Dragons Against Drago Chapter 5

Hiccup landed next to Toothless, who was visibly quivering. They stared wordlessly at the cold, motionless body of Toothless' son Young-teacher, still partly buried in the Muddy's ice. He wrapped a wing around his friend; Toothless didn't seem to notice. The other Night Furies landed nearby, one after the other. Guana tried nudging her son with her nose; there was no response. No one said a word.

Finally, Toothless turned to glare at the Muddy. Hiccup had never seen such hate on a dragon's face. "I don't care what it takes," Toothless said, through a throat tight with grief. "I don't care if I have to fly down that killer's throat and choke him to death with my own body. That dragon must never, never be allowed to rule a nest."

"I'm with you," Hiccup said softly, "but he's winning his battle against the Alpha, and as soon as we get involved, he'll freeze some more of us. I'm open to ideas." They all looked at each other. No one had any suggestions for how to defeat a dragon that was over 500 feet long.

That was when the Alpha drew back from the battle for a moment and glanced at them. He looked sad. "You're right, my small but brave friends. That one must never be allowed to rule a nest of dragons, no matter what the cost." He glared at the Muddy Bewilderbeast and took a deep breath. "The Alpha protects them all."

He braced himself to receive another attack. The Muddy roared and charged again, aiming a wickedly-pointed tusk at his rival's throat. The Alpha should have parried that thrust, which would have led to more head-butting and wrestling, a contest that the Alpha was slowly losing. But he forced himself to ignore the thrust, aimed his own tusk at the Muddy's chest, and the titans struck each other a mortal blow.

The Muddy screamed in pain, but that scream was quickly choked off. He turned and ran toward the water. His legs collapsed as he reached the waterline, and he sank out of sight, raising a huge wave that rocked all the ships that weren't locked in ice. No bubbles rose. The water was stained red for several minutes afterward.

The Alpha stood motionless for a few seconds. Then his forelegs collapsed and he fell forward, as if in slow motion. "I loved you all," he gasped as he looked around at all the dragons above him. His eyes went out of focus for a moment as Cloudjumper flew past him; then he took one last look at the dragons he'd ruled for so long, rolled over on his side, and breathed his last.

The dragons forgot the battle for a moment. They circled the huge body of their Alpha, wings outstretched, heads dipped in respect. On the rocky outcrop, Valka hid her face in her hands. Crying wasn't the Viking way.

Twelve feet away, Drago stared hatefully at the dead Bewilderbeast. This wasn't the way his triumphant battle was supposed to go! "Maybe I can't rule the dragons, but at least I can rid the world of one dragon rider," he laughed as he charged at Valka –

…only to be smashed aside by a blow from a war hammer. Stoick had seen the two of them on the outcrop and realized that he might be needed there. When he recognized his foe, his battle-rage turned even hotter. Now it was personal. Valka shrank away as the two men squared off.

"You didn't get enough of me the first time, Stoick?" Drago smirked.

"It's time the world was rid of you, madman!" Stoick snarled back, and attacked with all his strength. Drago fell back before the flurry of blows. With each swing, Stoick recited the name of a Viking chief who had died at the hands of Drago's dragons that awful night. Drago could barely parry the blows; he nearly lost his staff twice. At last, the bigger Viking broke Drago's staff and knocked him down. Drago tried to crawl away backwards, but backed into the base of a cliff.

"It's over, Drago," Stoick growled.

"Yes, you're right," Drago grinned back. "It's time I finished what I started!" He let out two roaring bellows and pointed at Stoick.

Circling overhead were the last five battle-ready dragons of Drago's army. They heard the command, saw where he was pointing, and dove.

Stoick saw them coming, with mouths open and throats glowing. He knew what they were about to do. He had no shield. He looked around desperately for some place to take cover; there was none. As he looked, he saw the dead Bewilderbeast, and remembered how it had died. His eyes narrowed. He ran toward Drago.

"No! Stop!" Drago shouted upwards in panic. "Dragons, break off your attack!" But he had never trained his dragons to break off an attack. He had trained them, under penalty of hunger and humiliation, to obey his every order until it was complete. He had ordered them to destroy the big man. Nothing would stop them. Stoick leaped on top of his enemy and snarled, "Finish what you started!"… and then the flames were upon them.

Valka found them a minute later. Drago had gotten on top as they wrestled, and used his dragon-skin robe to block the flames. Vikings didn't know about oxygen, or how quantities of dragon fire could consume all the oxygen in the nearby air. Stoick and Drago had died from being unable to breathe. There wasn't a burn mark on either of them.

With Drago and the Muddy Bewilderbeast both gone, the attackers had no leader, no guidance, and no hope of victory against such overwhelming numbers. The free dragons ruled the sky now. The battle was effectively over; the humans were scrambling to find cover from the relentless aerial attacks, abandoning their dreams of conquest. The enslaved dragons landed quickly, abandoning the fight altogether. Their only desire was to remove the iron masks that imprisoned their faces.

From behind a large rock, one human with marks on his chin stepped out. Eret son of Eret had watched the battle and seen his overlord's "foolproof" plan fail. He had seen the free dragons fighting with the same organization and tactical skill as any human army. He remembered that skinny Viking intruder and how he had actually talked with the captured Night Fury. Eret was no genius, but he could read the writing on the wall. Hesitantly, he approached one of the Rumblehorns that was clawing desperately at its mask. It saw him, hissed, and assumed a defensive position.

"No! I'm not going to hurt you," Eret exclaimed. With one hand extended, he slowly stepped toward the fearful dragon. When he was close enough, he rested his hand on the dragon's nose horn for a moment, then loosened the strap that held the heavy mask in place. The dragon tossed its head, sending the mask flying. It snorted and pushed back against his hand with its nose for a moment, then flew away, free.

Eret watched it fly. That made me feel a lot better than trapping them ever did, he thought. He looked around for another dragon that needed to have its mask removed.

o

The battle had been over for an hour. The surviving humans had been herded onto two of their ships, forced to watch the rest of their fleet burn, and set free. With no weapons and no means of acquiring any, they would pose no threat to anyone. The last of the dragon traps and heavy weapons had been burned or blasted into oblivion, and the dragons had retreated into their nest to decide what should happen next.

Hiccup landed next to Valka, who was standing near the shore, looking away at nothing. Guana and Astrid joined them a few seconds later. Together, they sat and watched his mother. They said nothing; they couldn't think of anything to say. Valka was fighting back tears. Crying wasn't the Viking way, even when a woman has lost her husband.

"Mom, is okay to cry," Hiccup finally said.

"Crying won't help," she answered tightly. She looked up to the sky for a few seconds.

"I was promised to the son of a chief in marriage, without knowing anything about him except his name," she said, as though talking to herself. "All my friends said I was lucky to find such a destiny! I didn't feel lucky; I was scared to death. I met him once, a few months before the wedding, when my parents met his parents to show each other the bride-price and the dowry. He was big and tall and scary-looking. I didn't dare say a word to him, and he didn't talk to me, either. I was sure he'd found some fault in me and wanted nothing to do with me.

"Then, just before the wedding, he hid under my window and sang his song about the dancing and the dreaming. I realized that, in spite of his size, he had a human heart inside, and I began to hope that we might have a happy marriage after all. In the first days after the wedding, we slowly learned how to talk to each other. He wasn't a big talker, but he could pack a lot of meaning into a few words. I learned to cherish that. I learned to cherish a lot of things about him.

"You came early into the world, Hiccup. A lot of people thought you wouldn't make it. But he never lost faith in you. He was so sure you'd grow up just like him…"

"But I did not," Hiccup said slowly.

"No," she sighed. "You took after me instead, and he didn't know how to deal with that. But even though you weren't the son he dreamed of, he still protected you, got you a good apprenticeship, and did everything he could to make a Viking out of you. That was the only way he knew how to relate to a son. It wasn't what you needed, but he tried his best.

"And now he's gone." She looked away, toward the huge, motionless Bewilderbeast. "Hiccup, don't think me hard-hearted, but I'm not sure which one of those two I'll miss more. I spent three years with Stoick, eighteen years with the Alpha, and the last two years going back and forth between them. They were both strong-willed, both excellent leaders, and they both died protecting the ones who..."

Hiccup didn't try to speak. He lightly nudged her with his head and crooned softly. She flung her arms around his neck, and finally let herself cry. He joined her.

She regained her composure after a few minutes; she wiped her eyes, and no one could tell she'd been crying. "Hiccup, there's something I need to do," she said firmly, "and I need your help." She whispered into his ear flaps, as though afraid that someone might overhear her. Those ear flaps pricked straight up.

"Mom, you just lost Dad! Is this good time for that?"

"I know my own mind, Hiccup. I'm sure about this. I'm not going to change my mind. Please do this for me."

Hiccup shrugged with his wings and turned to Guana, who was silently mourning her son. "You should handle this one, I think."

o

"He still won't eat," Edda Hofferson said sadly as she brought the untouched tray of food out of Agnarr's room. "I would have bet my boots that the smell of my Haddock Delights would have done the job."

"He hasn't eaten a thing since he woke up," Gobber said with a sad shake of the head. "It's more than just bein' depressed. I'm thinkin' he wants to end it all."

Edda gasped. "But that's not the Viking way!"

"He's lost his way," Gobber replied as they walked away. "Makin' things an' tinkerin' with things wasn't just his job – it was his life. Now he's lost that forever, so he thinks he's lost everything."

"Could his brother talk him out of it?" Edda wondered.

"He might," the old smith nodded. "But Agnarr was always the more stubborn o' the two. Even a Night Fury might not be able to make 'im see reason." He shook his head. " 'Tis a shame. A grand shame. But we canna force 'im to eat."

o

A/N
I'm curious what you readers think of how Stoick and the Alpha met their end in this story, compared to the way those events were handled in the second movie.