CHAPTER 34: Alarm
The words of Alfa Yurlin, the threat of war he promised unless the Wingmaidens ceded Dragon Island to him with a deadline of two days, alarmed the likes of Dagur the Deranged, Heather, Alvin, and especially Atali. Not least because her secret settlement on Dragon Island was now fully exposed to the rest of the Barbaric Archipelago.
Alarms were also rung among the Hairy Hooligans on New Berk, all the way up to Hiccup himself. After recovering from the stress and pressure given to him following his indifference to Yurlin's annexation of Northern Market island, the last thing Hiccup wanted was to once again have to face this dilemma in regards to the Ancients.
This time though, it was far more dangerous with bigger implications. Yurlin was openly threatening war unless he got what he wanted, and he was threatening war against a tribe who, at this point, was a close ally of his following their reunion after so many years.
As dangerous as this was, though, Hiccup was more or less in the same indifference mindset he had when Yurlin boldly annexed the Northern Markets. Dragon Island wasn't an island that particularly belonged to any tribe, and up until now he had no idea the Wingmaidens had long set up their own settlement on the island until being fed back the words of Yurlin's divisive speech earlier today. In the desire to avoid war for the sake of his children and family life, and on the basis of the reasons above, Hiccup once again considered just shrugging his shoulders.
It was midnight, on New Berk. And in what felt like a constant repeat of events, the many tribe Chieftans returned to New Berk shortly following Yurlin's speech, and they'd spent the whole day talking with Hiccup. To them, the time was now to convince Hiccup that this was the biggest crisis facing the vikings since the dragons left for The Hidden World. The Dragon Island crisis, as they termed it, had a black and white title.
Hiccup was tired, he was sleepy, and he really didn't want to have to hear all of this again. New Berk was an island that towered like an asteroid above the seas, rendering it untouchable in terms of safety from other tribes, and he was a dad. The area of the archipelago surrounding Old Berk was a vicinity he had no intention of returning to, and he was sick of the rhetoric of panic and fear being forced into the ears of his kids.
The tribe was once again packed inside the hall, well beyond midnight as Yurlin's speech called for a late night gathering abruptly, which explained why Hiccup was more tired than usual as were a good chunk of the Berkians.
Hiccup once again sat in the middle on the long wooden table on an elevated platform, flanked by his friends and family across it. In front of him were a bunch of tired vikings who still hadn't forgotten Yurlin's move to send his vikings onto Old Berk to militarize it.
Dagur and Heather were sat on the table together, Alvin had his own space, and Atali was sat directly next to Hiccup. She was incredibly alarmed at how Yurlin not only was able to know about her tribe's settlement on Dragon Island, but the divisive rhetoric he used to threaten war. This man wasn't a man to be reasoned with, and she fully understood that.
It was such a serious atmosphere in the hall at the moment that not even Snotlout or Ruffnut and Tuffnut were playing their silly little antics, both verbally and physically. They were sat straight on their chairs, straight faces, looking to Hiccup as if they were themselves seeking assurances. The prospect of war after this long stretch of peace following the dragons leaving ten years ago was a dreadful vision.
Eret was sat on the platform on the table too, with his chin firmly planted onto his palm as his elbow touched the wooden table. He had the expression of someone who was saying with his face 'I told you this would happen'.
"Atali, why on earth did you not tell us you'd built a village on that island?! after all this time?" Dagur demanded to know, as he leaned forward on the table to look at Atali sat next to Hiccup.
"We raised baby Razorwhips for so long, we simply wanted to maintain that aura as close as possible. The island was as dead as the Red Death anyways, I shouldn't have ever had to reveal it. So what?"
"You see, this is where this doesn't make sense - for quite a while now we've been meeting up together, to discuss Yurlin, and given what we know about him at this point, I'd have thought you'd reveal this settlement you've built. It literally doesn't make any sense."
The Hooligans in the hall were watching the exchange between the two tribe leaders. Hiccup was simply looking at the table, letting the exchange happen.
"Do you think I ever had the hindsight to think he'd find out about it?! it was supposed to be a secret and not once did I ever figure he'd somehow discover it. I never thought in this day and age it'd matter!"
"Well I'll tell you this Atali, from woman to woman," said Heather backing up her husband's words as she stood up off her chair, "because NONE of us knew about this, how can we reasonably stand up to Alfa Yurlin when he makes these threats about this? Dragon Island doesn't belong to any tribe, but at the very least you should have told the rest of us about half of your tribe's presence on there the second we started meeting up to talk about Yurlin. But now, we have no solid foundation to stand up to him with about this, because you hadn't told us until we got fed back his speech!"
"Hang on a minute, are you saying that a Chieftan questioning our legitimacy as vikings, because we're women, threatening to slaughter us and demanding that we leave the island to them to take, the island we established our settlement on for our own special and personal purposes, is justified? is that what you're saying?"
Heather was about to reply, but Atali wouldn't let her.
"Because we're not going to leave. We're not going to be scared into giving up land that we have had our settlement on for years at this point. We're not going to be bullied into giving up what we long found years ago shortly after all the dragons left for The Hidden World."
"Again, do you expect us to have a reasonable ground and case to make for standing up against Yurlin, given that you never ever told us you had this settlement on the island?"
"If I have to fight and defend what is rightly ours, then we will. The fact is, Dragon Island was an abandoned big piece of rock with a damaged hill for so long, we just happened to be the finders that gained the right to be called the keepers as a result. We didn't 'steal' the island from anyone, we were the first ones to turn an abandoned island into our own little haven for us to relive our special aura on! I'm not saying Dragon Island is apart of my home island, it isn't. But it's been so long that we've had our settlement on there, I consider it our well-earned territory, and now we're being threatened by a bully madman of a Chieftan to hand it over when they have no right to do that to us!"
There was complete and utter silence in the hall as this exchange between Dagur and Atali happened. The gravity of the situation was realized across the hall given the stunning silence. This was a crisis that had the potential to spill out into a war, and a war that'd make other wars look like practices. The crisis was significantly more dangerous because there were no longer any dragons in the world, and that was something that was gradually starting to be realized.
"So that's that then..." said Alvin, "are we just gonna revert to our old ways over 'ere? war?"
Hiccup turned his attention to Zephyr and Nuffink as the two of them worryingly looked at him. There was a glimpse of fear running rife on their expressions, like something dangerous was coming down the tracks that was on their minds. The talk of an imminent outbreak of war was the precise cause of those expressions.
"Are you all kidding me?!" Valka intervened, as she too stood up off her chair to get the attention of the hall, "look at what we've achieved on this island the last ten years. Hiccup's shown leadership to the scale of his father, and we want to put all of that at risk because of an abandoned island that happened to house the queen of dragons many years ago? an island that nobody even remembered until this young lady here spoke about the settlement her tribe has on there?"
There was a general consensus emerging that there was no real reason for anyone to let this crisis descend into a war - not least because Atali herself had failed to inform ANYONE, even amid the meetings she was having with Dagur and the other tribes to discuss Yurlin, that her tribe had a settlement on there. Plus, Dragon Island was merely a deserted island that had no legitimate tribe that 'owned' it as a home island. It was just an abandoned significant island with a damaged mountain from the Red Death that happened to become the foundation of a small settlement of huts. It wasn't really a home island for any tribe.
Hiccup was warming up to this consensus as he continued to remain silent amid the disagreements and raising of voices.
"I'm sorry, who are you again? I don't seem to remember you being around at all?" Atali said, looking towards Valka.
At that point, an audible gasp from a few of the vikings in the hall could be heard. And Valka had taken that comment from Atali personally.
"I could say the same to you, Atali is it? your tribe prides itself on being protectors, or formerly protectors of Razorwhips, but I spent years among dragons with the king of them all, I lived among them, and I paid a price for it in not seeing my family for so many years...how dare you say such a thing to me?"
"Pipe down everyone, seriously, we ought to take a few steps back 'ere don't you think?" Gobber said, intervening between Valka and Atali.
There was a drift growing evidently in the unity between the Chieftans in the hall, and Hiccup was right in the middle of it all.
"With all due respect Atali, that wasn't called for at all," said Astrid, jumping in on Valka's side, "we're in the middle of a stressful situation right now and you getting personal isn't helping anything, we were just making a broader point."
"And I too have the right to make a point - why should my tribe abandon the settlement we've built on Dragon Island that we built for our own purposes? are you forgetting the kind and generous treatment we gave to him over there?" Atali asked, pointing to Snotlout.
Snotlout simply shrugged his shoulders. He had a great deal of history with the Wingmaiden tribe, having been rescued by them all those years ago when he fell off Hookfang during a stormy weather over the seas.
"I could've left him drowning, had I not been so generous and willing to save a life. And now you're all coming after me in this way? it's been many years ago since I first met you all and initially saved Snotlout over there, but I feel you've forgotten the stuff I did for you back in the day."
Hiccup looked up to the hundreds of Berkians standing in front of him on the lower ground of the hall. As the commotion continued growing and a sense of disunity crept up, Hiccup sighed before looking towards Atali. He'd come to a conclusion in his head.
"And you know something else? I took the liberty of welcoming you all when we were much younger, into the territory of my island, where I offered you food. Why are you selling me out like this?" Atali added, before Hiccup interrupted.
"Guys, just stop."
At the request, everyone on the long table stopped talking and all eyes in the hall were concentrated on Hiccup himself. Zephyr and Nuffink were anxiously watching their dad from behind his chair. He scratched his beard and cleared his throat before opening his mouth.
"Listen. Can we not descend into a back and forth disagreement? Atali, nobody here forgets our past and our history together between our tribes. Look at me and Dagur - at one stage we were fighting each other when I was a younger boy, and now we're the closest we've ever been. I do think...and you can happily say this'll be big coming from me given my reputation as the dumbest viking around when I was a teenager, but I do think it was big mistake for you not to tell us about you having a small village built on Dragon Island."
Hiccup's voice was continuing to be listened to with pure silence, in many ways, respect too.
"I still think ultimately we are overestimating the threat here, if there's any at all. How many times have we heard Yurlin proclaim that he's the antithesis to Drago? don't we want somebody who's determined to fight the Warlords and keep them out of our vicinity and world? and I feel like I have more of a right to say this than anyone - not just me, but our whole tribe, when I say that Dragon Island should have been kept as an island without any vikings on it."
"That island to me is personal, given it's the day I nearly died in defeating the queen of the nest with my best bud, Toothless. We needed to leave the island for what it was, a deserted mountainous rock of history. I just feel like you've backed us into a corner with this, Atali - had you told us especially, we'd not be in nearly as big of a problem as we are now."
Hiccup was fully aware of Yurlin's openly declared intention to go to war over Dragon Island if the Wingmaidens didn't hand it over to them. So much so, that he'd come up with a solution that Yurlin himself had called for quite a long time ago.
"Having said that, as much as I can't be bothered getting involved in these overseas affairs given we have a family and I've got two kids I'm looking to raise in the shadow of my father, I want to try and ensure a compromise is reached. So here's what I'm going to do - Astrid, mum, would you be able to look after the kids for a day or two?"
Hiccup asking that question openly in front of everyone in the hall was surprising.
"Where're you going, Hiccup?" Astrid asked, nodding as did Valka, but curious as to where he was planning on going.
Hiccup turned directly to face the hundreds of Berkians across the hall.
"I'm going to meet Yurlin, Chieftan-to-Chieftan, face-to-face."