Sooo… I see you all enjoyed my cliffhanger.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
*Ahem*
*keeps typing*
Prodigal Son 26
Stoick the Vast stared blankly up at the mottled grey sky. His face was burned, he knew. How badly was anyone's guess, but he could smell burnt hair. Sharp rocks were digging into his back, and his armor felt far heavier than it had a few minutes before. His mind had gone blank for a few seconds. The behemoth's fireball had blasted him a few yards backwards, and the landing had been hard, heavy and fast.
At least he was still alive. Poor Astrid. A Nadder had snatched her away at the last second. How had this all gone so wrong? Was there any limit to the Gods' injustices? Three hundred years of blood and death, and the last bright light manages to help them find their way to the Nest and end the conflict, only to be scooped off the battlefield and murdered.
Then there was the behemoth itself. A child of Loki, or Jormungand perhaps. The devil responsible for all of Berk's strife. Never in his worst nightmares would Stoick have guessed that this demigod was what lay at the heart of Dragon Island. If he had, he would never have agreed to send the fleet here.
The Fleet!
In a flash, Stoick was on his feet. The monster was turning its back on him, lumbering slowly towards the fleeing Vikings. Half of Berk's vessels were in the water now, rowing desperately for the sea stacks, yet none lay beyond the flames of behemoth. The monster let out an angry cry which split the sky and drove the Vikings to their knees. It opened its massive, heavy jaws, collecting breath for another fireball, and Stoick realized there was absolutely nothing he could do but watch helplessly from the shoreline as Berk's entire fleet burned.
Then he heard it. A whistling noise. One which hadn't been heard near Berk in eight? Ten years?
He heard the cries from the Viking longships: "NIGHT FURY! GET DOWN!"
A night fury on top of everything else… Odin's ghost, the gods had no mercy at all. He turned towards the whistling noise, shield and hammer at the ready. Sure enough, a night fury was dropping out of the clouds at incredible speeds. Its demonic black wings were spread wide to slow it down. Thin wisps of white fog had formed at its wingtips, tracing the path of its steep descent. Despite everything, Stoick felt a burst of pleasure. A hated enemy had returned. Perhaps he would be able to snatch some small victory from the jaws of defeat.
The small black dragon was dropping out of the sky at a rapid pace. Four-hundred feet, three-hundred feet, two-hundred…
At one hundred feet, the night fury levelled off, using the power its descent to speed up. It whipped past Stoick making him stumble as he was hit by the powerful gusts of wind which followed it. The dragon itself, however, seemed to ignore him. It sped past him, across the beach towards the behemoth, and towards the boats as well.
"NO!" Stoick yelled, running towards his Viking army, but there was no way to reach them in time; the giant monster was already starting to flame.
A blast of blue fire burst forth from the night fury's mouth, shot across the grey beach, and hit the behemoth in the jaw, detonating with a powerful blast which engulfed the monster's face in blue and white fire. The impact drove the monster sideways, sending it stumbling to its knees. Its own fiery blast went wide of the ships, turning a patch of empty ocean to steam. The night fury slipped upwards, careening back towards the heavens, only to fall backwards into a dive and fire a second, blinding blast at the monster's flank.
Stoick slid to a halt, watching as the creature crashed to its side with an impact which shook the beach and sent waves out as far as the seastacks. The ships were safe, and the last two were pushing slowly off the shoreline. Stoick ran for it, wading through the surf and grasping the hands of Lars Thorston. The warrior who had ordered his crew to wait five more seconds for their chief.
As they pushed away, Stoick turned back to the beach. Loki's child was rising to its feet. The night fury was hanging in the air fifty meters away, waiting patiently for it to rise and answer the challenge.
"Sir." The Thorston captain managed to choke the word out. He pointed at the night fury, and Stoick followed his gaze. Despite the distance they were putting between themselves and the island, and the more the better, he could see a figure crouched on top of the night fury.
There was a figure on top of the night fury! Whomever he was, he had tamed the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.
"What kind of man rides a dragon?" Lars asked.
The behemoth had stretched out its full length across the beach, from spear-length fangs to the house-sized bulb on the end of its tail. If Stoick laid his entire fleet of longships out end to end, he could not have matched it. The giant stared up at the night fury and let out a challenging roar of bestial hatred. The night fury answered with a roar of its own. At the point where the night fury's blast had struck the giant's flank, its thick grey skin was blackened and puckered. Blood seeped out, dribbling down onto the pebbles and forming puddles deep enough to swallow a man's foot.
Stoick understood: The beast could bleed, but no mere mortal man could strike a killing blow. He eyed the tiny, mysterious stranger and said, "Men don't. We've sailed into the realm of gods and monsters. Take us back to Berk."
Lars turned to his crew and began shouting orders. An enormous cone of fire erupted from the titanic dragon's maw, and filled the air around the nest. And there was rider and night fury, dancing on the edges of the blossoming flames. Tantalizingly close, yet always just a few yards out of danger. At every available opportunity, it would answer the monster's fire with a blast of its own, making the giant flinch and stumble. The last glimpse Stoick saw before the sea stacks obscured his view was of the night fury teasing and dancing out of reach, and of the Behemoth unfolding a tremendous pair of tattered wings.
Astrid watched from high above as the monstrous leviathan took off into the sky, its massive wings blasting layers of sand, and pebbles right off the beach. It seemed an impossibility that a beast that massive could get into the sky, yet rising it was, pumping itself further into the air with each powerful wingbeat, and giving chase to the tiny black figure atop the night fury.
Directly below her, Astrid could see Berk's fleet, winding their way ship by ship out of the sea stacks and towards the open sea. The swarm of metal-stealing pests had dissipated, likely fled when the rest of the nest took off. Berk would see itself safely home. The only issue was buying them the time to get away from this indomitable monster and its deadly spouts of fire.
When it rose into the air, Astrid had expected Hiccup to flee. To fly for the safety of the sea stacks and let it chase him, but he didn't. The leviathan poured more fire into the sky, and there was Hiccup and his night fury, winding easily around the gigantic coils and tongues of flame. They were teasing it, goading the creature, passing just beyond the reach of its flames and gnashing jaws, yet always coming back, brushing it with a tail, or clawing at its eyes.
She realized he was keeping it occupied. Buying time for Berk's fleet to make it to safety.
The behemoth paused in its assault to take a breath, and she watched in shock as man and night fury rushed headlong towards the beast's gaping maw. The leviathan saw the move, and stretched its neck out, snapping its jaws shut- on empty air!
Astrid felt a thrill as she realized boy and dragon had parted. Hiccup was running along the monster's back while his dragon flew neatly underneath the behemoth's clamped jaws and slipped between its front legs, spinning to claw it its belly.
Hiccup leapt off the beast's back and out into the open air, just as Astrid had the day she had learned to trust Stormfly, and like Stormfly, the night fury rose to meet him. The rejoined and drifted lazily towards the mountain, easily dodging a swipe by the creature's bulbous tail. Hiccup stood in his stirrups and turned back to watch the results of his incredible stunt, just as she was doing from her safe vantage point in the skies above.
The leviathan had attempted to match its opponents' agility, and that was its mistake. Instead of trusting in its armored hide, it had grown angry enough to follow wherever its tormenters chose to go. After failing to crush the night fury in its jaws, it had attempted to turn backwards and bite the human running across its back. The three combatants had risen nearly a hundred and fifty meters above sea level at that point. In a twisted parody of the night fury's incredible agility, the slow, cantankerous leviathan, already committed to catching the human running across its back, tried to spin head over tail in mid-air to catch its prey. While its wings could lift it and keep it airborne for long, slow glides, or gentle banking from side to side, they certainly couldn't keep the cumbersome creature airborne through such a maneuver.
It let out a panicked bellow, eyes bulging comically as it crashed back down onto the beach, shaking the island. Further from shore, a couple of sea stacks collapsed and a wave rocked Berk's fleet, throwing once ship against a nearby rock face. Astrid desperately wanted to dive down and report the news. She wanted to reassure Stoick, to tell him his son had returned from the dead, to tell him that the monster which had threatened to finish them for good was now lying in a whining, crumpled heap at the base of the black spire, but she couldn't. The moment they spotted a Nadder within shooting range, Astrid and Stormfly would both be peppered with arrows. No, this required a softer, more delicate touch. There was nothing she could do right now. She needed Fishlegs.
On the beach, the leviathan was uncoiling. The night fury circled from a safe distance, screeching and flitting from side to side, teasing the giant monster. The behemoth let out an answering call of its own, yet it limped -limped!- back towards its cave, letting out rumbling, painful grunts. The night fury waited until its bulbous tail had dragged a long trough up the beach, over the piled stones, and vanished into the darkness before they finally gave up the chase. The duo drifted off towards the sea stacks, not following Berk's fleet directly, but rather drifting into an open area, likely for some fresh air and a more relaxed flight after the battle.
With rising shame, she realized she could have helped them. She and Stormfly had sat and watched through the entire engagement as Hiccup handled the actual fighting. Yet there were several reasons for the hesitation. The first, of course, was her shock at seeing the Viking alive.
It was one thing to wander out to Raven Point on a foggy, dew-filled morning to find an ancient rotting shield, an old fire pit, and some leather saddles. It was one thing to read those descriptions in Hiccup's old journal. As vivid as the events he painted were, there was a world of difference between understanding intellectually what he had done, and seeing it in practice.
After eight years believing he was dead, watching Hiccup, shift and move in the saddle, rise and fall, steady himself and glide with his dragon, watching everything she had learned about him confirmed in one exhilarating athletic display, seeing him alive, and riding a night fury…it was enough to stop her in her tracks.
Astrid was overwhelmed with her own emotions. Happiness at finding him alive, anger at his absence, gratitude for his timely reappearance, and sympathy for the plight he had found himself in so long ago. She felt particularly dazzled by the display of arial finesse.
Riding Stormfly was an exhilarating experience, and Astrid had been so proud of herself merely for overcoming her own prejudices and mounting the dragon in the first place, but she was limited in what she could do with the Nadder. They could glide in straight lines easily, and she could handle gentle banks from side to side, but she had yet to grow used to the swooping sensation which occurred whenever Stormfly descended, and when the Nadder beat her wings, or dove towards the sea at any speed, it was all Astrid could do just to stop herself from falling off.
Hiccup and his dragon had moved differently in the air. Watching Hiccup's dives, flips, rolls, and pinpoint turns; watching the way he and his dragon rode the air currents, and drifted easily over and round the fire and turbulence of the larger dragon, put her modest skills to shame. They could read the air together. Astrid could ride a dragon, Hiccup flew with his.
She realized she had lost sight of him in the shadows of the sea stacks, and she pushed Stormfly's spines upwards, pointing the Nadder down towards the sea. They swooped down low, towards the ocean, searching the shadows for any sign of the night fury and his wayward rider.
Stormfly sniffed, and turned her eyes upwards. Astrid followed her dragon's attentions, and spotted the black shape some distance ahead of them, and rising rapidly into the clouds. He was heading in Berk's general direction, though giving the Berk fleet, which had made it through the mist and into open water, a wide berth.
Stormfly's attention was focused on the tiny black speck which floated higher and higher, catching some invisible breeze. Astrid felt thankful that her new friend was a tracking dragon. "Let's follow him, girl!"
They had run a headcount across the fleet. Astrid Hofferson was the only casualty. Weapons and hardware, including the catapults they left behind, were missing, and they were all shaken by the experience, but Berk's fleet had reached the nest and come back almost completely intact. The only thing which stunned everyone more than this startling revelation was just how easily things all could have turned out differently.
The story of the night fury rider had spread across the fleet. Those not keeping a lookout for the monster were engaged in wild, rampant speculation about the nature of the mysterious being who had tamed the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Some said the rider was a demi-god of some kind. Some said it was a demon. Still more thought it was the ghost of one of Berk's ancestors, arisen to help them in their time of need. What confused them most was the fact that the stranger had clearly made the choice to save their lives. It was a sign from the gods, for sure, but what sort of sign? After all, if the Gods truly favored them, they wouldn't have forced them into battle with that horrible beast.
The behemoth which had crawled out from under the mountain was the subject of its own discussion. Was it even a dragon, or something worse? After all, dragons didn't run from other dragons, right? Dragons did not normally grow that large, either, and a beast like that had never been mentioned anywhere in Bork's books.
Despite the fact they had sailed out with all limbs intact, this did not feel like a victory. In fact the warriors of Berk's fleet felt less sure than ever before about their place in the world. The horrible, frightening reality of their precarious situation had lumbered out of the mountain and damned near burnt them all to ashes.
Even the most foolish of them realized that attacking the nest was not an option anymore. Now that they knew what horrors dwelt within it, it was likely there would never be another expedition. But what options did that leave them? The dragons would no doubt continue to hound them, but now even the faintest hope of defeating them had faded, leaving a desperate hollowness in their souls.
A watch had been kept on the skies behind them. The bellows and roars of the leviathan could be heard for some time, and the fog flashed with light as the two creatures did battle. The Hooligan warriors did not actually relax until almost half an hour after Helheim's Gate slid under the horizon. They had caught a steady wind, which was carrying them home, but none of them had any idea what on earth they would say upon reuniting with their no doubt joyful families.
Even if they had escaped this battle, Berk had lost the war.
Astrid swore quietly to herself; she had lost him again! The sky had filled with fluffy pink clouds, and the wind whistled gently past, tugging her hair loose from its braid. She pulled down on Stomfly's spiny frill and leaned backwards, drawing them both to a halt. They were high above the ocean now. Berk was in sight, but by dragonflight it looked to be another ten minutes away. They had long since left the fleet behind. Even at his slowest pace, the night fury was hell to keep up with
She searched the empty sky for that telltale black silhouette, but couldn't find it. He had been right in front of her! A fair distance ahead, it was true, but still, right in front. She had felt a fair amount of disappointment, when he didn't immediately seek her out. He had seen her riding, after all. She could only guess at the number of questions he had for her; matched only by the thorough grilling she intended to give him.
Where had he been? Why did he go? Why did he come back? When had he learned to fly like that? Astrid wanted a closer look at his… everything, actually. His night fury, his strange leather armor which she barely had a chance to glimpse up close, his helmet, his weapons and belongings, if he had them. Not to mention Hiccup himself. It was difficult to judge while there was so much going on, but she was pretty sure he had grown taller. She had seen his sharp green eyes widen beneath his helmet, and she wondered what he looked like underneath. What had changed? What had stayed the same? Why had he come back? She kept replaying that vital moment, that first sight of him, standing in his saddle, leaning back against the wind, guiding his night fury down into the deadly battle, with one hand free so he could turn back to look at her. She was searching the moment repeatedly for any clues it could offer her about him, and she was taken aback by his apparent lack of interest in her.
Astrid heard a dragon call from somewhere behind them. Stormfly reacted before she did, and turned them both, forcing Astrid to hang on for dear life. A black dart vanished behind a cloud. Astrid didn't even have to ask; Stormfly darted after it immediately, chittering in annoyance.
They reached the spot and once again, could find nothing but clear skies.
A cry rang out below them, and the night fury slipped underneath another cloud. Stormfly made to follow, but this time Astrid pulled her up, and directed her over top of the cloud, trying to intercept Hiccup on the other side, yet when they arrived there, the sky was once again empty.
They were playing with her, she realized, testing her abilities the way an opponent would before a sparring session, or a partner would before a dance.
Another call, this time from above, and the night fury's shadow blocked the sunlight for a moment, and passed above the clouds in a rising line. It let out another roar as it sped up slightly.
Astrid glared up at it, and then grinned. "He wants to play games, girl. Let's beat him! Up! Up!"
The Nadder obeyed, taking both of them up through the clouds on an intercept course with the night fury, whipping back and forth around cloud formations. Ahead of them, the Night fury vanished once again into a cluster of feathery white clouds.
"Stop!" Astrid hissed, pulling on the Nadder's spines as she usually did. Stormfly obeyed and they drifted to a halt, watching the cluster carefully. Astrid had made sure to park them behind their own cloud formation, keeping her Nadder as hidden as she could.
Sure enough, the Night fury appeared out the bottom of the cluster, using the darkness of the ocean waves to keep its black hide from contrasting with the pale blue sky. It passed beneath them and began to rise, preparing to circle around and tease from a different direction.
"Now girl, but quietly!" Stormfly kicked into gear, throwing them into an uncomfortably steep dive, gaining ground on the languid night fury.
"Gotcha!" Astrid cheered as they reached their opponent. Her triumphant enthusiasm was dampened the moment she realized that Hiccup's saddle was empty. Confusion and worry erupted in the pit of her stomach. Had he been wounded in the battle?
At that same moment, she heard a faint leathery flapping noise a few meters from her right ear.
"Hi there!" Hiccup's voice was recognizable, but different. Deeper, and somewhat muffled by his helmet.
Astrid turned, and her jaw went slack.
Hiccup was on his back, legs cross, arms spread. He was gliding lazily through the air on leather wings of his own creation. The thin brown membranes stretched from his ankles to his shoulders and out to his wrists.
"You're Astrid Hofferson, right?" he asked cheerfully.
She nodded numbly, and leaned down to look underneath him. A spiny frill ran the length of his back, keeping him centered and balanced in the air the way a keel would on a boat.
Gods… this was… unnatural. Something out of a mushroom-fueled dream.
"What in Midgard are you doing on a dragon?" he asked, green eyes giving her and Stormfly a thorough examination. "I thought you hated them."
"What am I…?" she managed weakly. The night fury had silently taken up position on her other side. The boys were now flying in formation with Stormfly. Astrid swallowed her shock and blurted out, "What do you mean what am I doing on a dragon? What are you doing off a dragon?"
"Are you good at flying?" He asked, his voice care-free and easy.
Astrid stuck out her chin. "Good enough!"
"Excellent." Hiccup craned his neck upwards to look over Stormfly's mouth at Toothless. "I need a pickup, bud."
To Astrid's shock the black dragon tipped a wing and, in mid-flight, rolled right over her head, making her duck. At the same moment, Hiccup reached up to his dragon and grabbed a pair of handles he had built into Toothless' saddle. There was a satisfying clicking noise as the partners joined together. Still hanging upside down, Hiccup crouched against Toothless' back. They began to drift sideways and down towards the ocean. The last words Astrid heard before the night fury fell into an almost vertical dive towards the distant blue waves were: "Are you coming, or what?"
Stormfly chirped eagerly, watching their rapid descent. She tilted her head and gave Astrid a pleading look. She could hear Hiccup's exuberant whooping echo across the ocean.
The boys levelled out just as they reached the water. The Night fury's tail slapped the surface as they shot forwards.
"If I fall, you catch me." Astrid ordered. "Understand, girl? I don't want to-Ahhhhhhhh!"
Stormfly followed the night fury, tucking in her wings and putting woman and dragon into freefall. "Stormfly! Stormfly!" Astrid's grip began to slip, and she felt herself floating free of her dragon. "STORMFLY!"
The Nadder tilted her head slightly, noticed what was happening to her rider, and opened her wings just enough to slow herself down a little and let Astrid catch up. Fighting against her fear and nausea, Astrid leaned forward and grabbed the Nadder's wing joints; it was the only place to grip.
Ahead of her, through watering eyes, she could see the night fury and its rider weaving back and forth through the ocean waves, right into a pod of thunderdrums, one of which broke the surface. Without slowing down, man and dragon curled up and rolled, passing underneath its wing as it reached the apex of its breach. Roaring, it slammed into the water behind them, throwing up a cloud of sea foam.
She pulled Stormfly out of their dive, and they drifted lower at a much shallower incline, catching up with Hiccup, but still several hundred meters behind him. Then it was up, up, up. Both dragons beat their wings as Toothless led them soaring back into the clouds, ducking, spinning, and weaving through the clusters, passing close enough to reach out and touch each feathery formation.
Astrid and Stormfly followed, keeping pace as best they could. She even tried to get ahead of Hiccup, using different loops and passing straight through the pleasant damp clouds in order to gain ground while he dilly-dallied around their edges, but she and Stormfly were outmatched in speed, experience and equipment. It rapidly became obvious just how much more one could do with a saddle. Tighter turns and faster movement. Astrid resolved to make herself one, somehow.
There was a boundless joy to their movements as they chased each other through the clouds, whooping and hollering and laughing and chasing one another. Flirting with danger was a large element; after all, they were in a place man was not supposed to be. Astrid loved the adrenaline rushes which accompanied tight banks and steep dives.
More than that, she found herself enamored by the way Berk, and the ocean looked from that height, like a painting. A world as far from her as the moon. She felt entirely free. Free of the politics and the raids and the dreariness and the danger. The sky was a different world entirely. A boundless one, and she realized that all of this which was just starting to dawn on her, Hiccup had already realized. He had been living this way, this free, for eight years. This was his kingdom.
No wonder he had taken the dragon and fled. No man could give up this feeling. Not for anything in the other world of the tiny village on that distant island.
They landed in the Cove, circling around the far side of Berk first, to prevent anyone from seeing them. With barely a whisper, the night fury landed on a section of soft green grass. The springy youth dismounted immediately, and began to undo the myriad straps which held the saddle on.
Astrid landed a few meters away and patted Stormfly on the nose. "There's a good girl, Stormfly!" Her dragon chirped a response and settled onto the ground, tired out by the long, adventurous flight. Astrid slipped off of her dragon's back and winced; her shoulders, legs and core were all aching like mad. She still hadn't grown used to the muscles involved in flying. Add to that the stress of everything which had happened at the nest, and she felt exhausted, mind and body.
The night fury had been released from his saddle, and the tailfin assembly as well. For the first time, Astrid could appreciate the dragon's sleek black shape, and the way light played across his beautiful black scales, oily rainbows forming and reforming with every slight move. The beast was purring contentedly, its green eyes shut. Like Stormfly, it too was exhausted.
Hiccup was waiting for her, and as she dismounted she finally got a decent look at him. His armor was made of hardened leather, scratched and well-worn. Buckles and straps of all sizes criss-crossed his chest, serving gods only knew what purpose. He had gained about half a foot on her in height, and though he was still thin and lanky, eight years of riding had given him a lean physique. He said, "I suppose I should introduce myse-"
"Hiccup Haddock."
Hiccup froze. Beneath his mask, his eyes widened. "Ah…"
She waited, glaring at him.
"You already know who I am, then?"
"Yep."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well… this complicates things."
"Yes. Yes it does."
"I had this whole amazing reveal planned out and everything…"
"Too bad." All her frustrations bubbled up at that moment. Astrid marched forward and, without another word, hit him in the stomach as hard as she could, sinking her fist deep into his chest. Hiccup stumbled backwards and sank to his knees before her, hiccupping and groaning and clutching his abdomen.
"I forgot how much I missed the Viking way of doing things." He wheezed, falling on all fours. After a few frantic breaths, he managed, "Ow! A punch in the stomach means both hello and goodbye in Berkian."
"Have you ever tried not being a smartass?" Astrid inquired tartly.
"Have you ever tried being less aggressive? Sometimes words can solve problems. It's a shocking suggestion, I know," he panted weakly "But give it some thought."
"Shut your mouth, or I'll punch you again!"
"Toothless, a little help, bud?" Behind him, the dragon cracked an eye open, huffed in exasperation, and shifted to face away from them.
"Useless reptile." Hiccup choked bitterly, "Ohhhh… I think I'm going to puke."
"Good!" Astrid stalked away, opening and closing her fists
"Ohhhh… Gods… why would you do that?"
"I felt like it."
"'Listen to your heart' is great advice for romantic sops, not violent sociopaths."
"It's been eight years!" she snarled, "Eight years! We've been fighting and dying, and losing more and more to the raids every season. Eight years you had the answer and did nothing! Everyone thinks you're dead, and you just wander back into our lives like it's no big deal? Just last week I watched Sigerich Hrolfson get burned to death by a Nightmare!"
"I didn't know Sigerich Hrolfson."
"You wouldn't!" Astrid bellowed angrily, "He was only seven years old! I don't know where in the fucking world you were, but time didn't pause here on Berk! We're not even the next generation anymore. Fishlegs has a kid, Gobber retired, and I'm teaching in the kill ring. Life went on. People have died, idiot. Whatever your plan was, you don't get to just wander back and save us all! Not without getting punched!"
Hiccup was on his knees, hunched over slightly with his arms wrapped loosely around his torso. He stared up at her. "Gobber retired?"
"From teaching. One of his students died, so he quit. He's still the town's blacksmith."
Hiccup hung his head. "Alright. I understand. I'm sorry."
"Thank you." She replied, breathing hard.
"May I get up now?"
"So long as you keep your mouth shut."
He struggled to his feet, and let out a final huff.
She crossed her arms. "Take your helmet off. I'm tired of talking to a mask!"
"Oh," He slapped his helmet's forehead with a clang, "Right!"
It took a breathless second for him to reach up and swipe the helmet from his head, running a hand through his hair as he did so. Despite her annoyance, when he looked up and smiled at her something foreign and uncomfortable did a summersault in her lower regions. She took a few seconds to absorb the sight before her, trying to sort what she remembered of him from what she had expected, and compare it to reality.
What before had been an overgrown mop had transformed into a feathered auburn mane which hung smartly over dark brows and sharp green eyes. The freckles which had infested his face in youth had all but faded. The baby fat was gone as well, leaving an angular chin, lightly dusted with five o'clock shadow. There was a cut on his cheek. A thin white scar made by sword, or spear perhaps. The wry smile had stayed, though it was tempered and accented by adult experience.
All in all, it was…
He was…
Astrid stared, shocked by the difference. "Hiccup Haddock?"
"Thought you said you already figured that one out." The wry grin was back again and- oh. That was good. Or maybe not. Astrid couldn't tell, but it was doing strange things to her insides. Where the hell had the snide, awkward fishbone gone?
"Hiccup Haddock?"
"That's right!" He gave her a thumbs up.
"Hiccup Haddock?"
"Ooohkay." He gave her a careful examination with those brilliant green eyes. "I'm going to be over there." He pointed with both hands towards the pool at the centre of the cove. "When you can remember words that aren't my name, let me know." With that declaration, he ambled over to the pool, scooped up a flat stone, and skipped it across the water.
"Hiccup Haddock?"
He stayed quiet, skipping stones with one hand, and rubbing his sore stomach with the other. She circled, coming to rest on the shoreline a few meters away. He was frowning, deep in thought.
She picked up a stone and flicked it at his head.
"Ow!" he turned and glared at her, rubbing the tender spot behind his ear.
"What was your plan?" she asked.
"My plan? My plan was to come back to Berk, hang around quietly until I could figure out what was going on, and then… make a plan."
"Nothing past that?" she pointed at the dozing night fury. "Where does Toothless fit in?"
"I don't know yet. I'm going to make things better. I'm just not sure how to go about it."
"We could start by killing that thing at the nest."
"The alpha." He nodded.
"Yeah… wait!" Astrid turned on him furiously, "You knew about it?"
"It called Toothless back to the nest the day we left." Hiccup said. "I saw it there. It lives in the volcano itself. The dragons bring in food to feed it."
"Like a beehive? They're the workers, and it's the queen?"
"Sort of."
"And you knew. And you didn't tell us. You just took off?"
Hiccup took a step back. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Oh, Gee, I don't know… go find your dad and tell him?"
"No!" he shot back, "You guys would have killed Toothless!"
"You discovered the dragon's nest!" Astrid spluttered, dumbfounded, "The thing we've been hunting for since Vikings first sailed here, and you just ran? You just kept it a secret? To protect your pet dragon? Are you serious?"
"Yes." He replied bluntly. He turned back to the pool.
Astrid stared at him in shock. She turned away. Toothless and Stormfly were both curled up on the grass. She would have thought they were fast asleep, but Toothless' ear flaps were pointed straight up in the air, twitching with every sound. He looked like a giant kitten. Stormfly was furled in a tight ball with her nose pressed up against her bottom. Both of them seemed completely at ease. They trusted their riders implicitly.
She recalled the moment on that forgotten spit of sand, when she had the opportunity to slit Stormfly's throat, and she hadn't. She remembered just a few hours ago when she had refused to tell Stoick his son was alive, because it meant revealing Stormfly, and she knew what would happen. Hiccup's snide comments echoed in her ears: I forgot how much I missed the Viking way of doing things. A punch in the stomach means both hello and goodbye in Berkian. He really did see them as barbarians. Simple problems, simple solutions. Simple people. Brute force ruled the day. There was no subtlety, no room for third options. The war was an 'Us or Them' affair, and even if Hiccup had flown back with every good intention of helping them, it would mean his dragon's death, and quite possibly him being declared a clanless outcast. They certainly wouldn't listen to him.
Befriend dragons…The true solution to Berk's problem had been right there. Not just in front of him, but in front of all of them as well, and he was the only one who had seen it. The rest of Berk had flatly refused to, and they would have reviled and exiled anyone who suggested it. The grave the Hooligan tribe lay in was, at least in part, one they had dug themselves.
"Fine." She said. "I get it. But if you want to help now, you'll need a plan."
"I'm not going to rush into anything." He replied seriously. "I need to know what's going on."
"You'll need to talk to Fishlegs."
Whew. This one was a looooong time coming. Hope you all are enjoying.
Oh, and I was wondering: Should I put a proper cover image in place instead of my little Commander Keen icon, or should I just leave it be? I can't draw for crap, but there's a lot of good artists out there, and a ton of screenshots. What do you guys think?
For the Fallout fans, yes, Mutatis Mutandis is still going. Slowly but surely.
Finally, Midoriko-sama has updated her story several times since I last mentioned it. Please go give it a read.