After battles are finished, it is time to deal with the aftermath and extinguish its fires.
The fighting died out in most of the nest; only a few stragglers were left deep inside, and most were pushed back to the last bridge leading out from the islet to the major island. The enemy on the other end of the bridge stopped trying to enter the fray when their warriors came rushing out of the islet, numerous fighters getting trampled in the frantic escape, unfortunate ones outright falling to their death from the overloaded bridge, and instead opted to fling their arrows with very little success.
Looks good, decided Stormfly. An exhilarating sense of victory swelled within her, along with an even greater feeling of being the one responsible for most of it. They hadn't expected to be fighting dragons when going in there, so they hadn't taken any bolas. And in the dark night, while blinded by fires of their own making, they had no more than an off-chance of hitting her with anything else.
It still meant a bunch of arrows hitting her, with four at a good enough angle to penetrate scales and stay inside, but those were made against humans, not against dragons. What would be a serious wound for a human, was only an inconvenience for her, albeit a painful one. She landed to pick them out and then licked, only for a familiar voice's screaming of pain to interrupt her mid-process.
The dragoness sprung to action, helping herself with wing flaps to move faster, in a time simultaneously short and far too long, until she could see what was happening from the roof of a house.
A mad human laughed and kicked an axe towards Astrid clutching her face tightly with quiet sobs. No… She was definitely hurt. "Pick it up! Go out fighting, it is the honour you deserve."
Astrid went to grab the weapon, touching the ground at random, but Stormfly was swift to act. A spike sizzled through the air, but missed its mark by inches when the human rapidly evaded. His eyes glistened with glee when he looked up at her.
"A dragon of Berk! Hahahaha! Glorious! Let us begin this fight!"
Since he started the talking...
"Yes okay aye let's begin fighting chief of the Berserkers and why are you so far away from your people if you aren't meant to lead them then why you are out on your own well besides?" The human's expression was completely and utterly lost. Now that was an opportunity!
A single spike flew, and the human flinched out of his bewilderment, the projectile finding his left arm instead of his neck. Aaah, if she used all her remaining ones she would kill him here and now, but she had enough only for one salvo and wanted to save them, but now she lost the element of surprise and the human was on the move.
"You talk!" His face turned serious. "Doesn't matter." He leapt towards the roof she was perched on, and Nadder kicked, knocking him back down again. There was pain in her paw, the elongated end of the axe reaching it and slicing through the scales, but not deeply.
"Swift aren't you like a Speed Stinger but without poison so worse but you can climb kinda like a spider not really an improvement since they can just leap but I guess it is useful anyway." She flung another spike at the human that he promptly evaded, now snarling.
"You KNOW that your CHATTER is IRRITATING!?"
"Yes I know and I don't care because it is funny to watch you get angry you look kind of cute to be honest like a fussy dragon fledgling that is angry because he did not get his most favorite type of fish which is why it is cute I am repeating myself oh well." Another spike was flung and then evaded. But it won't continue for long. Conditioning she enacted will be soon put to action.
"I will HANG your SKULL over my HEARTH and WRITE on it TALKATIVE LIZARD!" He threw a random piece of firewood her way. It just bounced off her scales, which seemed to infuriate the human even more. Good.
"I am indeed quite talkative but to be honest I am not a lizard I mean really lizards lose their tail when—"
Stormfly leapt at Dagur mid-sentence during which she edged closer and closer to the edge, startling the human.
Ha! It worked!
"-threatened to escape." She landed on top of him, pinning his axe to the ground. "But as you can see, I fight and win instead of escaping, especially with such dumb children like you. Especially if those dumb children attack my friend!"
He struggled - how could he not? But it was useless; she weighed much more than any human. A few brutal yanks with her teeth dislodged the weapon from his paw, and thanks to the placement of her eyes, she still looked straight at his face and other hand. Ha! What about a blind spot now, 'better designed' races?
She searched the human for a small claw — dagger, knife, whatever it was called — and threw the offending item; it got stuck in a nearby wall. Then she stomped right on the face of the Berserker chief, herself eerily silent and him screaming his throat out, until he was knocked out. Only then she grabbed him in her maw and sped away, sniffing in search of her human and following the trail.
Astrid was limping to the biggest den: the great hall. Stormfly blocked her way and leaned, giving her easier access to her back and taking the chance to see what wound she received.
There was blood around her eye, but that is all she could see through the hand Astrid covered her face with before she climbed on top of her back.
"H-h hey girl, healers are in the great hall." Stormfly nodded and moved, buzzing with questions but gagged by the captive between her teeth. Wrr, it would be so easy to chew and swallow, but it was an important human, and important humans were to be taken alive if possible. Something about using them as leverage or whatever.
There were other injured here, tended to by healers. One swiftly approached them and looked over Stormfly's arrow wounds and gave his verdict: "It can wait."
The dragoness realised her bulk must have concealed Astrid, so she turned and crouched, letting her human down. The healer's gaze latched onto Astrid with much greater haste than on the Deadly Nadder.
Astrid was led to a bed near the wall. "Lay down here. And for the love of Friga, don't touch your wound. Keep your head upright, look at the ceiling."
Stormfly deposited Dagur on the ground and got a much better look at Astrid's wound. It…didn't look good. It didn't look good!
The healer waved her away. "Stop gawking, go wait at the side of the entrance like all the others."
"No, no, no, she is my friend! I can't just leave—"
"You won't help. You'll just stand in the way. Begone," the healer snapped. Then his expression softened. "It is not life-threatening, don't worry, you will see her again."
The dragoness finally obliged, then started as she recalled her captive. She should report.
"We can't save it."
Astrid looked at the healer with her good eye and clenched her teeth. No lies, no comforting, just straight to the point. It was how it should be. "I-I g-guess I have to search for an eye patch then." She quipped, but there was no humour in it. She could question him, but for what? He wasn't green by any metric, he had likely seen more such wounds than she had fingers.
He nodded, appreciating her respect for his experience. "I need to remove the eyeball entirely. Don't move."
Injuries were an unavoidable part of being a warrior. Even the most excellent fighters were hit on occasion, and even with all of her intense training she had no gall to call herself such. Of course she had considered the different permanent injuries she may receive: losing fingers, having important muscles cut, losing a whole limb even. Yet eyes were one of least likely ones. After all, when you were hit in the head by a dragon, chances were good that you wouldn't live long enough to think of how screwed you were.
It was a glancing hit, really, a very lucky glancing hit. If the tip of that hatchet reached just about anything else she would end up with a big and visible scar — just a reason to be proud, really. But this?
"Here, lass." Astrid looked at the item presented to her and opened her mouth so that she had something to bite into other than herself.
And bite she did, and she cried and shook, but what she didn't do was lash out. It was helpful, however painful. Everything turned into a blur afterwards: bandaging, a firm order to stay put and not move, dozing. The first really coherent thing she experienced was the scene her father made.
"Astrid, are you okay?"
She blinked several times to clear the blur out of her eyes... eye. "Dad?"
"My child, what has happened?"
A man, the same healer as before, appeared as if summoned. "She lost an eye. It was deep cut, nothing could be done."
"Are you sure?" Bjorn frowned down at the healer, but it had no effect whatsoever.
"Of course I am. Her eye's insides were spilling out."
Astrid cleared her throat to interrupt. "Dad, it isn't his second week doing this Stop it." Her voice was stern, tinted with a little bit of weak amusement
Bjorn turned to her. "Asi, you are half blinded. Of course I'll freak out."
She shook her head. "It could be much worse, we both know it. I can manage with reduced eyesight."
He mimicked the gesture. "It is not about what you could manage, it is that you are just so young, that you are..." Astrid smiled with some actual humour in it. "My girl, I know. But are you actually saying getting a scar is a bad thing?" She raised her eyebrow, and he huffed. "Of course not." Rest of his arguments died just like that and he hugged her without a word. Astrid huffed but wore a smile.
Their moment was interrupted by the healer after a few seconds. "You are fine to go. Just turn up tomorrow."
The unsaid 'you should go' didn't go unnoticed, and they hurried away, freeing the spot for more wounded.
Stoick pinched his nose as Dagur sent an unending stream of death-threats and taunts, then he looked away from the imprisoned madman and wondered what to do with him.
On the one hand, he had the person responsible for this attack — and for parricide on his friend, no less. Execution was definitely an enticing and justified option, in the eyes of Hairy Hooligans.
On the other hand, however... he doubted it would solve anything. His idea of Berserker internal politics was relatively vague, true, but he knew very well that a lot of them were dissatisfied with the decisions Oswald the Agreeable made. Sending Dagur for Nidhogg to devour wouldn't suddenly change that in the slightest.
In the end, he should make a good bargaining chip, and that was nothing to scoff at. Leaving their chief in custody would be a deeply disloyal act by the Berserkers, and so they wouldn't do that.
But did he really need it at the end of the day? They would be forced to leave the island from lack of supplies; Berk had much, much bigger stores than that army could ever carry with it. They could outlast them.
But then, eventually, they would choose a new chief — a chief Stoick would be relatively unfamiliar with in comparison to the madman in custody.
The devil you know...
And, as a bonus, they likely would have a little better attitude towards Berk.
Yes, he would exchange Dagur for them leaving the island — something they would need to do anyway — and the signing of a peace treaty.
It kind of made the entire raid redundant, really. But the spoils would be nice, especially if Berk's heroes found that one thing he was hoping they would find.
And then...
The beginnings of a plan brewed in the chief's mind, a plan he later suspected was spawned by the spark of insanity Hiccup infected him with.
Though his son was unlikely to be proud of this fact.
Finally, the skies cleared — well, stopped trying to tear apart everything with wings — and the dragons took flight back to Berk with their passengers and luggage.
A grey blanket covered the blue heavens morosely as they moved, but it had no effect on the returning warriors — unless this effect was opposite to the intended. Men and women wore wide grins, dragons preened in the dispersed sunlight, all cheerful for their victory.
Well, nearly all, as the morose faces of Hiccup and Snotlout proved, the two somehow on the same page for once.
"They could have won if we helped more," muttered Snotlout from the back of one of the Zipplebacks that carried the net with a still-unconscious Hookfang. Hiccup, flying nearby, caught it.
"Yes, if we only attacked the berserkers from behind when they carried out the counter-attack..." Hiccup added, earning a nod from Snotlout. Toothless decided to chime in.
"They werhe prheparhed to fight dragons, and we werhe both out of shots and quite tirhed frhom fightinhg. Casualties would be heavy."
Snotlout remained silent, the dark dragon snorted, Hiccup shook his head. "No, definitely not that many, they would be besieged from two sides, that ought to give us an edge."
Snotlout huffed. "You're far stronger than humans. You can handle yourself just fine without fire."
The Night Fury groaned. "Did you even heardh the shecond parht of the explahnation?" Toothless sighed. "Lhiberhated werhe rhethrheating by when we fhinished ourh tasks. They wouldn't help us forh a long while."
Then the Night Fury cocked his head thoughtfully. "But that would lead to the weakening or destrhuction of the Berhserkerhs. Their army would rheturn tirhed and with little supplies, only to encounter anotherh battle. And whoeverh won that would be farh weakerh than before."
And since they would be weaker, it would be much easier to- Toothless cringed. No. Why was he thinking like that again? It wasn't how it was done with neutral third parties back then; they were just left alone. So why did he think like that?
Hiccup let the last sentence slide, but his fidgeting told Toothless that he had registered it. Snotlout, on the other hand, didn't, and the Zippleback either wasn't caring or didn't know Icelandic Norse much.
"I imagine that they would be quite thankful for our help and make good allies."
Allies... "Yes, that would be the optimal resolution." Then Toothless shook his head again. "But we cannot change the past. So now, we had better—"
He started, seeing a wing — an army — departing Berk.
Departing.
What?
Regardless of his confusion, he banked hard and flapped his wings to swiftly reach Spitelout, but just when he was to report it, he realised that the human was already giving orders.
"Maintain formation. Take a higher altitude, and let's speed up a little."
All very sensible: cautiousness in the face of a lack of information. Toothless suppressed hatching theories and plans; nothing was certain yet.
Thankfully, Berk wasn't aflame when they arrived, but there was visible damage: nearly all bridges leading into the main island were destroyed, some village buildings were visibly damaged, and there was smoke coming from the locations of dragon houses built throughout the main island.
Soon they had reached the village. The few dragons — the ones left behind to guard the young for various flocks — greeted them readily from their impromptu nests. It seemed that at least they made it out before the army got to their proper nests or fled from combat when it began. Dragonets were quick to follow them out and bolt towards other adults: a small cloud of chittering, whining, crying, and posturing, not necessarily in that order.
It occurred to Toothless that the Berserkers hadn't stopped, that they'd pressed on instead of hunkering down for the duration of the storm. But that ought to have weakened them, and the victory of Berk seemed to confirm that fact.
Hiccup leaned and tugged at the handles, and Toothless reacted immediately, lowering altitude and landing on the square. The next thing he knew, his human was stumbling his way towards the Hofferson clan house.
The dragon soundlessly reached him in two steps and provided support; Hiccup was grimacing, his fake limb brushing too hard against his stump when he put too much weight on it, even with all of the padding in place for this exact reason.
There was nothing he could say to change anything here. His friend was worried for another friend, and nothing but checking on her would be of significance.
And so they did, but the result was less than ideal.
Hiccup rushed to Astrid's bed, a bandage wrapped around her head. Toothless opted to stand at his side, padding towards them at a more relaxed pace.
"Astrid-"
She interrupted immediately. "I will live, it doesn't even hurt all that much now, we won, and that is what matters."
Toothless nodded; he definitely agreed. But, like always, his dear human had to be weird.
"But you are hurt, other people are hurt, other people are killed! If only we hurried up..."
"Thherhe was no way to know forh us." He, of course, provided sensibility, and it, of course, slid right off of Hiccup.
"This entire raid was pointless! We should have stayed."
Astrid shook her head but said nothing on the topic, instead changing it. "How are your spoils?"
He blinked, then stammered. "A-about the spoils? Umm... Yeah, we are fine, more than fine, actually." He went to retrieve their objective from Toothless's saddlebag, but the dragon beat him to it, already retrieving the wooden chest wrapped in cloth and gingerly placing it on the floor.
"That looks like something really precious."
Hiccup stared dumbly at the lock that they had no key to. "I guess it'll have to wait."
"I can tear it open," Toothless offered.
Hiccup shook his head. "No, no, no, we can't risk it. Uh. Well. Anyway."
Seeing that Hiccup had forgotten how to speak, Toothless took the initiative. "Sho how did you get this whound Astrhid?"
She pressed her lips together tightly. "I fought Dagur. But his hatchet had an elongated tip and I lost an eye."
Hiccup gasped, and Toothless cringed in compassion. "Loss of an eye. That is problematic, issues with depth and a significantly bigger blind spot. Nadders may have ways of dealing with bad depth perception, they live with some of it their whole lives," remarked the Night Fury.
"Good that I have Stormfly then," responded Astrid plainly. Toothless startled, guilt suddenly leaping to his expression, but Hiccup went in this exact moment.
"It must have hurt a lot." Astrid nodded, despite the calm expression, a bit shakily. "Yes, it did, but the healer was competent; everything that could be done was."
She sat up on the bed, shaking her head with her palm on her forehead. It was also the moment they were interrupted by Astrid's mother suddenly barreling inside. "Hiccup! Dragons are eating bodies!"
Hiccup staggered. "They what?!"
Toothless squinted, not understanding what this was about, but Hiccup's urgency prompted him to carry Hiccup outside and towards the commotion around the piled bodies of Berserkers.
What are you doing? My food, find yours!* a Nadder said to a human. The Nadder backed away when Stoick strode closer, just like the whole group of winged reptiles.
"What. Is. The. Meaning. Of. This." The chief seethed, and it appeared as if he was to breathe fire despite the vast anatomical differences between humans and dragons.
Toothless looked the entire scene over, still failing to see what it was about, meanwhile, Hiccup dismounted and started talking.
"O-okay, that is... Not okay. You can't eat corpses!"
The same Nadder sagged. Toothless recalled it was one from the flock Stoick was the direct alpha of, but that wasn't part of the Hairy Hooligans. Humans were confusing.
We can't? It is for higher tiers then, sorry.*
Tiers... Toothless cringed thoroughly but was quick to relay the gist of it. Weirdly, it didn't calm down the humans.
"No, no, it is not about that. It- it is something that just isn't done, people just don't do it! It is- it is simply wrong!"
Dragons lowered themselves and whined guiltily. Toothless took his gaze off this pathetic sight and did what barely any pack dragon did; questioned his pack customs… albeit in a slightly contrite way, considering what kind of reaction this all was getting from the humans — including a big, angry, armed human crowd.
"Humans don't do it to their enemies?"
Hiccup gawked. "What?! N- no, definitely no!"
The Night Fury cocked his head. "Is human flesh poisonous to humans? That would be quite in contradiction with just about any other example."
His friend gagged and shook his head. "It's… It's a crime against nature!"
Toothless still didn't understand. "You use nature as a tool, shape, or destroy it depending on what you want from it."
Hiccup shook his head again, grabbed Toothless's neck, and pressed his nose to the dragon's snout, their eyes very, very close to each other. "Would you eat your mother?"
The dragon instantaneously recoiled, making Hiccup lose his balance, but the teen remained on his feet. "No! Of course not! That would be… Wretched! Blackhearted!"
His human nodded in rapid succession. "Exactly! That's how humans see eating other humans. So just don't do that, and don't question it. Please!"
Toothless still didn't understand why what happened with enemies' remains mattered, but the pleading nature of his friend's gaze sufficed to put his inquisitiveness to rest.
Humans didn't taste all that good, anyway.
But, as in all hierarchies, it couldn't be as simple as solving an issue.
A certain ex-alpha Monstrous Nightmare showed up, ridden by Astrid's sire, and things got a whole lot more serious.
"They attempted — performed cannibalism, correct?"
The law-speaker got affirmation from the crowd, alongside Mildew's comment: "Put those monsters to death! They don't deserve to live!"
Toothless saw it like he did any other of the old man's ridiculous ramblings, but the infuriated expressions of the other humans told him that, this one time, Mildew may actually get what he wants.
"That is the established punishment for cannibalism, yes," Bjorn mused.
The dragons under his scrutinising gaze didn't try to escape, didn't even huddle closer, just bowed more deeply. Yet again, Toothless had to speak for them. "They did not know that it is forbidden."
Skyfire said plainly, without a hint of smugness Toothless searched for. "Not knowing the law does not exclude someone from it."
This looked bad - really bad. Five lives were at stake over some meaningless meat. Toothless struggled to think of a retort that did not include prodding at the sense of this custom; if Hiccup reacted so strongly, everyone else was likely to be much, much worse. Thankfully, his smart, smart Hiccup relieved him of it.
"They were simply impressed."
That, somehow, put a stop to the fury brewing within the slowly sliding-towards-them human crowd and sparked understanding in the law-speaker's eyes.
"Impressed by how humans can fight dragons so well despite being smaller, impressed by how humans can do so much that they cannot, by how much humans think of things they do not - and so they simply wished to gain those traits, as many in our sagas did."
Mildew cried out at this explanation. "You just made that up!"
One of two Zipplebacks in the group shook both of his heads. "No! We wanted to be more like humans, so we ate humans!"
…Where was the logic in that? Regardless, this one time humans shouldn't be logical, they were.
Bjorn waved his hand. "That is just word against word, and it isn't like dragons never ate humans before for sustenance. This is, most definitely, cannibalism."
Toothless tried to wrack his brain around how to deal with that, but he had nothing.
Curiously, the anger disappeared from Stoick's face, and the Chief spoke calmly. "Actually, Bjorn, I think we overlooked this matter in our meetings. Cannibalism refers specifically to humans doing it."
Mildew snorted and shook his staff angrily. "You lot agreed that dragons are to be treated like humans during the Thing. Honor it, Lawspeaker! Order their execution now!"
But Bjorn stayed true to what Toothless had seen of him: namely, valuing law above all else. "As much as I agree that this is just as wicked as if it were humans doing it, I cannot sentence someone without law to support it. Cannibalism is a term specific to members of one species eating other members of their own species, therefore, it does not apply here."
At the angry ruckus rising from the crowd, the Lawspeaker hammered his staff loudly on the ground and raised his voice. Though, for once, a sliver of fear was visible in him. "I will personally see to it that the law is changed for it to be illegal for sapient to eat sapient, not human to eat human, so it will be forever clear and this situation will never repeat. But for now, they are not sentenced! Killing them will be murder and dealt with as such!"
The Vikings, riled up by Mildew, weren't exactly listening. Dragons were still procrastinating themselves; Toothless roared at them, their eyes shot up, and the Night Fury screamed. *Begone!*
They obeyed.
Without a target to focus their ire on, the two dozen angry, armed people could do naught but wave their weapons in the air. For a moment, Toothless thought they would turn their ire at him, as Mildew's angry shouts tried to direct them to do, but with gritted teeth they let them be. Truly they took life-debt as seriously as dragons would, otherwise he was pretty certain he would be under assault by now.
The crisis was dealt with. It was time to go back to the house and finally sleep without the wind trying to penetrate into their flesh. So entranced with the promise of good sleep they were, that at first they didn't pay mind to Pebble stretched before the fire.
"What… Pebble? Why are you here?" Hiccup was first to connect the dots for once, dragoness fidgeted at his question, which gave them both a look at the bandage covering her tail.
It is not safe alone. I got into a fight with Boneknapper, I tried to talk but he just chased me out of his territory and he likely thought I was reluctant to leave because I was very slow for a Night Fury. I… I fought him.* A shadow passed over her eyes for a second. *He is… dead, I was bleeding very badly, but a Snaptrapper helped me.* At seeing Toothless's wariness, she continued. *He's in the forest. He isn't sure about entering the village, so he keeps away and inspects the different flocks on Berk.*
Toothless nodded, his gaze lingering on her thrall collar for a second with a cringe, then relayed it to Hiccup. Stoick chose this moment to enter the clan house himself, looked them over, then clamped hand around Hiccup's shoulder and Toothless's neck. "Enough of worrying for you two today, go up and rest." Stoick looked willing to bodily drag them upstairs, so they went, and fell asleep the second they laid down.