarious.
"Fine," he grunted, shoving Haugaeldr's head forward. Haugaeldr retaliated by arching his neck back and flapping his long ears at him, batting him along his head with them. "I said fine! But don't laugh at me."
"Oh, I can't promise that," I said. Hiccup tugged on my ear. "Ow!" I cried out in fake agony.
The King took a deep breath. He shuffled where he was seated, his eyes flicking to and fro out on the horizon and his jaw set. "H-how does it go again?" he eventually asked.
Hiccup beamed. "K-i-n-g," he drew out meticulously.
The King cleared his throat. Opened his mouth. Swallowed. Cleared his throat again.
Haugaeldr jostled him by ducking up and down as though he were tracing the ocean waves, sending his snakelike form coiling in loops. "Come on! If you won't do it, then Hiccup and I can work on our phonetics guide. We've only gotten some of it down!"
That had been exceptionally boring to listen to after the glamor of it had faded. There were only so many hours of Hiccup, Haugaeldr, and I repeating the same sounds over and over and over that I could take. I never let a word of complaint slip past my lips, though.
Hiccup had dove into his "book" of...eugh…"Dragonese" with the same manic fervor as Haugaeldr. It seemed he only had room in his mind for two topics: the other Shadow-Blenders, and learning how to teach humans dragon-speech.
I couldn't help but feel that the first was the cause for the second.
"Come on, Dad!" Hiccup encouraged him. "Say it right after me. K-i-n-g."
The King took in one last breath. His expression hardened with determination.
He squawked like a seagull.
I burst out laughing.
Hiccup tugged at my ear. "Well, it's not like you'd get it right away. It didn't sound that bad."
"Toothless seems to think differently," the King grumbled.
"I didn't get anything right on the first try," Hiccup said. "Toothless used to constantly tease me for sounding like a hatchling. But if you practice, it'll come much easier."
"I suggest we take a more standardized approach," Haugaeldr interrupted. "You learned by intuition and blunt translation, Hiccup. And you already had a fairly good idea of the different variety of Dragonese phonetics. But now that we are working on mapping them out individually, I think you should teach him the opposite way you learned: sounds and overtones first, supplemented with words, and grammar second. Not the other way around." He smiled sympathetically. "If I may be blunt, you seem to have taken the hardest possible path to learn it."
"Hiccup does everything the hard way," I teased.
"But we also didn't have a system, then," Hiccup said, pointedly ignoring my comment. "And we were desperate for me to just learn. But that is a good point. Dad, Haugaeldr was just saying…"
As he described the new plan to teach the King Dragonese, his father's doubtful expression loosened somewhat. My eyes dragged unbidden to the horizon, as had become more and more of a habit. I could almost imagine the Shadow-Blenders there, just over the curve of the ocean against the sky, little silhouettes fluttering in the light…
Wait.
I narrowed my eyes.
Those weren't imagined!
"Dragons ahead!" I called.
Whoever they were, they seemed to spot us as well. It was a small flare of five dragons. They turned and flew towards us, two rising to gain the advantage of altitude and the other three spacing into a point formation. As they drew closer, their species became clearer: Lightning-Dancers. Even now, I could spot that strange, purplish flash of power rippling from their maws.
Fear, sudden and cold, swept over me. They were moving to attack. Out here in the middle of the ocean, far from our nestmates with no return expected soon, we were outnumbered, encumbered, and without hope of rescue.
"Haugaeldr, to me!" I snapped. For once, he was obedient, hurrying close to me with a mixture of excitement and fright on his face.
"Easy!" Hiccup tried to soothe us. "Maybe they're friendly."
I wasn't going to wait to find out. "We mean no harm!" I shouted ahead to them. Haugaeldr began to ease into a hover, and I let out a sharp hiss at him to stop. If we needed to outfly them, those precious moments of shifting between hover and flight would make all the difference.
"You are in our territory, stranger!" challenged the lead Lightning-Dancer. "Turn back at once or—!"
She reared as if struck, eyes wide, and backpedaled midair. Her two companions did the same.
"What—" another, a male, gasped, "What are those—why are there—"
"It's okay!" Hiccup called with a soothing overtone. "We mean no harm."
"It speaks?!" the leader whispered. A horrified shudder shook her from nose to tailtip. "What...what is this?! Why does it speak? Why do you lower yourselves to them?"
"They're even carrying their…things!" the third dragon cried, her high-pitched voice revealing her young age. "Look!"
By this point, the dragons had circled away from us. Unwilling to expose our backs to them, I lead us in a spiral around them as well.
"We are no pack animals!" I snarled. "Nor are we tame! We are the Saviors, and we are in search of other Shadow-Blenders. Please allow us to continue south, and we will be out of your scales soon enough."
"Saviors?" the youngest repeated, glancing at us with more curiosity.
The leader, however, narrowed her eyes. She snapped her jaws, sending little jolts of lightning sputtering about her. "Any dragon can make such claims. Prove it!"
"Soulfire isn't some fancy trick to show off," I said. I glanced up at the two flying above. They had closed in a little, tipping their wings and tails in dozens of tiny adjustments so that any strike would land true.
"Look!" Hiccup said, drawing their eyes to him. There was a SNAP! followed by a rustling of leather, and when I turned my head to look, he had his wings open and extended. "Do you know any other human who can do this?"
The leader inched her nestmates away further. Her nose wrinkled and she lifted her upper lip to show teeth. "So it even steals dragon flight, too," she whispered, her voice curling with revulsion.
"That's enough!" I snapped. "We only want to fly south. If you are so disgusted by one of the Saviors who brought the sun and moon back to our world, then we will be gone quickly."
"Can you even call yourselves dragons, to be brought so low?" she rumbled. "We should kill the monster where it wraps around you."
Hiccup flinched.
I snarled, showing all my teeth. Haugaeldr did the same. The King slowly closed a paw on his hammer, though he did not draw it yet, no doubt wary of provoking an all-out charge.
"Hold on! Please!" Hiccup cried. But the moment he spoke, the dragons twisted even further away, eyes huge and horrified and fearful as they took him and his dragon-self in.
"What if they truly are the Saviors?" the young Lightning-Dancer asked. "What if they breathe soulfire on us?"
"I'm having second thoughts about proving it," I sneered.
"Please," Hiccup begged, his overtone now a mixture of fright and hurt and forced-soothing. "We'll leave. Just let us go, and we'll leave. We don't need to fight."
"Unless you want to see how outmatched you are," I growled, trying to blanket the tremble of fear in my voice with a rattle of fury.
The Lightning-Dancer leader was silent for a moment. Then, with a hiss, she flicked her wings and shot above us. "We'll see to it," she said. "And in the future, if you ever come near us with that...thing, then we won't be so merciful." She flapped her wings in a flurry, taking her far above us, and her nestmates followed. Only when they were high enough to stoop into deadly dives, did they stop and return to their pointed formation.
My muscles twitched with anticipation of an attack. We were completely vulnerable. Only a very experienced dragon could swoop away from a diving dragon at full speed. Especially a Lightning-Dancer, dragons renowned for their ability to strike from the shadowy clouds with sudden, deadly efficiency. Hiccup and I could manage—but Haugaeldr and the King? They were sheep sleeping on their feet, just begging to be snatched up.
We turned back south and burst into a breakneck speed. Nobody spoke under the oppressive stare of the Lightning-Dancers, who even at this distance, we could hear snarling with disbelief and disgust.
o.O.o
We did not find an island to land until the moon had risen halfway into the sky. It was small; more of a glorified sea stack with a few trees and bushes growing on it. It was high enough above the ocean that we wouldn't be washed away, and there was stone to warm and curl up on.
We set up a fire, and Haugaeldr and I spent an hour or so fishing. We came back with more than enough for Hiccup and the King. Neither of them ate more than a good-sized fish, no matter how much I pestered them to eat more. No wonder humans needed to eat all the time, when they hardly ate at all during meals.
Haugaeldr nervously tried to chat. The King stared thoughtfully into the fire. Hiccup gave subdued, noncommittal responses whenever he was prompted. I merely sat close to my brother, shooting quick glances at him every now and then. Eventually, the dreariness was too much even for Haugaeldr, and he stopped talking.
"That was too close."
I actually jumped, having gotten used to the heavy silence. The King reached out a paw and patted my shoulder in one of his strange "supposed to be comforting" gestures.
"We'll have to avoid other dragons," Hiccup said, his voice low and toneless.
"Perhaps one of us could fly a little ahead whenever we meet another group," Haugaeldr suggested. "Surely most dragons in this area have heard of the Saviors, whose nest lives in peace with humans."
I shook my head. "Lightning-Dancers are always territorial." I waited for Hiccup to translate, and continued, "But I agree—I'd rather not get caught by a patrol as big and capable as that one." I nudged Hiccup. "But I don't think we have to avoid every dragon we meet."
He didn't meet my eye, picking at his fire-roasted fish. The King hadn't let him eat it raw.
I glanced up at the King. He gave me a knowing look and nodded.
"Hiccup, let's...go over there," I pointed to the farthest edge of the sea stack, which was only a few wing-lengths away inside a copse of trees. He didn't get up right away, so I snatched his scruff in my maw and pulled him afoot.
"Ah!" he yelped. "I'm coming, I'm coming." He rubbed at his neck as if it had actually hurt. Which I knew it didn't.
We walked over to the other edge of the island and sat down with our paws dangling over the ledge. The moon was bright, shimmering pale blue upon the ocean. The spirits of dragon-auroras weren't out tonight, but the starlight-footsteps of the Dragoness of the Moon shone in splendor.
Hiccup sighed, pulling his knees up to his chest.
We sat in comfortable silence for some time, watching the steady chaos of the ocean waves. A storm sunk low to the horizon, too far to even hear the thunder. Bright purple flashes zipped through it—no doubt the Lightning-Dancers hunting or fighting in their territory.
"They said very wrong things today," I murmured, wrapping my tail around him.
"...yeah," Hiccup sighed.
I waited.
"It's just…" Hiccup began. "I guess, being around our nestmates for so many years, I forgot how other dragons would see me."
"You are treated as a valuable, worthy dragon and human by our nestmates," I said. "Because that is what you are."
"Those dragons thought I was neither," he said, eyes trailing the lightning that spiraled into the black.
"Those dragons are stupid," I snorted. That, at least, drew a small smile from him. "They don't even know who the Saviors are!" I went on. "Who cares what they think?"
"Obviously me," Hiccup groaned, rubbing a paw through his hair. "I don't even know why I'm letting this get to me so much."
"I'm bothered by it," I said. "They were unjust and spoke to tear at us with their words, if they could not settle for their claws. And that makes me very angry." I nudged him. "I don't think it's wrong to be angry."
"Not angry," he said. "More like…" he shrugged. "Like...I shouldn't have to worry about that."
"That is correct," I said. "Anyone with sense wouldn't dream of saying such things to you. Which is why they're stupid."
Hiccup smiled with a small purr, pressing up against me. I met his gaze and, with a slight tug, brought our link to life.
That ball of light at his forehead, that blessed magic, shone like a guiding star to the both of us. Hiccup's mind threaded between a suddenly-astute awareness of his magic, his memories, the words thing and monster and it used by the Lightning-Dancers, the grievances Snotlout had laid upon him just before we'd left. Guilt flooded him that he should think such, but if only his body reflected his heart, if only he were a dragon again…
How selfish, he thought of himself, to want to be a dragon again, with so much left to do. With Snotlout blaming his own feelings of worthlessness on Hiccup's need to be himself. With his father so achingly supportive, although it was clear to everyone what his true feelings were.
Most of all, with Shadow-Blenders on the horizon, who very well may also call him thing and monster and it...
You alone get to decide when that time comes, I pushed back to him, weaving love and assurance into the link. And when you decide, then that moment will be the right time. Nothing makes it wrong or selfish.
I hated, hated, hated! that he would think the natural desire to be his own self, especially when we were searching out others of our kind, was somehow wrong. It was only right to want to meet them proper. It was only natural to want to be accepted, to want to avoid the agony of rejection simply because of his shape.
Hiccup relaxed, both in mind and in body. "Thank you, Toothless," he said aloud, leaning against my side. "It's hard not to feel bad when I feel like I'm...rushing. With Astrid suddenly being acting Chief, and everything Snotlout said…" He sighed. "Not to mention the Book of Dragonese only just getting started."
I covered him with a wing and let the link dissipate away like a fine mist. "Well," I hummed, "Astrid will knock sense into Snotlout's thick skull. If that's possible. As for the book, it's a great thing that you've got the most neurotic dragon on Berk to work with you."
"I heard that!" Haugaeldr shouted.
Hiccup snorted—then began to laugh. I chuckled myself, but more from relief than anything.
"Hey, Toothless?" he asked, almost shy in his overtone. "Want to go flying for a bit?"
"I've been waiting for you to ask!" I said, getting to my feet. "We're going for a flight!" I called over my shoulder.
Hiccup's comforting weight settled onto my shoulders. I took us up into the Dragoness of the Moon's embrace, racing to catch the stars in those clear, revitalizing ocean winds.
We flew, we raced, we even played catch-me-if-you-can, laughing and chittering and teasing one another, until the moon's guidance crept below the ocean, ushering in the new day. It was only then that I took us back down to the sea-stack and settled in between the rest of our family. I waited until Hiccup curled against me and his breathing evened out. Then I wrapped my tail around him, the King, and Haugaeldr, and finally surrendered to the empty expanse of sleep.
o.O.o
A sharp claw prodded into me. "Toothless!"
"Huh?!" I grunted, snapping my head up.
"Shh!" Haugaeldr hissed, flapping his paw around just like Hiccup always did. The deep navy of the sky shimmered with stars above, but a soft, pink wedge on the eastern horizon foretold the oncoming dawn. The King was fast asleep in his sleeping-furs, and Hiccup was curled up at my side.
My heart dropped. "What is it? Are they back?" I scanned the skies for any flicker of shadow against the heavens.
"No," Haugaeldr whispered. He grimaced, tail swinging and wings fluttering with anxiety, and then his expression hardened. "I wanted to talk to you. Alone."
I tipped my head aside and almost protested, but his expression was so solemn and serious. I'd rarely seen that attitude from him.
Still, it was with quite a bit of reluctance that I extricated myself from Hiccup's side, ever so careful to keep from jostling him.
Haugaeldr and I walked to the edge of the pillar, but he didn't stop there. Without even the slightest hesitation, he slipped right off the cliff and snapped his wings open far below, gliding far out at sea before flapping.
My brows rose. He was really making an effort to speak alone. What could this possibly be about?
Curious and somewhat apprehensive, I performed the same trick to fly away without disturbing the others. The wind buffeted beneath my wings, raising me to Haugaeldr's height and higher over the island. We would fly far above it, but not away from it. That way, if Hiccup or the King woke up, they wouldn't see that we were gone and panic.
"So, why are we up here instead of wasting sleep?" I asked.
Haugaeldr stared down at the island for a moment, his slender ears flattening to his neck. "Well, Toothless," he began, "I've been thinking a lot."
"You always do," I said with a small smile. It melted away. "Is something wrong?"
"Yes." He raised his golden eyes to mine. "Yesterday, if those dragons had attacked, we would have been defenseless."
A low growl rumbled in my throat. "We'll have to be more careful next time," I said. "It was a mistake to let some of their flare get above us, where they could dive down and shoot lightning at us."
"Exactly!" Haugaeldr said. He braced against a gust of wind coming from the west. Instead of waiting for it to pass, he shouted over the wind, "And I cannot sleep, because I can only think of what could have gone wrong!"
Oh. So that was what this was. I frowned and tipped my wings, drawing in closer. "I'll protect you," I promised him. "I won't let anything happen. That was the last time I let hostile dragons get that close."
His eyes flashed with fear. "But you can't know that, Toothless!" he protested. "You can't control the future. And you alone can't protect all of us."
"The King can, as can you and Hiccup," I tried to ease his worries. "We are not so easily outmatched."
"Maybe so," Haugaeldr said stubbornly, "but I don't ever want to feel helpless like that again. They could have done so much worse than what they said without the slightest effort!" He drew up into a hover, forcing me to do the same. Setting me with determined eyes, he set his jaw and announced:
"It's time that you teach me magic, Toothless."
I nearly fell out of the sky in shock.
It had been a long time since Haugaeldr had explicitly asked for—or, in this case, demanded—such a thing. Arguments on the subject had exploded at dwindling intervals over the years. He had learned long ago that I was the more stubborn of the two of us. Though Hiccup was always so close to breaking, I was not.
Which was why I could only stare at him, baffled. This gave him the chance he needed.
"With magic, you could have easily outflown them. But you could not, because the King and I were with you, and we would be left behind to face the Lightning-Dancers. Such a simple problem has a simple answer: in order to make such an escape possible, I must know how to do it. That way, I can protect myself, the King, and you and Hiccup, and we won't have to worry as much, and—"
"Haugaeldr."
He stopped, meeting my eyes with anxious defiance.
My heart thundered. I didn't want to fight with him. I didn't want this tension to seep into the rest of this journey. Despite it all, I knew it was unfair. I knew we weren't doing right by him by simply telling him "no" and expecting him to accept it. I knew he wouldn't understand until he learned of his origins. I knew that the explanation alone did not justify the consequences.
But I also knew that telling him of Sphere, the source, and his connection to them would shatter him forever. Gone would be the playful, joyful, vibrant young dragon who loved to learn and discover. Gone would be the innocent happiness he embodied.
Haugaeldr was a thinker. He pondered, ruminated, agonized over every little detail of every little problem he faced. This would sweep his entire world away from him, leaving him awash in confusion and guilt. I knew it, because that would be how I felt if I were told such a thing about my own past. His soul was kind-hearted, gentle, and inquisitive. If he learned of all the suffering that had been wrought, as indirectly connected to him as those tragedies had been...
I was afraid to tell him. I was afraid of what the knowledge would do to him.
But I was also afraid to teach him magic. What would the Dragon of the Sun and Dragoness of the Moon think? Just as They were, They had not shown mercy towards him until Hiccup all but forced Their paws. Though no explicit conversation had taken place between Them and us following Haugaeldr's appearance, I simply did not want to tempt Them. Haugaeldr had a knack for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. This was not a consequence I was willing to risk.
As much as he liked to test me as of late, as much as he pestered and got himself into trouble, he was my family and I loved him.
I couldn't lose him.
"Haugaeldr," I said again, softer this time. "I know that this past day was hard on you. You're right that it would have been easier if we could have just flown away."
He brightened, and the hope in his expression made my heart ache. "So you agree!"
I shook my head, forcing myself to meet his eyes. I would not do him the injustice of looking away. "I still cannot teach you magic."
"But—!" he began.
"Haugaeldr!" I interrupted him. "I gave you my answer, as I always have. The reason why you cannot learn magic is...complicated."
He scowled. "So I must learn when I'm older, yes?"
I grimaced. I had just been about to say that, and he very well knew it.
"I am tired of hearing that excuse!" he cried with hurt and frustration alike. "All of the other dragons have learned magic except me! Why am I so different?! Is it because there are no other dragons of my kind on Berk? Did I do something wrong?"
"No!" I gasped, my chest tightening, my heart hammering. "No, Haugaeldr, you have done nothing wrong!"
"Then why?" he demanded. Now he was choking up, and oh, Dragon of the Sun, Dragoness of the Moon, I did not want to hurt him so! "Why—why are you punishing me, when—when I cannot fix whatever I have done, and you will not even tell me!" In anguish, he cried, "We could have died yesterday, Toothless! And even then, those dragons hurt Hiccup because we could not escape them! Is that not enough reason for me to learn?!"
His logic was sound. There was no argument I could make, because I was the one in the wrong here.
I clenched my eyes shut. "Please," I ground out, "don't start this now, Haugaeldr. I know. I know it isn't fair. I know it hurts. And I know you won't believe me when I say this…" I met his eyes, hoping he could see his own sorrow reflected in my own, "...but I hate this, too! But I cannot! I do it because I must protect you, because you are so dear to me, and because I don't want you to be hurt!"
He reared his head back as if I'd snapped at him. "Hurt?" he whispered.
I swallowed, trying to compose myself. "I'm sorry," I said, and shame filled me with the selfish way my throat clogged up. "I'm sorry, Haugaeldr. But I can't. And that is final."
He hovered, the sun creeping on the horizon behind him, casting his face in a dark shadow.
When he spoke, his voice was hollow.
"So you've really made up your mind."
My heart burned. "Yes."
"I see."
He didn't wait any longer. He tucked his wings in and plummeted back to the island, coming to a graceful landing beside the King. Without looking back up at me, he thumped to the ground, scooted as close to the King as he could, and curled up into a tight, shuddering ball.
I forced myself to listen to his furious, frustrated, heart-wrenching sobs as I settled next to Hiccup, lying to myself that I had done the right thing.
o.O.o
I didn't sleep. But when the others rose, Haugaeldr got up and did everything he could to act as though nothing had happened. Naturally, Hiccup and the King immediately noticed that something was wrong. Both of them shot me significant looks, but I only shook my head, eyes lowered in shame.
Eventually, Haugaeldr made an excuse to go fishing, clearly wanting some alone time. I waited for him to go and explained what had happened, my head hanging and ears drooping.
"Toothless," Hiccup murmured, "are you sure it's a good idea to keep it from him? His argument is convincing. It's one I would have made."
"Aye," the King agreed with his son. He frowned. "You are protecting him. Keeping him safe from himself." He sighed. "But it won't last forever, and you very well know it. I remember thinking I was doing the same for you, Hiccup."
The regret was almost crushing me into the ground. "So I made a huge mistake."
Hiccup let out a whooshing sigh, clawing his paws through his hair like he only did when he was overwhelmed.
"I'm sorry," I moaned, lowering my head with shame. "I'm sorry that I made this already horrible situation so much worse."
"It's not your fault," Hiccup said immediately. "It's not anyone's fault."
The three of us settled into an uncomfortable silence—one that, for once, I was unwilling to break. Out on the horizon, a golden star glistened above the water, dipping up and down, up and down.
"Well, there's no way around it," the King huffed. "You're going to have to teach him."
My breath caught. "But what if it goes wrong? What if it goes against the gods' will? What if They do something to him?!"
They both looked taken aback by my outburst. I grit my teeth, shaking my head as Hiccup translated.
"I'm sorry," I said again, even as adrenaline rushed down my spine. "I think...all of the stress has taken a toll on me."
Hiccup wrapped his paws around my neck, holding me close. I pressed hard against him, listening to him purr soothingly. Some time had passed before the tension finally left my limbs.
"It is fine," he whispered. "It is fine."
There was a thump behind us. We broke our embrace, spinning around to see Haugaeldr, his mouth filled to the brim with gaping, flapping fish.
He eyed us with hurt and accusation, and at once, I realized what this must look like to him. After I had done a thorough job of stomping all over his heart, for a reason explicitly kept from him, I was the one who received comfort. Not him.
I closed my eyes.
Please, I prayed, please, please, please trust me.
I met Haugaeldr's gaze, braced myself, and took a step forward.
"I've–I've had time to think," I said lamely. "And I spoke to Hiccup and the King about our conversation last night." My mouth was dry, but still I went on, "They did not agree with me. And I see why."
I glanced at Hiccup. He offered a supportive grin. Even the King looked expectant.
"Haugaeldr," I said, turning back to him. "I've changed my mind. You are right that you should learn magic."
And then, coward that I was, desperate to preserve his happiness for even a few days longer, I amended:
"But only after you finish the Book of Dragonese."
The fish plopped to the ground. Haugaeldr openly gaped at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, Hiccup blinked in equal surprise, sending me a sharp look. I lowered my ears a little.
If we were going to do this, then it was going to be my way, and I needed time to think. I needed time for him. More than anything else, I needed a sign from Them. I needed to be sure this wouldn't blow up in my face. That he wouldn't be hurt by this knowledge.
And if They did not show me anything, then by Their names, I would fly up to the heavens and drag an answer out of Them before I put Haugaeldr in danger.
There was a golden blur. I flinched back on instinct, and—
Haugaeldr wrapped his paws around me and began showering me with his tongue. "THANK YOU!" he exclaimed. "Oh! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
"Haugaeldr!" I wheezed, leaning my head away, trying to avoid the slobbery gratitude.
He let go and bounced in tight circles around me. "Thank you! Thank you! I will make sure we finish it soon, I promise! We will complete it faster than ever before!"
Hiccup cast me a concerned look. It took nearly all my will not to grimace.
"I'm sure you will."
o.O.o
Haugaeldr poured himself into working on the Book of...fine, the Book of Dragonese. Hiccup thought that my ultimatum was more than a little unfair, but at least he understood my concerns. Though he disagreed with me, he would not force me to go back on my word...that is, he had stated, until we knew the gods weren't unhappy. Then I would have no excuses.
So the days went on. The constant anxiety I had come to associate with Dragonese faded as it became clear that there was no rushing a new language. Once Hiccup and Haugaeldr spent hours discussing "participles" and "tonation" and "conjugation" and all of their complexities, it became easy for the subject to become excruciatingly boring again.
That is, until they dragged the King and I into it.
"Good news! We're just about done classifying the different types of dragon vocalizations," Hiccup explained to us one morning. "Now you can learn them."
"I'm familiar with them," the King said, quirking an eyebrow. "It has been five years and, oh, a lifetime of hearing them, after all."
"Great!" Hiccup said, completely unfazed by the King's sarcasm. "Then it's time to start making them, too."
Thus, the King became their human test subject.
"We've finished constructing the basics of dragon vocalizations. Now, we shall go through how to teach each type!" Haugaeldr said as he stamped our fire to embers. We had nested on a heavily-forested island, and the dense canopy had shielded the sun and made all of us sleep in. Done with his job, he stretched like a cat and shook some pine needles out of his wings. To the King, he chirped, "We will focus only on one group at a time, until the King can perfectly recognize and imitate each."
"What was that?" the King spluttered after Hiccup's translation, his paws full of items he needed to shove into our holding-things. "Why all this focus on me?"
"Because I want you to learn Dragonese," Hiccup said, his voice serious despite the excitement lighting fire into his eyes and putting a bounce in his step. He finished tightening a strap around my chest for a holding-thing. He ran his paw along the edge to make sure it didn't run rough on my scales. "And the way we've organized things, I think it'll be much easier than the way I learned. Is this good?" he asked me.
I planted my paws and flapped hard. The holding-things clung to my sides, pressed tight to create as little drag as possible. "All good," I said. I peered upwards through the dappled-light canopy. It was still morning, but we had lost the first few hours. I would set a tight pace for the first half of our journey today to make up for it.
The King still looked uncertain. "Hiccup...do you really think I can learn Dragonese? I've been listening closely this whole time, but I'm still..." he gestured vaguely.
"Yes," Hiccup said, walking over to him and helping him pack things away. "I know you can."
I had been quiet, brooding selfishly, but still couldn't resist adding: "A better question would be: do you want to understand us when Hiccup is a dragon?"
Hiccup translated. The King's self-conscious grimace melted into one of grim determination. "Of course." He and Hiccup finished with their holding-things, and he hoisted them all up onto his shoulder with a grunt. "Very well. I'll make sure I'm fluent by the time you..." he trailed off, a brief flash of sorrow flickering through his expression, before he steeled himself. "You know."
Hiccup pressed his side against his father's with a soft, shy-quiet purr. "That means a lot to me, Dad."
The King couldn't help but grin, shifting his loads so that he could swing his arm around Hiccup and pull him into a bone-crushing hug. "I couldn't imagine doing anything less, son." He released poor Hiccup, who nearly keeled over spineless, and said with much less confidence, "Although I can't help but worry that I won't have an ear for it."
"It can't be that hard," I mused. "After all, we live together."
A few minutes later, we burst through the sticky, rich-earth-smell trees and angled south-southwest, by the King's determination with his maps. We'd barely even finished our ascent and leveled out before Haugaeldr started the lecture.
"Time to begin!" he cheered, doing a little twirl midair, spreading all four of his legs out and snapping his long tail. "Oh, this is so exciting! First, we must give an overview of the lessons, so you know what to expect and are primed to learn," Haugaeldr craned his long neck as if making sure the King was paying attention, vibrant golden eyes nearly as luminescent as his shimmering scales. Then, halting every so often for Hiccup to translate, he began.
"An interesting note: human phonology is constructed of vowels and consonants, each of them unique but still sounding very similar to dragon ears. Dragonese, however, does not have this luxury, as our tongues aren't nearly as versatile as a human's. We make up for this with a variety of different sounds, each coming from a different source: the nasal passageways, the lips, the tongue, and the glottal passageways. Whether or not the sound is blocked by a structure somewhere in the throat or mouth, and how it is blocked, helps determine the output. For example, a pinched nose may make a whistle or whine, but an open nose may make a snort or whuff. Shall I stop for questions?"
The King and I exchanged a wide-eyed look.
"Go on…" the King said when it became obvious Haugaeldr expected an answer.
"Speaking of which, that is our first lesson: the nasal sounds!" Hiccup said. "We'll go through them all at first, and then focus on each one individually."
"Very...well," the King said.
"And Toothless!" Hiccup said, causing me to jump. "Don't think you're getting out of this. I want you to repeat every noise we do, so that Dad knows what it sounds like coming from a Shadow-Blender."
I almost let out an overdramatic groan. I knew he would drag me into this! I still had a headache from the other day. Hiccup had made me roar, repeatedly and wordlessly, for hours. The whole time, Hiccup and Haugaeldr tried to nitpick how to describe each sound, and damn near every fish in the ocean was scared away.
The moment I glanced back at my brother, all complaints died on my lips. Hiccup was nearly vibrating with a purr atop my shoulders. He bounced a little where he sat. He looked alive with excitement, like he could simply leap off of me and fly away with it.
This was our first real breakthrough in teaching dragon-tongue to humans. Which meant we were one step closer to…
Well, I was much more enthusiastic after that little revelation.
Of course, Hiccup and Haugaeldr had separated their steps of teaching into sub-categories. So, for a thrilling several hours, we focused first on recognition of different "nasal"-produced sounds: snorts, whuffs, nasal whistles—not to be confused with pursed-lip whistles, which were apparently different—whines, exhales, and plenty more. By midday, my nose felt sore from constantly forcing air through it. It didn't help that nasal sounds were quieter than others, by virtue of being from noses, which meant that we had to repeat ourselves much more than we would have otherwise.
But our efforts weren't to be wasted.
By the end of the first day, the King was fairly familiar with the nasal sounds.
By the end of the fifth, he could produce half of them.
By the conclusion of the first week of lessons…
"Perfect!" Hiccup exclaimed, after the King both identified randomized sounds and produced just as many on command.
The King chuckled. "Well, it helps that there are only seven or so."
"Then we must move onwards!" Haugaeldr exclaimed. He executed a flip, nearly throwing the King in the process. "These are the easiest sounds—now we move a step up, to labial sounds, produced by the lips!"
With that, the two of them plunged into the next set. There were raised-lip sounds, such as hisses. There were pursed-lips sounds, such as whistles. Lastly, there were neutral-lip sounds, like certain types of growl-barks.
These were much more complicated—and, of course, more difficult. It was only compounded by Hiccup's insistence that the King learn actual words along with the sounds, so that he could hear applications for his efforts right away.
Which led to the morning in which Hiccup turned to his father, eyes glinting hopefully, and whistled, "H-e-y, D-a-d?"
"Yes?" the King hummed, too engrossed in rolling up his smelly sleeping-thing to look up.
Hiccup beamed. Haugaeldr's neck snapped up from a strange scribble he had made on the ground. Even I couldn't keep a huge grin from sliding across my muzzle, dropping the large fish I had hunted for Hiccup and the King.
The King stood up, brushed himself off, and did a double-take at all of us staring at him. "What?" he asked. "Did something…"
He trailed off, eyes widening.
"That wasn't Norse."
"No." Hiccup's grin could outglow the sun.
"You did it!" Haugaeldr exploded. He leapt into the air, looping in tight circles. "You understood unprompted! A real sentence!" he spat out a joyful blaze of fire...which immediately erupted onto a copse of trees. "Oh, Dragon of the Sun!" he cursed, fluttering away to hopefully keep the whole island from burning down.
It was the King's turn to look baffled, running a paw through the fur on his head, eyes wide with amazement. He broke out into an enormous smile, a mirror of Hiccup's, and gave a bellowing laugh.
"Thor's beard, you've actually done it!" he said, hurrying over to Hiccup and giving him one of his revered bone-crunching hugs. "Not that I doubted you, but...well, I doubted myself."
"Can't—breathe," Hiccup wheezed, voice muffled against the King's chest.
"Oh! Sorry," he sputtered, releasing my brother. Hiccup made a big show of doubling over gasping for breath, and the King rolled his eyes. "Come now, son, you'll need to learn to take a little more than that." His grin stiffened, just a little, and he said, "Especially if you're to be a dragon."
Hiccup straightened up, meeting his father's eye almost shyly now. "R-right," he said lamely. "Although I hope you won't squeeze me in half before that happens, right?" He let out a nervous chuckle.
The King's stiff expression didn't relax, though he still continued to grin. "I'll try not to." He clapped Hiccup on the back, not a single bit more gentle than usual. "Well, since we know it'll work now, let's get to it!"
So we began, all of us, in earnest. For the first time, a human had proven that they could learn dragon-tongue.
Hiccup's joy radiated into each of us like sunlight spilling over a hilltop and into a valley below. The King could learn. Which meant that one day, he could speak.
I could no longer justify my apprehension towards Dragonese when it brought such gifts. When it gave my brother such hope. Selfish as my fear for Haugaeldr was, it was not nearly as strong as my love for my brother and my desire for him to be happy.
Hiccup and I never said it aloud. But with each excited glance, each flurry of ideas racing through our link, each success after a grueling string of failures, we knew.
The future in which my brother became his true self had always been vague and formless. There were so many things to do, even if, in my opinion, he owed certain humans nothing. New problems always sprang to attention just as old ones were resolved. There were private moments in which I feared that the "when" he returned to his dragon form had malformed into an "if".
But now…
Now, there was a light out on the horizon that we could just barely see.
And we raced towards it.
o.O.o
Hiccup
As it always is, summer was eager to stoop into fall. The temperature in the air plummeted seemingly overnight. Morning frost crystalized into thousands of diamonds speckling the hardy grasses and pines. Mist clung to the ocean surface long into the day, making it feel as though all the world had been enveloped in crisp-smelling clouds.
If it weren't for the thick, fur-lined coats Dad packed and the warmth of Toothless and Haugaeldr below us, we would have had a pretty rough go of it. Still, the change in seasons wasn't nearly as bad as we were accustomed to on Berk. Already, just about three weeks into our journey, we were south enough to feel a noticeable difference in the climate. It was still frigid enough for glaciers to pockmark the ocean's surface and for heavy bouts of snow and sleet to pour down on us.
Still, when we had no other choice but to make our camp on top of a lone glacier floating in the vast nothingness of the ocean, it was pretty bad.
Especially when we got a rude awakening from a giant wave crashing over the whole thing.
All of us snapped awake, spluttering in the frigid brine. Toothless, who had been curled around everyone, leapt to his feet. The three of us were knocked around the slippery ice as he spun, growling.
"Who are—" he began, then stopped, eyes widening and ears sticking straight up.
"Well, hello, hello!" sang a familiar voice. A black and white dragon head popped out of the ocean and rose above us.
"Deep-Swimmer!" I said. I crouched down on the glacier's edge, grasping its lip with my fingers. "I can't believe it's you!"
"I can't believe you just poured water on us," Toothless snorted, shaking his entire body.
Two little heads poked just out of the water, enormous yellow eyes peering up at us. The water rippled with some deep sound one of them made. They were tiny Deep-Swimmers, dwarfed even by me.
"Don't be a stranger! Say hello to the Saviors!" the Deep-Swimmer chastised them.
They raised their stocky necks out of the water, each barely bigger than a Little-Biter.
"H-hello," one peeped, a female. She met my eyes and quickly looked away.
"...hello…" whispered the other, a male.
"Hello," I purred.
"Hatchlings!" Haugaeldr exclaimed, delighted. He padded over, tumbled on the ice, and nearly slid right off into the ocean. Dad lunged for his tail and yanked him back. Haugaeldr wriggled into a lying-down position, digging his claws into the glacier and craning his neck to sniff at them. "Hello! I've heard of you, Deep-Swimmer, but I've never had the pleasure of meeting you."
The Deep-Swimmer puffed up. "You've heard of me, eh? Well, I suppose I was very important, back then. Saviors, meet my two hatchlings!" She nosed them forward. They stretched towards Haugaeldr, just barely pressing their noses to his. "Strong and hearty ones, the best of the pod! Already learning to hunt and glide above the water!" She tilted her head and squinted at us. "But what in the deep waters are you all doing out here?"
"Are you lost?" one hatchling chirped.
Dad cleared his throat.
"Oh!" I yelped. "Uh, sorry, Dad. Remember the Sharkworm?"
"The crazy sea-dragon that launched our boat over an ice bridge?" Dad asked. "I'd be gone mad if I didn't remember." He carefully stepped closer to the rest of us. The male hatchling immediately dipped back below the water. The other grabbed the ice in her webbed paws and stretched even closer to him. With a soft smile, he reached out a hand for her to get a good scent.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A human," her mother said. In a stern voice, she added, "These ones are good, but if you see any others, you must swim down as fast as you can. You hear me?"
"I hear you!" she chirped. She bumped Dad's hand with her muzzle and let go of the glacier, letting herself plop back in.
The smile fell a bit from my face.
"The humans of our archipelago are good," Toothless said, glancing over at me. "We live together as a single nest."
The Deep-Swimmer chuckled. "That's wonderful...for you. Out here, humans on their wooden things stalk the surface of the ocean and hunt sea-dragons for fun, it seems."
I frowned. "Well, then I guess...that's good advice..."
"There's a good Savior. Now, would you answer my question?" She dipped her nose in the water and splashed a fine spray up at us in chastisement.
Toothless wrinkled his nose, licked his paw, and wiped the freezing water off. "We're seeking out other Shadow-Blenders." He perked his ears. "Apparently there have been sightings near the southwestern mainland, near the mountains. Have you heard anything?"
"How could I possibly know? I'm no sky-dragon!" the Deep-Swimmer chortled. "I've not heard or seen anything. Have any of you?" She ducked her head below the water and gave a deep thrum that I felt down to my bones. Then she emerged, snorted a mist of sea-water from her nose right in my face. "None in my pod have, either. But...wait!" She perked up.
Without warning, the Deep-Swimmer plunged back into the ocean in an elegant arc. A few moments later, she and several other Deep-Swimmers leapt from the water...much, much farther away.
We scrambled to get all of our things together. Luckily, we had been so exhausted after setting down last night, we had only set down some blankets to brace against the cold.
"Hurry up! Hurry up!" Toothless said, eyes darting between the retreating sea-dragons and the rest of us.
"We'll catch up with them, don't worry," Dad said, packing the blankets into their satchel and checking that the straps were firm. He hopped up onto Haugaeldr's shoulders. "Where exactly are they taking us?"
I was already atop Toothless. I shrugged. "Something about hearing about other Shadow—"
Toothless took off, and the wind carried my voice away.
We flew just above the Deep-Swimmers, racing across the enormous, endless expanse of the ocean. In between leaps for breath, the hatchlings challenged us to a race. Haugaeldr eagerly descended to skim just above the ocean, so close that his wingtips shot up fine sprays of water with each downstroke.
Normally, he would have outpaced them. With the added weight of Dad, the sandbox, and the saddlebags, though, it was a fair competition. He and the Deep-Swimmer hatchlings shouted playful taunts and insults at each other, splashing and swiping at each other, each vying to get ahead. The match was mostly even, but it drew chuckles out of everyone watching.
By the time we came upon a grove of moss-covered sea-stacks, all three of them were tuckered out. The Deep-Swimmers slowed to a halt as we reached them. Haugaeldr landed atop one, panting for breath, wings and tail dangling limply.
"I think...I won?" he asked, looking down. The two hatchlings had lifted out of the water, clinging to one of the mossy stacks and gasping.
"No, I won!" each hatchling cried.
Dad looked the most frazzled of all of them, soaking wet and bedraggled. He wrung his beard out and picked a piece of stray seaweed off of his helmet.
"It's a tie," I laughed. Straightening up, I looked around at the sea stacks. They were all thin and pointed near the top. Although there were enough holes and divots for sea-birds to make comfortable nests, there was no way that any had enough space for a cave. Most of them were covered in moss, but one odd feature immediately caught my eye.
Most of the sea stacks had corals and barnacles clinging to them, all the way to the top. Which made no sense, considering that those grew on the bottom of the ocean floor.
I tilted my head. "Look at those," I called, pointing.
Dad's brow furrowed. He looked down, no doubt measuring the height of the stacks just like I was. "We're easily hundreds of meters up," he said. "Unless these get hit often with tidal waves, how did they get there?"
"Deep-Swimmer!" Toothless bellowed down to the ocean. "Why did you bring us here?"
She popped her head out of the water and snorted a huge gust of mist into the air. "Give me a moment!" she snapped, and then disappeared again.
Toothless sighed. "I suddenly remember why we weren't too sad to see her go the last time she visited."
The sea stacks vibrated. An enormous ripple bubbled up from their base and crested in an expanding wave. Haugaeldr leapt to his feet with a surprised squawk. Toothless braced himself against our perch.
"Hiccup—" Dad shouted.
The sea stacks bent and swayed like thousand-year old trees in a hurricane. Corals and barnacles plunked into the ocean. The few sea-birds that were around lifted into the air, screeching.
The water at the surface sucked down, like some massive hole had opened up and swallowed it. The horizon line lurched up and down nauseatingly fast. The escaped water exploded outwards in an enormous wave, creating a cloud of mist that left us in a white haze.
Instantly, I was warped back to a different time, of a fog-shrouded landscape, of pain and desperation and self-hatred, of the song...
Toothless spread his wings wide. "Haugaeldr, to us!" he cried. "Now!"
"I'm coming!" he cried, a tight, fearful overtone in his voice.
A gale of wind pierced towards us. The mist swept away all at once, blown off into cascading rivers of hazy light.
A spellbinding, emerald-green eye snapped open mere feet away from us, swallowing the horizon.
Toothless and I froze. Haugaeldr dropped right beside us and curled as close to Toothless as he could, practically trying to crawl under him like he was still a hatchling.
The eye blinked with an audible snap and drew back, back, back…
The dragon was slender, thin-necked, with a crown of vibrant, coral-encrusted "sea stacks" that started at the tip of their slender muzzle and ran all down their winding neck. Several whiskers hung from their nostrils and chin, swaying with every slight movement. Delicate, fishlike fins protruded from their cheekbones in waves, and when they fluttered them in the wind, I glimpsed a pair of gills clamp shut to the air. Their scales were smooth and diamond-shaped, like a carp. Water droplets clung to them and glittered in the sun.
With their head lifted all the way out of the water, the dragon was high enough for the atmosphere to tint them blue. They could just reach up and snap up the clouds in their maw if they wanted to. They snorted out a gargantuan spray of saltwater from their nostrils, adding a cloud to the sky, and tilted their head to the side.
"Why," came a pristine, ringing voice, like the sound of raindrops on smooth stone. Her overtone full of wonderment, she hummed, "if it isn't sky-dragons and humans, together..."
"I told you the rumors were true!" the Deep-Swimmer crowed from below. "These are the Saviors I was telling ya about a few seasons back!"
"Hiccup," Dad hissed, "is it friendly?"
I closed my gaping mouth and swallowed. "I sure hope so," I whispered back. The Deep-Swimmer wouldn't lead us to this dragon if she was dangerous...right?
The dragon craned her head back down towards us. When she opened her mouth to speak, thousands of needle-sharp teeth glistened all the way down her throat. "The Saviors?" she said. "I fear I was asleep during that debacle. They say the sky-dragon gods came down and blessed you, after you struck down the undead creature that stole their magic."
Toothless made a heroic effort to not so much as twitch in Haugaeldr's direction. He knew of that day, of course, but not that he even had a role in it in the first place. "Yes," Toothless said. "But right now, we are looking for Shadow-Blenders."
I began to translate for Dad's benefit. That alive-green eye snapped towards me.
"The human understands!"
"He is a dragon, too," Toothless leapt to my defense.
I bobbed my head somewhat sheepishly. "Uh, hello," I said. "It's a very long story, but...I was a Shadow-Blender, once."
"He still is," Toothless interjected.
"Well, that's debatable, at least physiologically," Haugaeldr spoke up, peeking out from around Toothless.
Any dragon would have at least raised a brow at the insanity we were spouting at them, but this one merely nodded. "Oh, you sky-dragons and your…dramatics." She flicked her head, flared her fins to block the sun, and grinned with her thousands of teeth in a weirdly-playful expression that I hoped meant that she was joking. "I recognize that tongue, though it has shifted through the seasons. Do you speak as well?" she asked Dad.
"She asked if you can speak," I told Dad.
"Then tell her I can't?" he said, raising an eyebrow at me.
"You tell her!" I said.
He balked. "What?!"
"Just say no!" I said. "You should be able to now—you've gotten most of the vocalizations down by now."
"Barely," Dad grumbled. He shuffled around and sighed. "Very well." He faced the curious, glimmering, horizon-engulfing eye before us. "N...N-n-o-o," he garbled out.
"That's wonderful!" the sea-dragon cried. Then she blinked. "Wait...I beg your pardon?"
"He's learning! We're teaching him!" Haugaeldr exclaimed, puffing up to nearly twice his size with pride. "We've worked on standardizing all of the vocalizations based on anatomical section, and now that we've finished describing dragon phonetics, we may work on the lexicon and syntax, starting with how each sound varies in the five tonal variants, and building from small words built of small sounds into larger, more complex and overlapping vocalizations…"
"Did she understand?" Dad asked as Haugaeldr blabbered on, incredulous.
"Yes!" I said, beaming.
His eyes widened. "She understood..." he breathed.
The sea dragon stared at Haugaeldr, enraptured, the frills over her cheekbones lifted high as if she hoped to catch every breath onto them. "Incredible! You sky-dragons!" she said. "And here my kind are, always quarreling."
Toothless shifted antsily below me. I cleared my throat and spoke up, "I think the Deep-Swimmer brought us here to ask if you've seen any Shadow-Blenders around here. Have you?"
"Why, I have no idea what that is, little dear!" she said.
Toothless drooped. "Me," he said. "Dragons like me."
"Ah, I see! I suppose I should have surmised that myself, hm? Forgive this old dame!" she chortled. "Now, let's get a good look at you…"
She shifted so close that the whole world nearly blackened with her pupil. Every strand of her iris shone in the light like liquid jade and emerald, catching the sun in glimmering, golden rivers. Toothless and I both leaned back. I felt as though I could fall into that eye, swallowed into its depths.
"I have seen sky-dragons like you," the sea-dragon said, pulling away, "only a sleep ago."
Toothless stiffened. "What do you mean? When did you see them? Where did you see them?"
Sympathy filled her overtone. "Oh, forgive me, little dear. When I rest, seasons pass and new generations of sky-dragons have sprouted from your caverns. I cannot say how long ago it was, but I can say where." She twisted her head nearly completely around to survey the ocean. "There," she said, pointing her nose south.
Towards the mountain range on the map.
I had been translating for Dad, and the moment she said that, I cut myself off with a gasp. Even Dad snapped his head up, eyes hopeful.
My brother trembled with joy. "That's where we're going!" He turned to me, eyes shining, and began to bounce on his feet like an overjoyed hatchling. "They're there! They're really there!"
The sea-dragon reeled backwards. "Oh, you musn't travel there, little dear!"
A pang of fear shot through me.
Toothless froze. In a stiff voice, he asked, "Why?"
"Terrible nonsense there, nowadays. Humans waging fierce battles with one another, tearing apart the land, destroying rivers and waterways! Many of my sea-folk kin used to travel upriver to the breeding grounds, and of late, I have heard that they cannot reach them any longer. I do not stray too far from my own nest—I have eggs of my own to protect, you see—but I have noticed an unseemly number of ships in those waters." She ruffled her frills. "I have only been awake so long as to lay my eggs and watch over them. It is a task that takes seasons, and I fear for my little hearts' health, with all this turmoil shaking the ocean so!"
"The wars," I murmured.
"So we will be heading straight for them," Dad said after I'd translated all of it. "And Grimmel, most likely."
I heard the warning in his voice. So did Toothless.
"We're still going to find them," he said, his voice much snappier than I expected. "We have to find them, if that...that thing's near!"
"The human is wise," the sea-dragon said. "Best not to trap yourself into a current you can't fight, lest you're prepared to be carried off."
Toothless snorted in that I've-made-up-my-mind manner of his. "We'll find them," he said. "We'll find them first."
The sea-dragon watched him with those aged eyes. "You've lost something dear to you," she said softly. Toothless' determined posture slackened, and I pressed close to him with a soft thrum. "I shall accompany you within my territory," she said. "You may rest upon my spines and gather your strength. You will need it, if you hope to pierce through those dangerous lands. But I can only carry you so far, lest I leave my eggs unprotected. Unlike you sky-dragons, we sea-kin must worry about our eggs being eaten."
"Thank you," I sighed with relief. "That means so much to us."
She gave a wry grin. Her eyes, filled with memories centuries into the past, glittered with fondness. "It is the least I can do, for such delightful little creatures."
o.O.o
That night, Dad pulled me aside. We had found that the spines closer to the sea-dragon's midsection were much thicker, allowing us to settle down atop them. We couldn't light a fire, obviously, so all of us huddled together for warmth. Dad waited for both Toothless and Haugaeldr to fall asleep before shaking me awake and taking me to the edge of the "sea stack".
"Hiccup…" he began.
"Do you really want us to turn back now?" I whispered, my stomach already hollow with the thought.
"Trader Johann's report made it sound like the war was ending," Dad said. "But this sea-dragon makes it sound otherwise. If Grimmel is here, in the middle of a war, and we come flying in…"
"We'll be careful!" I said. "We don't even have to go near any encampments or battles."
"And what about patrol ships? What about scouts, like Eret used to be? What about villagers in the mountains, who apparently look to the skies searching for Night Furies?" Dad demanded. "Hiccup, there is no if about this. It is a matter of when Grimmel will find out about us."
"So if he does, then we can leave," I pressed. I set my jaw. "Or we can confront him and find out what he did to all the Night Furies."
Dad narrowed his eyes. "No! There's facing trouble, and there's asking for it. I've never met this man, but I've heard enough about him to be cautious. You should be, too—especially for Toothless."
I bristled. "Toothless isn't in any danger."
Dad set me with a look. "Hiccup, you know safety can't be promised."
I scowled, looking away, not wanting to confront the problem that he was right. Memories came unbidden, of the dragon raids on Berk after the battle with the Queen, of the war Drago brought to our home, of the shadow that had consumed my every thought, that still stalked through the depths of my mind.
Dad reached out and grasped my shoulder in his hand, and I met his eyes.
"I want you to be safe," he said. "Both of you. You're more excited and happy than I've ever seen you. I know…" he wavered. "...I know you wish to return to your dragon form soon. I can see it, the way you and Toothless look at each other. It's why I'm trying so hard to learn Dragonese."
My heart began to thunder in my chest. He looked so...sad. "Dad…" I began, my mouth dry.
"I'm not upset," he reassured me, not for the first time. "I just...these last days are precious to me, Hiccup." He offered a small smile. "I don't want something to happen, now of all times. I don't want the decision taken from you. And I don't want to see you hunted."
"That's why you're here," I said, trying a smile. "You're here to keep us safe from ourselves, aren't you?"
He snorted. "I've always been." He tugged me into one of his lungs-deflating hugs. "I'm sorry, Hiccup. I know you two are so excited to find others. But I can't help but worry. I just want you to know why, instead of wondering."
"Worrying is my job," I complained, rubbing my side and grimacing. I swear I had felt a rib shift out of place. "But...thank you, Dad. I promise we'll try to be careful."
He gave me a pointed look. "And if, Thor forbid, we encounter Grimmel?"
My shoulders drooped. "We'll fly far away," I said. Even though he may be near other Shadow-Blenders, I didn't add.
He clapped me on the back, popping the rib back to where it belonged. "Very well. Let's get some sleep, then. I want to rest while we can. From now on, when we fly, it will only be during the night."