Chapter Text
“What happened?” The other riders ran over to Hiccup, shocked that he hadn’t won.
“Why in the world did you move back like that?” Dagur asked, his arms folded. “That cost you the game!”
“She bluffed,” Hiccup replied simply, shrugging. “I thought she was giving away her next move, but she was actually doing it just to make me do what she wanted.”
“Did you at least find out her battle strategies?” Astrid pressed.
A smile spread across Hiccup’s disappointed face. “That is the only thing that worked.”
“Enlighten us, then.” Heather encouraged not so sweetly.
Hiccup plopped down in a chair, picking up Catia’s Shield Maiden, turning it over in his palm. “She’s an actress,” he started, looking up. “She makes you believe what she wants you to by acting. She wanted me to move my piece back, so she acted like moving it forward was a bad move. It was subtle, very subtle, but I thought it was a natural reaction to what I was doing, and worked with it.
“She also saved her Shield Maiden up until the very end, when it would do the most damage. She’s patient. She’ll wait until just the right moment to spring something on you that you could never avoid. She was willing to give up almost all of her pieces just to trick me. She’s not one to make an impulsive move that will get her into trouble. She will wait for the right time, and if she wants to speed the process up, she does a little acting to get you where she wants you.”
“Either that or she just put on another fake persona to make you think that’s how she roles.” Astrid put in skeptically. “My mother always used to tell me never to trust someone with fake tears. Meaning that if that someone could act well enough to have fake tears, they could probably make you believe anything else, too. If Catia could make you think she was naturally giving away her next move, that meant she’s smart enough to know what you would do, have enough strategic skills to counter it, and bluff her way to winning. You can’t trust someone like that, Hiccup.”
Hiccup was about to reply, but Tuffnut cut him off. “Uh, guys? This chest is full of rocks. Didn’t we promise Catia gold?”
Fishlegs groaned. “Yes, Tuffnut, we promised her gold. It just so happens, however, that we don’t have any gold, because Viggo has it all.”
“Well, you guys are lucky she didn’t want it.” Ruffnut snickered at her brother’s answer.
“Which poses another problem,” Heather put in, trying to turn the conversation to something more serious. “If she decides that she wants the gold, it’s rightfully hers. She won, and if she comes back looking for it, we’ve got to have something to give her.”
Hiccup sighed, setting the piece down on the table. “I know. But we don’t have any gold. Berk doesn’t have any gold.”
“Well, then,” Snotlout put in smugly, “you should probably stop promising it to people or we are going to end up owing them our heads!”
“Calm down, Snotlout,” Astrid told him dryly. “With a head like yours, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Heather high-fived her, and Snotlout slouched out of the clubhouse, muttering about how he would get Astrid back. The twins continued on about whose head was most important, until Fishlegs silenced them. Heather left to start on dinner, and Astrid tagged along. Hiccup and Dagur were eventually left alone, silently pondering the previous events.
“So,” Dagur started, breaking the silence. “What are you going to do now?”
Hiccup shrugged halfheartedly. “I don’t really know.”
“You mean you don’t have a plan?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Wow,” Dagur shook his head. “I bet that’s a nice blow to your pride. All that humiliation of losing the game and now you don’t even have a plan. Not to mention you were beaten by a girl. I mean, you might have an excuse if I had beaten you, but a girl? What are the odds, am I right? Who would’ve thought she’d even know how to play Maces and Talons, much less beat you at it?”
“Thank you for summing that up.”
“Anytime, brother.”
“Dagur, do you know what sarcasm is?”
“Your favorite means of communication?”
Hiccup scowled at him. “I’m not that sarcastic.”
“I can sum you up in two words. One of them is sarcastic.”
“And the other?”
“Predictable.”
“I should have known.”
“It’s true, though. But by predictable, I mean loyal. You never leave your friends, and I of course, learned to use that against you. Here’s the deal, Hiccup. Everyone is predictable in some way. Viggo is predictable in the sense that he is always a few steps ahead of us, and that he is a game player. Ryker always wants a fight. You can always predict something about anyone.”
“If you know something about them and they don’t act like someone totally different every time you see them.” Hiccup’s shoulders slumped and he propped his head up in his palm.
“Come on, Hiccup. You’re smart. What do know about Catia?”
“Nothing!”
“Sometimes you’ve got to think like the bad guy to beat the bad guy. You do know some things.”
Hiccup drew in a deep breath, leaning back in his chair, thinking hard. “Well, she never wants to take on more than a few people at a time. She didn’t mind us being with her until more people showed up.”
“Good! Now, how did she get you to leave?”
“She threatened to kill Astrid.”
Dagur squeezed the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “Analyze that.”
“I guess she knew that we would never put Astrid in danger and used her as leverage. Come to think of it, she’s used a lot of stuff as leverage.”
“There you go!” Dagur encouraged. “What else do you know?”
“I already know she bluffs a lot, and is pretty good at brain-play. I think she speaks more than one language, so she’s obviously smart.”
“So, with that knowledge, what kind of plan do you think you need?”
Hiccup sat for a moment, then jumped up. “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder as he ran out the door.
“I’m going to guess the plan that just popped into your head,” Dagur muttered with a chuckle.
. . .
Hiccup rushed back to the clubhouse, sure that his plan would work perfectly. The others were gathered around the table eating dinner when he ran in.
“Guys,” he called ecstatically, “I’ve got a plan!”
“I think you’ll have to change it,” Astrid told him seriously. “Catia left a message.”
Hiccup’s face fell. “What does it say?”
“We don’t know yet,” Fishlegs muttered, scribbling something down on a piece of paper. “She wrote it in two different languages, alternating between Gaelic and Latin every other word.”
“What?” Hiccup walked around the table leaning aver Fishlegs’ shoulder to see what he was doing. Spread across the table were several charts and a few books on the languages. He was in the middle of conjugating a word to figure out what tense it was in.
“Have you found what ‘vinet’ means yet?” Fishlegs asked Heather, who was scouring a book next to him.
“No,” she muttered, turning the page. “These words are anything but alphabetized.”
“Why in the world would she bother putting every other word in a different language?” Hiccup asked looking over the note, realizing that the alphabet changed with each word as well as the language.
“I don’t know,” Fishlegs replied, flipping back a few pages in one of his books. “It seems odd that she would take the time to do that, but what’s even more amazing is that I haven’t found a single mistake in her translation yet. The conjugation is flawless, even switching back and forth between the two. She obviously knows both languages well.”
“Got it!” Heather exclaimed suddenly. “It means came or went.”
“And going by the ending of the word, I think it’s safe to say it means ‘come’ in this case.” Fishlegs finished his translation within a few minutes and passed the paper to Hiccup.
“To whom it may concern,” Hiccup read, “You have proposed a competition to me, and now I have one for you. Send your leader to me; I have a test for him. If he passes, there will be a weighty reward. Come, alone, before nightfall if you accept the challenge. But know if you do not, there will be consequences.”
“I wonder what she wants,” Astrid wondered aloud, holding her hand out for the message. Hiccup passed it to her, and she read it over again.
“Are you going to accept?” Fishlegs questioned.
“She didn’t give me much of a choice,” Hiccup shrugged, sighing. “If I don’t she still has Toothless, and it is very likely that he has something to do with the ‘consequences.’”
“Then you better get going,” Heather urged, glancing outside. “There’s only a few hours of sunlight left.”
Hiccup nodded grabbing one of her yak chops off the table, his mouth watering at the smell.
“And be careful,” Astrid warned. “Catia is very flaky. Keep your distance.”
“Don’t worry,” he smiled, reaching back across the table for a loaf of bread. “I don’t plan on getting any closer than I have to.”
. . .
Hiccup swallowed as Catia’s island came into view. The sun was just starting to set as he landed on the beach with Windshear. It had been decided that he should ride her since she didn’t trust Catia at all and could easily free him from anything Catia might try to imprison him with.
The Razorwhip snarled as Catia came into view, her hair lose and wearing nothing more than the simple, sleeveless gray dress. She walked steadily toward him, her confident stride showing she was entirely fearless.
Hiccup was sure she could see the dagger hidden under his leather armor. Not that it would matter if she saw it; she could outfight him any day. She could outfight his dad.
“You came,” Catia said, looking him over, appearing impressed.
“Was I not supposed to?” He asked, hoping she would speed up the process.
“Oh, yes, you were. I just wasn’t expecting you to. You see, the message was the test. I wrote it in one of the most complicated ways I thought you could solve.”
“Are you saying I passed?” Hiccup furrowed his eyebrows, confused, as he really hadn’t done much.
“Yes,” Catia answered matter-of-factly. “On one condition.”
“And that is?”
Catia stared him straight in the eyes, pure pleading showing in hers. “Promise that you will tell no one of my whereabouts.”
“That’s it?”
“You don’t understand how important this is!” she snapped, her voice cracking with emotion. “You must tell no one!”
“Deal. Your location will not be shared.” Hiccup placed a hand on Windshear’s neck as the dragon growled at Catia’s passion.
“Do I have your word on that?”
“I wouldn’t have said ‘deal’ if I didn’t mean it.”
“Very well. Here is your reward.” Catia turned to face the trees, whistling. Two Night Furies came barreling out, but Hiccup’s brief excitement was cut short as he realized that the two were identical in every way. Everything down to the red prosthetic tail. He couldn’t even figure out which one was Toothless until the dragon ran up to him, his tongue out and begging for attention.
Hiccup eagerly greeted his friend, but was so confused by the Night Fury look alike he could only stare at Catia and the dragon next to her, asking for an explanation. “I thought Shifty was a-”
“Gronkle?” Catia finished for him, smiling slightly at his expression. “Yes, she did look like a Gronkle. Shifty is a Mockingwing. They were bred by hunters centuries ago in the hopes of creating a dragon that could recreate other breeds for them. Mockingwings are cross between Changewings and a much less known dragon, the Imitator, though it is now extinct.” Catia paused to stroke Shifty’s head, the dragon purring and leaning into her, then bounded over to Windshear and started sniffing every inch of the Razorwhip’s body.
“The Mockingwing is named for its primary defense,” Catia went on. “They mimic, or ‘mock,’ other species of dragons. Mockingwings, like Imitators, lay their eggs in the nest of another dragon. The only time a Mockingwing is seen in its regular form is at birth, and the first dragon it learns to mock is its surrogate mother. Shifty can contort her body to look like almost any other dragon her size. Mockingwings have cartilage instead of bones, and millions of tiny air pockets in her skin that can expand to make her look bigger or have the lumpy effect like a Gronkle.”
Hiccup watched curiously as Shifty closed her tail fins so close together they could hardly be seen. Her tail stared to elongate, growing thinner and spines stood up and into place. Short spikes on the leading edges of her wings appeared and two of her four toes on each paw retracted. Shifty’s eyes slowly changed from yellow to green, a thick eyelid shielding them. A horn began to form on her nose; the rest of her head elongating. She finally achieved the appearance of a black Razorwhip, and she nosed along her body, checking back and forth between herself and Windshear to see how she looked.
Apparently realizing that she was a different color, Shifty grunted and her skin, which was really teeny tiny scales, began to change. A metallic silver began to take over the black, almost as if someone had put a drop of paint into a cup of water, and the color was spreading throughout the liquid.
Hiccup was amazed at the Mockingwing’s abilities, but as much as he wanted to learn more, but wanted to get away before Catia freaked out. “I should be leaving,” he told her solemnly, preparing to mount his dragon.
“Before you do,” Catia said, her tone stopping him, “I would like that gold you promised. I have given you part of the prize, and I expect to have the other part in return.”
Hiccup’s face fell and his palms grew sweaty. He opened his mouth to give her a reply, but Catia just laughed softly and shook her head. “I know you don’t have any gold. I’m just messing with you.”
“What?” Hiccup’s genuine shock betrayed him; now she knew he didn’t have gold.
“Unless Berk is the richest nation in the archipelago, Viggo had all of your gold.”
“Had?” Could he really have spent it already?
Catia motioned for him to stay put and ran up to her hut. Several minutes passed, but she returned carrying a large chest with the Berk crest. She reached him and opened the top, revealing all of Berk’s gold—every last piece.
“I stole it from Viggo,” Catia explained seeing the look on Hiccup’s face. “But I have no use for it here. The gold is rightfully yours. Take it.”
Confused, Hiccup thanked her curtly, failing to return her brief smile. He mounted his dragon and set off, Windshear trailing behind; he worried Catia might be setting him up. It seemed so strange that she switched back and forth between sweet and savage so easily. Everything he thought he had learned about her seemed wrong now. He knew what Astrid had said about fake tears must be true, but what about fake kindness? Catia was such a good actress it was near impossible to tell whether she was genuine or not.
Whatever the case, he no longer cared. He was going home with his dragon and Berk’s gold, and if he never saw Catia Anastos again it wouldn’t bother him a bit. But with his luck, he was bound to see her again, and he knew it.