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Chapter Text

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III’s knack for getting himself into massive trouble was only outdone by his near-godly knack for getting himself out of it. Hiccup was strange like that: he could talk his way out of most any corner he backed himself into. If he couldn’t manage that, his brain would take over from there. Astrid couldn’t think of anything in the world her Hiccup couldn’t talk or work his way through; it would be impressive if he didn't worry them constantly with it. Every other week it seemed like some new threat was crossing the horizon, hell-bent on slaying the mythical (to them) dragon-tamer. Astrid had lost count of how many walking balls of sleaze had oozed from the woodworks hollering after Hiccup; she had to, or otherwise she thought she’d lose her Mímir-forsaken mind.

She was close to losing her mind right now. Wind shrieked through the stray wisps of her hair as she and Stormfly shot through the rain-heavy clouds, close, but not quite to bursting. The suggestion of thunder rumbled quietly. The rest of the gang, plus one enraged Chief of Berk, were not far behind her. Hiccup had gone missing from the Edge two weeks ago: he went out on a patrol, said he’d be back in an hour or two, and that was the last anyone had seen of him. Toothless was found with a twisted, tattered wing on a scrap of a sea stack a day later, screaming with what was left of his roar. Astrid tried not to let herself be overtaken by terror, but it was there all the same. Hiccup had made powerful enemies: he had a freakish knack for that as well. Those enemies had armadas at their command, weapons that could shoot their dragons out of the sky, cages that no beast could melt. Hiccup was a valuable prize indeed to anyone who was an enemy of dragons. 

She drew a shuddering breath. The last thing anyone needed was for her to crumble. With Hiccup gone, she was their new fearless leader.

That was a lie if she had ever heard one. 

“There,” she called, pointing to a small island that had risen out of the haze. Slowly but surely they had hit every island in the general path of where they had found Toothless. If it wasn’t this island, they were clear out of options; Astrid didn’t even want to think about that. “It has to be this one. It has to be.”

“What do you think Hiccup’s been doing without us?” Ruffnut asked.

“Probably talking whatever crazie who grabbed him in the first place’s ear off,” Snotlout grumbled. “I swear, he could talk a rock to death. Rocks aren’t even alive, either, and that’s how you know that Hiccup never shuts up.”

“As far as you know,” Tuffnut shot back. “The Thorsons have a long and proud history of communing with all sorts of objects. We have it on good authority that rocks are very sensitive creatures, and prone to musicality when they feel like sending a message.” 

Astrid shared what she hoped wasn’t too miserable of a look with Fishlegs, who was having a considerably harder time controlling his face. It was their way of coping, she knew: the twins and Snotlout would never be caught dead worrying over Hiccup.

But they all did. Astrid knew that as well. All of them worried over Hiccup, even if they’d rather be digested by a Deathsong than admit it out loud. The Great Beyond and the Dragon’s Edge had changed Hiccup on a fundamental level. Sure, he smiled wider and wider with every new dragon they found, and laughed more often at the twin’s antics. But sometimes, right before the sun was about to disappear into the sea, Astrid would catch Hiccup scanning the horizon with Toothless dutifully at his side, one freckled hand set firmly atop the Nightfury’s head, the other barely grazing the pommel of his sword. It was an unspoken challenge: let anyone dare to separate the great Hiccup and his dragon, let anyone dare to come between him and his friends. Let the whole archipelago and beyond try, and see what would happen.

Hiccup slept less, and his self-sacrificial streak was widening with every passing week. It wouldn’t be long until he found a way to clone himself so he could strap himself to each of their chests as a sort of living shield. Astrid worried: Hiccup obsessed. His father’s words, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, was always at the forefront of his head at any given time. There were too many close calls. Too many times where they had escaped by the skin of their teeth. Too many near-tragedies. Astrid knew Hiccup was still tormented about the Buffalord debacle: he mumbled in his sleep just as often as he mumbled to himself when he was awake.

“He’ll be there,” Stoick said from atop Skullcrusher. His eyes were trained forward, barely visible beneath the deep furrow of his brow, his knuckles dead-white where they were clenched around the Rumblehorn’s head protrusions. “He’ll be there.”

For Stoick’s sake, he would have to be. Astrid took another deep breath. Signaling to the rest of the gang, they descended on the island. It looked abandoned: no ships docked, no smoke from rising fires. No supplies strewn across the rocky beaches either. If there were people here, they were exceptionally tidy. There was a mountain, though, and a cave that loomed large in front of them. Astrid thought she saw hints of decorative carving along the steep arch of the entrance.

Stoick dismounted Skullcrusher with an animalistic grunt. With his axe slung over one broad shoulder, he jerked his head for his dragon to follow him into the dark maw.

“Guess we’re goin’ foreward,” Tuffnut shrugged. “Lead the way, Chief.”

The twins dismounted at the same time, exchanging a brief slap-fight over who’s landing was the quietest. The fact that it was brief told Astrid that the twins were actually taking this seriously, and the fact that the twins were taking this seriously twisted her stomach into knots.

Hiccup had to be here. He had to be.

“This cave is huge,” Fishlegs said, cringing at the loud echo of his voice as the group entered the main cave. Three yawning paths split in front of them. Dropping his tone, he continued. “We need to split up. All these tunnels will take ages to search if we’re in a big group. We’ll go in pairs: I can take Snotlout, and you go with Stoick-”

“And the twins will do their thing,” Astrid finished for him. “Pairs keep us from getting ambushed.”

Fishlegs nodded. “If you see anything, anyone, make some noise. This cave carries sound like crazy. And if anyone’s here, we’ll be able to hear them.”

“Yeah, and they’ll be able to hear us,” Ruffnut grumbled. “Great idea, Fishface.”

“Do you have a better one?” Fishlegs shot back. Ruffnut looked over to her twin with a raised eyebrow, a wicked grin slowly spreading across her face.

“As a matter of fact…”

“Absolutely not,” Stoick rumbled. Astrid fought the urge to jump: the Cheif had been mostly quiet up to this point, and his formidable aura had faded to the background in favor of her worry. “Fishlegs’ plan is the best we’ve got. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

He turned on his heel and took the tunnel to the left without another word. Astrid drew in another breath, stealing a look at the rest of the group. Silence, thick and heavy, had spaced upon them with a vengeance.

“…let’s go, Fishlegs,” Snoutlout finally said. Hookfang snuffled softly in agreement. “We have to find Hiccup’s skinny butt sometime.”

“Meet you all back here,” Astrid said. “Be careful, and don’t do anything stupid.”

With that, she and Stormfly scampered off after Stoick and Skullcrusher. At the entrance to their tunnel, Astrid spotted a rusted lantern: at least their impromptu cave dive wouldn’t be too much of a wild yak chase. Where there were lanterns, there were usually people. With help from Stormfly, she lit the wick and closed the clouded window. The light it threw wasn’t much, but it was enough for her to see the colors of Stoick’s tunic when she finally caught up with his lumbering steps.

Don’t do anything stupid. What a foolish thing to say; all they did was stupid things. They had gotten lucky that none of the damage had stuck so far.

(Why didn’t she go with Hiccup? Why didn’t she insist that he wait, or at least take someone with him? Why?)

“Stoick?” she ventured. The Viking chief halted for a moment, half-turning his head to her.

“Speak your piece, lass.”

“I…” she swallowed back a lump in her throat. “I let Hiccup go alone on patrol. I didn’t even think of going with him or making him wait for someone. I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Stoick’s mighty shoulders slumped just a fraction. He turned to face her; the man loomed large over her, and Astrid had to fight the urge to shrink back from his imposing figure. 

“It’s not your fault, Astrid,” he said softly. Closing his eyes tight, he let out a shuddering sigh; Astrid had never noticed how dark and deep the circles under his eyes ran before. “Once a thought enters that boy’s head it’s impossible to knock it out. Trust me, I know that well. A thousand Whispering Deaths couldn’t stop him from doing anything he sets his mind to.”

He laid a hand, rough with calluses from a thousand battles, and yet effortlessly gentle, on her shoulder. “The guilt will eat you alive, lass. Don’t let it win.”

All she could do was nod and gnaw on the inside of her cheek to keep her lower lip from trembling. Stormfly made a sad noise, nudging her nose into the crook of Astrid’s neck. 

“We better push forward,” she said, running a hand down her dragon’s snout while shoving away her ever-spiraling thoughts. 

They continued together in the darkness. Only the light of Astrid’s stolen lamp guided their way as they walked deeper and deeper into the corridor. If someone was in there with them, if whoever had left the lantern at the mouth of the tunnel had friends, the two of them wouldn’t even be able to see them. 

A slight breeze blew as light as a breath, fluttering the lantern’s paltry flame. The hairs on the back of Astrid’s neck prickled. 

Someone was here: she could feel their eyes on her.

“You felt that too?” Stoick said softly. His hand tightened on his axe: its creaking leather and their own breathing were the only thing that could be heard. Astrid pulled her axe out of its scabbard, tensing in anticipation. 

A click, as soft as a step, echoed to her right. She knew that noise well.

Crossbow.

“Stormfly,” Astrid commanded, but the Nadder was already two steps ahead. Brilliant light flooded the cave as her dragon let out a stream of magnesium fire, the crackling of flames only barely louder than a few very human screams. In the brightness Astrid caught a glimpse of a few men to the left, each holding crossbows. They were quickly dispatched by Skullcrusher’s tail with a clank and a cry.

“Low flame, Skullcrusher,” Stoick said after a beat of silence. “I want to see what we’re up against.” 

The Rumblehorn opened its mouth to sustain a ball of flame between its teeth. Skullcrusher had taken out four men; judging by what was left of them, Stormfly had cooked the same amount. Each was dressed in pure black from hood to boots, each was paler than death itself, and each had an identical leather vambrace on their left arm.

“These guys don’t look like anyone we’ve seen before,” Astrid murmured. She took a careful step forward: she didn’t doubt Skullcrusher’s abilities, but one could never be too careful. “Who do you think they-”

“ASTRID!”

Astrid nearly jumped out of her skin. Ruffnut’s desperate voice carried through the corridor, echoing long and loud and terrified.  

“ASTRID, HE’S HERE. HE’S HERE!”

Their mysterious attackers were all but forgotten. Stoick blew past her like someone had set him on fire. Astrid didn’t have time to feel her stomach drop to her toes: she ran after him with the dragons hot on her heels, the lantern dropping from her hand as she pumped her arms. The corridor seemed much longer and darker now; she couldn’t even see a glimpse of Stoick in front of her.

“ASTRID!”

They ran for what seemed like eternity. The darkness was close to suffocating Astrid as she poured every ounce of strength in her bones to her legs. Stormfly and Skullcrusher clamored behind them, slower on purpose: there could be anything, anyone in these tunnels.

Light pinpricked ahead of them: the main cave. Ruff’s voice echoed louder and more scared than ever. 

From the corner of her eye she saw Snotlout, Hookfang, Meatlug and Fishlegs careen from their corridor. Both humans were white with fear and had their weapons drawn; both dragons had their fangs bared.

Astrid you stupid, stupid viking, why didn’t you go with him? Why did you let him go? Why did you let him go? Why did you let him go? Why-?

“Ruff, where are you?” Astrid called as they plunged into darkness once more, racing down the last tunnel. Stoick was still in front of her, single minded-in his mission. The boys were behind her, quickly catching up. “Ruff, Tuff, where are you?” 

“SOMEONE HELP, PLEASE.”

The corridor began to widen out into a series of rooms. Astrid thought she saw boxes of supplies and a desk piled with books in the corner of one, but they passed by too quickly for her to tell.

“Stoick,” she wheezed; the chief either didn’t hear her, or didn’t care to. “Stoick, wait.”

More light just around the corner, and the thick smell of sulfur. The rattle of sparks echoed around them, then a muffled boom and a curse against Odin, Thor, Loki, the whole lot.  Spark, rattle, boom. Spark, rattle, boom.

Something else joined the suffocating scent that threatened to choke Astrid.

Blood. Fresh blood.

Stoick disappeared around the corner, and she heard a gasp. Pouring one last burst of energy into her legs, she rounded the end.

“Stoick-”

The room was bright with torches affixed to the wall. Moisture shone on the walls, dripping slowly into murky puddles on the ground. The room was empty, save for the distraught twins, Barf and Belch, Stoick, and a dragon-proof cage locked with a chain.

And in the cage, back turned to them, curled up into a ball, clothes tattered, boots and leg missing, hands wrapped tight in thick rope, was Hiccup Haddock, son of Stoick the Vast, tamer of dragons.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut both yanked at the door with all their might; maybe it was a trick of the light, but Astrid thought she saw tears glimmering in Ruffnut’s eyes.

“He’s not waking up,” she said, leveraging the whole of her body against the door in an attempt to open the cage. “Astrid, why won’t he wake up?”

“Oh Thor.” The words slipped out of Astrid’s mouth before she could stop herself. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep a sob at bay. 

Stoick had no time for such emotions. In three steps he crossed to the cage and ripped the door right off its scorched hinges; the twins barely had time to get out of the way. On a normal day Astrid would have marveled at his strength; there was nothing to marvel about in this moment. Noises coagulated around her, the world sluggish and blurred in its appearance. Only Hiccup, her Hiccup, bloodied and bruised and bound in a cage, stood out in the mess.

“Astrid.” 

She blinked. Snotlout was shaking her shoulders, eyes wide, face pale. Just behind him, the twins stood impossibly close together, just as pallid.

“Astrid, you gotta…you gotta snap out of it.” Snotlout shook his head like it could clear the stutter from his throat. “Astrid, don’t do that. Don’t blank out like that.”

She looked past Snotlout, past the twins now. Stoick was kneeling on the ground, ripping through Hiccup’s bonds, gently cradling his brunette head and muttering something under his breath. Great gods in Asgard, he looked so small in his father’s arms, so helpless and vulnerable. Astrid numbly watched Stoick press his ear against Hiccup’s barely-moving chest, all the while still mumbling words she couldn’t hope to hear.  

Whoever did this is going to pay, Astrid thought. They're going to pay.

“He’s breathing,” Stoick announced. In one motion he scooped Hiccup into his arms and stood: he looked decades older than he did just a few minutes ago. “Fishlegs. Are we closer to Berk or the Edge?”

Fishlegs blinked once, twice. “…the Edge, I think.” 

“He needs Gothi,” Tuffnut said, and it was only then that Astrid saw that his hand was entwined with his sister’s. His voice was somewhere far away. “Gothi. Gothi can fix him. She can fix anything.”

“We’ll send for her,” Fishlegs said. Some color had returned to his face. This was no time to panic. Not when Hiccup was on the line. “Right now he needs immediate treatment. We have supplies at the Edge that will hold him over until she and Gobber can get to us.”

“Then we’ve wasted enough time here.” Stoick brought Hiccup closer to his chest: if he had looked small in the cage, Astrid didn’t even know a word to describe what he looked like right now. “Let’s go.”

“But what about the men that attacked us?” Astrid’s own voice sounded foreign in her ears. Snotlout and Fishlegs exchanged quick, wide-eyed glances.

“That means there’s someone bigger behind this,” Stoick replied. “We’ll come back here when Hiccup wakes up. He can tell us everything, and then we’ll know our next move.”

“And our next move against them would be…?” Snotlout ventured.

Stoick’s face turned to stone. “Destruction. Complete and total.”

Chapter Text

The last time Stoick had carried Hiccup like this, his boy had been coated in the blackest ash he had ever seen. That was before his growth spurt: the boy had been even smaller than he was now. His son had fit so easily in his arms, his scorched chest barely rising and falling. Stoick had never been more terrified in his life.

That was the second time he had almost lost Hiccup to a dragon, and it had been the last. He made an oath after that, an oath to be a better father, a better person, to not force his son into the mold he so desperately wanted him to fill, to not rage and shout when Hiccup invented rather than swung an axe, to understand the strange creature that had so intently imprinted upon his child, to protect Hiccup the way he deserved, to support and cherish him in his endeavors no matter how ridiculous they seemed. 

Stoick had broken his oath as sure as his son’s bones had been broken. He had failed his son, and now Hiccup was paying the price.

Angry needles of rain attacked them from every angle as the dragon riders raced towards the edge. He tried to shield Hiccup’s bloodied and bruised form as best as he could from the onslaught, curling his body over his son, yet the rain drenched both of them from head to toe in less than a minute. Hiccup’s breath came in short, shallow gasps, irregular and shuddering. Stoick could hear every one of them, and each cracked another facet into his heart.

Stoick was not a man who prayed and begged; he was a man that acted. If there was any time for prayer, though, it was now. 

Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to his son’s, trying not to let tears overwhelm his defenses. As Skullcrusher pushed through the bluster, Stoick the Vast breathed a fervent plea to the goddess Eir.

Heal him, was his prayer. Mend his bones and his spirit. Heal my son, I beg of you.

—

Thunder and lightning roared outside Hiccup’s cabin like the footsteps of the gods. Snotlout paced the floor, never minding the towel slung over the chair that was meant for him. Fishlegs had peeled off from the group before they had touched down at the Edge: Gothi and Gobber would be here in a day or so, depending on the storm. That left him, Astrid, the twins, and Stoick to care for Hiccup in the interim.

Snotlout would have rather it had been him to go to Berk, no matter how much he despised having the old bag of bones ride with him. Anything to not have to see Stoick holding Hiccup like that, anything to not see Hiccup like that, all broken and bruised and small. That was his cousin for Odin’s sake, his own flesh and blood. No one messed with his family without paying dearly.

“You’re gonna wear a track into the floor,” Ruffnut said, sounding more than a little like she had been punched in the gut. At least she was talking: Tuffnut’s expression had hardly shifted between the hours-long flight and touching down on the edge. The twins were hovering around the fire, standing shoulder-to-shoulder like they were one connected being, wide-eyed. Just the tips of their fingers were entwined.

Stoick laid Hiccup on the tables they had pushed together, gentler than Snotlout thought possible for such a big man. His calloused hand grazed Hiccup’s forehead, and almost as an afterthought, gently brushed his hair out of his still face.

“No fever,” he sighed heavily. “That’s a blessing, at least.” He looked up, directly into Snotlout. 

“Help me with his clothes. You too, Astrid. I think he has some broken ribs and open wounds. We can patch those up just as fine as Gothi can.”

That much was obvious. Hiccup had been stripped down to just his tunic and pants, and both of them were more rusty-red than otherwise. Never minding his shaking legs, Snotlout stepped forward for the task, accepting a small knife snatched from Hiccup’s box of supplies.

There was something stomach-churning about having to cut Hiccup’s clothes off of him. It was a violation of the most basic type: Snotlout swallowed back the bile rising in his throat, almost losing control of it when a small noise escaped Hiccup as Snotlout pulled a scrap off his stomach.

“You’re gonna need to sit him up,” Tuffnut said suddenly. Snotlout jumped: he had almost forgotten that the twins were still in the room. “If he starts coughing or throwing up he could choke, and we need to check for wounds on his back.”

Snotlout never would have thought of that. He had long come to admit that the twins, for however stupid they liked to act, were anything but. 

“I can do it,” Astrid said. Laying her knife down, she pressed one hand to Hiccup’s chest, then the other to his back. With Stoick’s help they coaxed him into a sitting position; another low sound slipped from Hiccup, his brow furrowing with pain. 

Ruffnut tugged her brother forward. She took her position by Astrid’s side to stabilize Hiccup, sharing a look that Snotlout could only think of as heartbroken with Astrid. Tuffnut accepted the knife, and from the press of his brows, he was as thrilled about it as Snotlout. 

Hiccup’s clothing came off in slow strips, every scrap of clothing revealing more blood, more bruises, more wounds. Most of them looked like they had been done with a dagger: some of them were shallow and long, others short and deep. They clustered around his stomach and across his chest, not to be outdone by the fresh burns that claimed his arms and shoulders. His wrists were rubbed bright red and raw from the rope: Snotlout’s stomach did a double backflip when he noticed similar marks around his neck.

Who was capable of this kind of cruelty? Not even Dagur at his most insane would have dared; the berserker would have killed him, either on accident or on purpose, before it could get that far. For weeks, Hiccup had endured this: who had the patience, the resources to hide him for that long? There had been no dragon-hunter symbols, none of the usual faces and foes. Besides the dragon-proof metal, which was becoming more and more popular across the Great Beyond, it was all a puzzle to them. 

When he and Fishlegs had been in the tunnel, though. Something had scared the dragons. Someone had tried to shoot Fishlegs’ head off. Ruffnut had screamed before either of them could get a closer look. Maybe-

Stoick gasped, his knife clattering to the floor. The final strip of Hiccup’s bloodied tunic was in his hand: that too fluttered to the floor as his eyes widened, utter shock claiming every feature of his face. 

He didn’t want to look at what could make Stoick the Vast react like. He had to. Snotlout laid his knife in the table with trembling hands, daring to look at what Stoick’s gaze was trained on.

Hiccup’s back was a torn, bloody mess, but that’s not what had made Stoick gasp. When Snotlout himself saw it, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.

An intricate design was carved- no, burned, deep into Hiccup’s back. It looked like thorny branches dipping in and out and between one another in some complex, arcane knot. It was hard to see beyond the blood and bruises, but it was there all the same.

Oh Thor, they branded Hiccup, Snotlout thought, taking a horrified step back. Oh Thor they branded Hiccup, they hurt him, they hurt him-

“Hiccup,” Astrid breathed, peeking over his shoulder to survey the damage. Tears she had successfully locked away now sprang into her eyes, tracing singular and opposite tracks down her cheeks. Her hand was threaded in his still-damp hair: it tightened, drawing him closer to her, like she could somehow protect him from what was already done.

Snotlout dared to look at the twins. Tuffnut had that look in his eyes again; all the color had drained out of Ruffnut’s face, making her nearly translucent in the flickering light of the fire.

No one spoke for a moment: only the thunder and rain had anything to say. What could be said anyhow? They were all thinking the same thing.

“No Chief of Berk shall serve two masters, and neither shall the mark of ownership ravage their body,” Stoick recited after a moment of silence, as if in a daze. “For by doing this your master shall be above the people of Berk. No Chief shall sit on the throne whilst they are in bondage to another.” 

Berk’s laws were ancient, and they were resolute. 

—

The cave was quiet. Too quiet. 

A figure stood at its entrance, tall and willow-thin. Rain poured from the clouds, drenching her from head to toe; she did not care much. She was just as quiet as the cave, the only thing revealing her presence being the slow drip, drip, drip of water sliding down her silver-streaked ebony hair and the soft thump of her staff connecting with the ground. 

Drip, drip, drip, thump. 

Drip, drip, drip, thump.

The little godling was no longer here: someone had taken him from her. She could non longer feel the threads that she had woven around him to bind the boy to herself. Smoke was thick in the air, though, as well as the acrid scent of burnt flesh and old blood.

Dragon riders. The little godling’s friends. 

Rumors of the dragon riders had spread far and wide across the Great Beyond, as those from Berk liked to call her domain. Enemies had risen up against them, but none had prevailed. They all had the wrong idea: the dragon riders could not be beaten into submission, and no show of force would dissuade them.

Drip, drip, thump.

Drip, drip, thump. 

The cage was empty, and she expected as much. Whether any of her servants had survived the attack was the least of her concerns. All of her carefully laid plans were fraying at the edges: the boy had a spirit and rage to him; the brat just wouldn’t break. She poured everything possible into him, yet he still glared and snapped back at her in the moments of lucidity she allowed him.

No one could hold on forever. His breaking point would come, and then the boy would be hers. For now, she would have to make new plans, better plans. 

She closed her eyes, breathing deep. Heat swept over her as she reached out into the darkness, searching with no human senses. Wherever the brat’s friends had taken him was far, far away from where she was. The thought made her boil with rage; she cooled it off with another inhale. There were only so many places to hide, and the dragon riders would be fragile with their leader in such a weak state. She could feel it in her bones: cracks would splinter, faith lost to despair. She excelled in leveraging the cracks. One way or another, she would regain her prize. 

Chapter Text

What a sorry picture the lot of them made. 

Fishlegs’s foot tapped against the rough-hewn planks of the Edge’s common room in a staccato rhythm: it was an anxious habit he was usually good at suppressing. There was a lot to be anxious about, not the least of which was Hiccup’s physical state. The storm had delayed any flight for four days: added to the two it took to travel from Berk to the Edge, it was nearly a week before Fishlegs could bring Gothi and Gobber. A whole six days, and as each one passed Fishlegs could not scrub the image of arriving to the Edge only for Stoick to shake his head, for Astrid to meet him with tears in her eyes, for Snotlout and the twins to be shell-shocked and empty.

He prayed every night to whoever would listen that it wouldn’t be so; as the storm raged on it was harder and harder to hold out hope. In the meantime he had busied himself with gathering supplies and executing menial tasks around Berk, damn the pouring rain. Anything to keep him from thinking about Hiccup.

But gods, now that they were here, now that he was face to face with the situation, now that he knew what they were up against, now that he would forever have the thought of someone tying Hiccup down, someone pressing a red-hot iron to Hiccup’s back, Hiccup screaming-

He had a lot on his mind. Everyone did. 

Gothi and Gobber entered quietly, mouths pressed into grim lines. Everyone did things quietly as of late, like they were afraid the slightest noise would trigger a catastrophe, or something worse.

“He’ll live,” Gobber offered after a peal of thunder rumbled. The rain hadn’t ceased, and it probably wouldn’t for some time. “None of his wounds were meant to be fatal.”

“Just to make him hurt,” Astrid mumbled from her perch atop a crate. Her face was hidden by her undone hair, then further obscured as she pulled her knees to her chest.

They were all thinking it; someone wanted to make Hiccup hurt. Killing was the farthest thing from their mind: it would have been easy to behead the dragon rider and hoist his head onto a spike for the whole Great Beyond to see. They could have drowned him with ease or bashed his brains in.

But whoever their enemy was didn’t want that. They didn’t want the notoriety of slaying Hiccup Haddock III. The question was: what did they want?

At least the dragon riders had a lead. A horrific, stomach-churning lead.

“When is he gonna wake up?” Snotlout asked in a small voice. “If…if he’s gonna be okay, he should be waking up.”

Gobber looked to Gothi with a pinched brow. The old woman sighed, then began to scribble into the thin layer of sawdust that always seemed to coat the floor.

“Hard to say,” Gobber translated. “When he does, it will only bring further pain, a pain I cannot heal so easily. Prepare for it.” 

“But you can heal anything!” Ruffnut cut in. “That’s, like, your whole thing. You’ve fixed up everyone on Berk a million and a half times over. Odin’s sake, you snapped Fishlegs out of his weird Thor Bonecracker whatever. What’s so hard about Hiccup?”

Gothi scribbled something else, then mournfully looked up at Gobber. They all knew Gothi was old, maybe the oldest person in the world. Yet, Fishlegs had never thought of it until now, when the deep creases under her eyes and the weariness of her gaze seemed to overwhelm her whole visage.

“The body is easy to heal. The mind is a different beast altogether.” Gobber’s shoulders seemed to slump lower with every line he read. “My expertise lies in matters of the physical. There is a long road ahead of Hiccup when he awakes, a road I have not traversed enough to be experienced in. When he awakes, keep him secure and comfortable. Most likely he will be-”

Gothi stopped to consider her words. She scribbled something down, shook her head, erased it, then tried again.

“Skittish. It is likely he will not feel safe for some time.”

Another peal of thunder. Skittish: what a stupid word that was. Baby animals were skittish, the dragons were skittish around eels, yaks were skittish around mice. Fishlegs could read between the lines just fine. Hiccup wouldn’t be skittish: he’d be terrified, no matter how hard he would try to argue he wasn’t, no matter how hard anyone could try and convince him that he was out of harm's way.

“And there’s nothing more you can do?” Stoick asked, and the desperation tinging his words squeezed Fishleg’s heart in his chest in an iron vice.

Gothi shook her head. Gobber could only offer a mournful look to the chief. 

Gods. Gods. There were two options now: wait around like fools until something happened, or return to that lonely island and tear it apart for clues. Fishlegs was leaning towards option two: a group of men had tried to attack him and Snotlout in the dark. The style of their clothing was unlike any Fishlegs had seen before. It was a clue nonetheless, a hint of who their allegiance was sworn towards. The problem was, where were they even going to start? Their usual lineup of assorted villains and rogues would have taken vocal pride in capturing Hiccup, even if by proxy. But the MO didn’t line up for any of them: Hiccup would be dead by now if he had fallen into the expected camps.

An investigation could be put on hold, at least for a day or two: the problems at home were more pressing. Currently, Berk was without an heir. More pressingly, the room felt like a funeral. Astrid and Stoick would be out of commission, at least emotionally, for quite some time. Where Snotlout was concerned, Fishlegs was still trying to come up with a plan to keep him from doing something incredibly stupid and reckless instead of just sitting down and having a good cry. The twins? Forget about it: Tuffnut looked like he had seen a ghost, and neither of them had let go of the other’s hand as far as Fishlegs could tell.

As for himself, Fishlegs wouldn’t mind curling up in his bed and crying for an hour or four. It wouldn’t help much, but if he had to suffocate on the room’s atmosphere for one more minute he would scream until his lungs burst.

“What about Toothless?” Fishlegs asked, if only to say something to cut the silence. “How’s he doing?”

“Poor thing is distraught,” Gobber answered. “Didn’t think I’d live to see a day where a big old lizard is so sad. He’s curled around Hiccup’s bed right now. Don’t think anything short of Ragnarok could get him to move.”

Silence lulled in the room. No one had anything more to say, nor any help to offer. Vikings were people of action, not stagnation. Yet, all they could do was wait.

Fishlegs’ foot resumed its tapping, forming a beat behind his thoughts. First thing first: check up on Hiccup himself. Second thing: tell Hookfang to not let Snotlout leave the island for any reason. Third thing: touch base with the twins in whatever way they’d let him. Fourth thing: Astrid. Oh Thor, Astrid. That was a challenge he wasn’t sure he could surmount. Fishlegs didn’t think it was his place to try and sort out Stoick: Gobber could handle that just fine on his own.

Fifth, and most importantly: find the origin of the dark-clad men. A style like that surely had some sort of history. If he was feeling brave (and he had never felt smaller in his life), make a copy of the 

(brand, oh gods, they branded Hiccup, they hurt him)

mark on Hiccup’s back. It wasn’t a sturdy plan. By Odin’s beard, it was barely a plan at all, but it was better than nothing. 

—

“Stoick, where in the nine realms do you think you’re going?”

Rain poured down on him, attacking his exposed skin. He paid it, nor the thick scent of lightning about to strike, no mind. He also made a point to ignore Gobber’s trailing voice. Once he retrieved Skullcrusher from the stables, it would no longer be a problem. There was a time for reason and tempered logic; this was the time to rage, rage against whoever dared to lay a hand on his boy, rage against the gods themselves for handing down this agony if need be.

Was this some kind of punishment? All those years of trying to force Hiccup into something like him certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed by the gods. Surely, this was his reward for such cruelty. Never mind that the two of them were closer than ever before, never mind that, for all the faults he knew he had, he was trying his damn best to support Hiccup in whatever he did: it must not have been enough. Maybe nothing could ever be enough.

“Stoick,” Gobber pressed, his voice much closer now. A hand grabbed his arm and spun him around: if anyone else had tried, they’d have lost the limb. “Stoick, by Odin, if you’re tryin’ to go off and do something cracked in the head I’m going to break your legs.”

“Justice isn’t cracked in the head,” Stoick hissed between his teeth, if only to keep himself from yelling. “Let go of me, Gobber.”

Gobber laughed with more bitterness than humor. “Oh, right. Justice is the name of that flame in yer eye. Stoick, I’ve known you since we were small. I know you better than anyone else on Berk, by the gods. You’re stormin’ out, and you’re gonna do something stupid. That won’t help Hiccup-”

“Then what will?” Stoick snapped back. Thunder roared behind his back. “Gods, Gobber, I know you saw him in that bed. There’s someone out there who thinks they can hurt my son and get away with it. Damn you, and damn anyone that thinks they can get in my way. I’m going to find whoever did this, and they’re going to pay.”

Anyone else on Berk would be quaking in their boots: Gobber was not just anyone. 

“If you’re so worried about Hiccup, why don’t you pull your damn head out of yer ass and think of the boy, then?” Gobber pointed his hook to the forlorn shadow of Hiccup’s cabin. “Stoick, he needs you. Goin’ off to Thor-knows-where hunting around for whoever did this is going to land you in a world of hurt, and you know that.”

Lightning cracked down not three feet from where Gobber stood; the blacksmith paid it no mind.

“You’re hurting, and badly at that. I know you well enough to see the pain in your eyes that you think you’re so good at hiding. We don’t know who we’re up against; rushing in with nothin’ but vengeance in your head is going to get you killed. What then? When Hiccup does wake up, I refuse to be the person to tell him that his father got an arrow through the chest or a sword to his throat because he went and lost his head.” 

Gobber paused, took a breath, then deflated as he lowered his hook. “I know you’re worried about him, about Berk,” he said quietly, barely above the rain. “We’re all terrified for the kid too, trust me. But you’ve got to understand, Stoick: we need you here. Hiccup needs you more than anything. Don’t go running off to a place where I can’t follow you. Stay.”

Stoick took his own breath, fighting tooth and nail against the tears that threatened to escape his eyes. He opened his mouth in an attempt to say something, anything, but closed it once he realized that any effort would inevitably end in a sob.

Still, that did not mean he couldn’t try his best. “Gobber, I…”

Tears flooded his eyes unbidden, blurring the scene before him. He didn’t quite see the details of Gobber stepping towards him, but he did feel the warmth of his oldest friend’s embrace capture him tightly. More tears fell, but he found himself not caring at all; the rain would obscure them anyways.

“We’ll both catch a cold if we stay out here,” Gobber said, voice thick with his own emotions. “Let’s go inside.”

–

Snotlout curled into himself tighter, balancing on Hiccup’s chair that was usually pushed against his workbench. Toothless watched him with mild interest: besides the steady, shallow rise-and-fall of Hiccup’s chest, it was the only other thing going on in the room. The nightfury blinked at him, shook his head, then resumed his watch over Hiccup, propping his flat head in the space in the mattress where Hiccup’s body curled. Toothless couldn’t speak with words, but his sad rumble did the job just fine.

“You and me both,” Snotlout mumbled. He had put himself in charge of watching over Hiccup while Fishlegs retrieved Gobber and Gothi. It was a boring job, but one that needed to be done. Someone had to make sure that Hiccup didn’t stop breathing, someone had to be there when (and it was when, not if) he woke up.

Six days was a long time to sleep, and who knew how long he had been like this before they had found him? Snotlout had heard of eternal sleeps before—it had happened to a distant cousin who connected with the ground with his head instead of his legs after leaping from a ridge— but hadn’t anticipated them being this…unsettling. In his head he knew that Hiccup was alive, that it would only be a matter of time before he was up and around and doing all of his normal Hiccup-y things, and all of this worrying and stress and fear could be forgotten.

In reality, though, it was harder to accept that. Six days made for a long silence. 

Toothless’ eyes flicked towards the door a second before Fishlegs walked in. In his hands he clutched a leather-bound notebook and a stub of charcoal. His complexion was pallid.

“What happened?” Snotlout’s mind jumped to the worst: Stoick had left to go do something stupid, Astrid had left to go do something stupid, the twins had gotten struck by lightning and died-

“Nothing happened,” Fishlegs said, cutting though his panicked tirade. He shuffled in a few steps, letting the door swing shut behind him. Fishlegs wasn’t timid: quiet, maybe; non-confrontational, sure. When he wanted or needed something, though, he wasn’t one to turn into a stuttering mess. 

“I just, um,” Fishlegs shuffled again, taking two more steps. “I think it would be wise to, um, copy the…scar. On Hiccup. Because it could help us find whoever’s behind this. Yeah.”

“Oh,” Snotlout said. Toothless perked up from his station, regarding Fishlegs with a mournful burble. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

Fishlegs didn’t move any closer. Snotlout didn’t want to move at all from his seat. Moving would make all of this realer than it already was. 

But he had to. He needed to. Whoever did this had a serious agenda in mind. Marking someone wasn’t a run-of-the-mill action to take. It had to mean something, and if Snotlout had to suck it up and have to look at it all over again for Hiccup’s sake, then so be it.

“Come on, Fish-face,” Snotlout sighed. “The quicker we do it the quicker it goes.”

“Right,” Fishlegs mumbled. He took a deep breath, joining Snotlout at the edge of Hiccup’s bed. Toothless looked up at them, grumbled, then begrudgingly lifted his head. He stayed by the bed.

“Do you really think this’ll help?” Snotlout pulled the covers off of Hiccup. Thank gods Hiccup was already on his side: Snotlout still shuddered when he remembered the feeling of cutting Hiccup’s clothes off his body. It didn’t help much, though. The brand was still as plain as day on his back, settled between his shoulder blades. Though the wounds on Hiccup’s back were in the process of scarring over thanks to Gothi’s care, the brand still gleamed in the dim light of the room. At their sides, Toothless snarled at it, baring his teeth.

“It’s the only lead we have,” Fishlegs replied, flipping his notebook open. He patted the dragon’s head before he began his sketch. “I’ll send a copy home with Gothi. Berk’s archives might have something.”

“Not our only lead.” Snotlout folded his arms. He looked up to the ceiling: anywhere else was better than looking at Hiccup. “Those guys that shot at us. Did you get a good look?”

“All black, with a vambrace on the left arm.” Fishlegs touched up a line. Snotlout could see how badly his hands were shaking, even in his peripherals. “Distinctive. Definitely points to an organization of some sort. Groups have leaders: I’d bet a whole yak farm that their leader won’t be too happy that we fried them.”

Fishlegs dared a peek at Fishlegs’ doodle. It was better to see it on the page instead of carved into Hiccup’s skin. At closer look, the knot began to take shape. What he had thought were thorny branches were actually…

“Those look like tail spikes,” Fishlegs mused. “Like Windshear and Whispering Deaths have.” 

“What does that mean? That has to mean something, right?” If anyone would know, it was the human bookworm that was Fishlegs.

Fishlegs closed his eyes tight. “I don't know,” he said, voice tight. “I-I’ve never seen anything like this, Snotlout. It looks like some sort of rune, but I’ve never seen a rune like this before. This is a total mystery. This isn’t the time for mysteries.”

“Woah, hey,” Snoutlout cut in, grabbing Fishlegs’ arm. “Hey, calm down. Okay, so you don’t know everything. I could have told you that anytime you wanted. But someone’s gotta know, and we know a lot of people. Gothi’s older than dirt, and so are Berk’s archives. There’s gotta be something in there. We can ask the Defenders of the Wing and the Wingmaidens and Dagur and Heather if they know anything, too.” 

Fishlegs opened his eyes. Snotlout pressed forward. “Look: Hiccup’s gotta wake up sometime. He’ll pop awake, probably make some sappy speech and Astrid’s gonna punch him in the gut for making her worry and then they’ll go make out in a corner or something gross like that, and the twins will stop being freaky and weird and you’ll be perfectly fine and I’ll go back to being an asshole because trust me, I hate worrying over Hiccup’s stupid face. We’ll all be fine and years from now we’ll all be drinking beer and remembering about that time when Hiccup got into something stupid and we got him out of it and it’ll all be fine.”

Fishlegs blinked at him. His eyes slid down to the journal. 

“But even if he does wake up,” he said, voice soft, “it won’t be okay. Berk doesn’t have an heir. Hiccup can’t just be okay after this. By Thor, I can’t be okay after this, and you can’t either. Whoever did this is still out there, and even if we do somehow find them, then what, we kill them? And that’ll just make everything fine and perfect?”

No, Snotlout knew he should say. No, nothing can be okay after this. But it has to be. For your sake, for mine and Astrid and Stoick and the twins and Berk.

Toothless rumbled in the corner. He nudged Fishlegs out of the way with his nose, settling once more. Fishlegs deflated, and Snotlout knew why. Either way, they were in for trouble.

“I’ll go write those letters now,” Fishlegs said. He opened the door and left, catching it before it could slam shut.

—

Dear Heather (and Dagur, because I know you read her mail before she gets it. Jerk),

I don’t know how to start this letter. This is all going to be so out of the blue for you. To make a long story short, someone took Hiccup about three weeks back. Don’t worry, we found him, so you can tell Dagur to put the axe down. It wasn’t any of the usual faces. No one even collected the bounty on him. When we found him and got him back to the Edge, we found that he had been tortured maimed hurt very badly.

This is the bad part. Someone branded Hiccup. I’ve enclosed a sketch of the mark with this letter for reference. I’ve never seen anything like it. Currently, Gobber is tearing Berk’s archives apart for some kind of match. We’ve already sent a copy to Mala and the Wingmaidens to see if they know of it. If it helps, when we found Hiccup we were attacked by men in all black with armor only on their left arm. If you or Dagur know anything about this mark or who it’s connected to, please let us know.

Less importantly, I wouldn’t mind your (and only Heather, Dagur) company here. I know Astrid would too. I’m worried about her.

I’m worried about everyone, actually. Hiccup makes the top of the list, obviously, but I feel like I’m waking up to a funeral every day. The twins are like shells: they’re being serious for once, and it’s scaring me. Snotlout isn’t nearly as reckless as I thought he’d be, but he’s barely moved from Hiccup’s bedside since we got him back. Good gods, I don’t even want to start on Stoick and Astrid: being around them makes my head hurt. Even the weather is dreary—it hasn’t stopped raining for more than two hours since Hiccup’s been back. Toothless is a mess too, but that’s to be expected.

I miss you. I miss things being normal, too. Please write back soon.

Yours,

Fishlegs 

(Dagur I know you’re still reading this. Go throw an axe at a tree or something.)

—

Astrid pushed the vegetables around her plate. She didn’t feel like eating much of anything, for however good Tuffnut’s cooking smelled. It was probably poisoned anyways: the twins might have had plenty of hidden talents, but they had to stop somewhere.

She shoved a fork-full of food into her mouth regardless. It tasted like nothing, and she didn’t know if it was because of her or the twins, and that scared her enough to take another bite.

“Don’t choke,” Fishlegs sighed. He was in the middle of his own battle with lunch, and losing it at that. “Please.”

Astrid swallowed her mouthful. “I won’t,” she replied. Don’t kick the bucket before Hiccup can wake up was the hidden message, and wouldn’t that be ironic?

Astrid took a smaller bite, chewed, then swallowed. Still tasted like wet paper. “Any words from Mala or Heather or Atali?”

Fishlegs shook his head. “Haven’t even gotten a letter back from Heather yet. Mala says that none of her people have ever seen it either, and the Wingmaidens were a total bust too."

Berk and Gothi had struck out as well. Astrid’s stomach churned, and not just because of the food. Of course Hiccup had to go get beaten up by the one enemy they didn’t have a prayer of standing against. He was a magnet for the unknown. Usually she loved it; now, it only made her ill. 

“So what happens if Heather can’t find anything?”

“She will.” She has to.

Three more bites, and Astrid still wasn’t sure if it was her or the cooking. Starving wouldn’t do anyone any good, though, so she did her best to clear her plate. 

Snotlout shuffled in quietly, taking only a slice of bread. He sat down next to Fishlegs and took a bite.

“Still the same,” he offered around the food. “Toothless and Stoick are with him now.”

“Have you seen the twins today?” Astrid asked. Snotlout swallowed and shrugged one shoulder.

“Pretty sure I got a glimpse of them doing perimeter checks with Barf and Belch. This is the first time they’ve done it without having to be asked, and I think they’re actually doing it right, too,”

“Terrifying,” Fishlegs deadpanned, though they all knew there was a hint of truth in it. Astrid thought it would have taken the end of the world to get the twins to take anything seriously. 

Astrid pushed her plate to the middle. She couldn’t handle one more tasteless bite. “We have to be thinking about our next move. How are we going to track whoever did this down?”

“I don’t know,” Fishlegs replied. “Without knowing who that mark belongs to we might as well be taking shots in the dark for Odin’s sake-”

The door behind Astrid slammed open, bringing in a gust of wind and rain. She jumped up from her chair, axe in hand, primed to take a swing at-

“Dagur?” Snotlout screeched over the howling wind. “What in the world are you doing here?”

The soaking Berserker stormed in, something clenched tight to his chest. His green eyes crackled like lightning. 

“Where’s Hiccup?” he asked, glare bearing down on Astrid. “None of you better be playing your stupid games. Where is he?”

“Dagur, just wait a second,” Fishlegs said. “Heather got my letter?”

Dagur’s gaze snapped to Fishlegs. He shoved the object–a thickly bound book– at his chest.

“I’m only going to explain this to all of you once,” Dagur said. “But first: what the hells did you do?”

Chapter Text

The rain followed her wherever she went. It was comforting, though inconvenient at times. The gentle and persistent drumming of the raindrops was sweet music to her ears. She stopped her activities to listen to it for just a moment. 

It was lovely. Soothing. Peaceful, even. She let herself be lost in its music, if only for a moment.

There was much work to be done. The dragon riders had made a mess out of her temporary base, and with precious few underlings, she would have to carry out the rest of her mission herself. Their numbers were so few already, and the dragon riders had seen to cutting them down like flax. 

Whether she had ten or ten thousand men did not matter. Her plan, her sacred plan, was nearly complete, though there had been a few bumps in the road. The dragon riders would not be able to help themselves from coming back to this place. If nothing else, they were a persistent lot. Loyal to their master like whimpering dogs, and just as obnoxious. She would strike them down swiftly and decisively, then collect her stolen godling and complete her mission. 

She was all alone in the cave. Only the rain kept her company. She paused once more, tilting her head up.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

She raised her hands with open palms. Liquid warmth spread through her bones as she flexed her power. No lights, nothing flashy or obscene. Just a gentle hum, both in her blood and her ears. The warmth filled her to the brim as if she were a waiting vessel. 

“Hear me,” she whispered to Whoever was listening. “Our plans are near their end.”

The wind howled outside, screaming wildly and clawing at the stone walls of the cave. The rain doubled its fury, yet she stayed warm and dry, her power singing through her body.

Almost time. All good things to those who wait.

—

“What the fuck did you get Hiccup into?”

Astrid blinked, then blinked again, trying to take in the scene. Heather and Dagur were here. Heather and Dagur were here. Dagur looked like he was two seconds away from burning the Edge down on all of their heads– Heather looked just as confused as Astrid felt.

“What are you doing here?” Fishlegs looked down at the book Dagur had shoved at his chest, then to Heather for help. “Would sending a letter have killed you?”

“We did send a letter,” Dagur bit back. “And I’m here because if you’re not bullshitting me, then Hiccup’s in for a whole lot of trouble. Where is he?”

“Okay, Dagur, calm down a little,” Heather cut in, pulling him back by his arm. Astrid could have sworn she heard the berserker growl a bit, but he obeyed. “Sorry, Fishlegs, he got ahead of me.” She hesitated a bit, not letting go of Dagur’s arm. 

“But?” Fishlegs prompted, glaring spears at Dagur. 

“…I didn’t recognize the symbol,” Heather said, shoulders slumping. “But Dagur did. I’m still a little fuzzy on the details, but I think we can help.”

Fishlegs looked to Astrid, eyebrows drawn into a knot. Dagur was like a half-trained dragon: useful, endearing, even, but you were dead the second you forgot what it was capable of. 

“A little warning still would have been nice,” Fishlegs muttered under his breath, folding his arms. Dagur rolled his eyes.

“I told you, Fishlegs, I sent a letter. Gods, you’re so uptight.”

Fishlegs’ nostrils flared angrily. “No, you most certainly did-” 

Something banged against the door, once, twice, a small whine punctuating each blow. Snotlout opened the door, bringing in a spray of rain, a gust of wind, and a disheveled terrible terror. It shook its head and meandered to Astrid, flopping onto her shoulder. A letter was tied on its trembling leg.

Astrid took the letter, if it could even be called that. There was only one scrawled sentence on the damp paper: We’re coming. 

Dagur smiled at her, his grin too wide and sharp for his face. “Told you.”

Fishlegs scowled at Dagur; Astrid was beginning to share the sentiment. Trusting Dagur and enjoying his presence were two very different (and occasionally incompatable) tasks. 

But he knew something. He had a lead, by Odin. That was more than any of them could offer- and if she had to put up with Dagur the Deranged’s antics, then so be it. 

The door flew open again with a mighty bang, and Snotlout screamed. No terrible terrors or berserkers this time: just a pair of sopping wet twins.

“You scream like a girl,” Tuffnut solemnly informed Snotlout. The viking started out with some protest, then thought better of it and folded his arms, grumbling under his breath. 

“And I think Heather and Dagur are here,” Ruffnut added. “Windshear and Sleuther are parked out front.” 

Astrid sighed and gestured to Dagur and Heather in the corner. To her credit, Heather smiled and offered a little wave– Dagur just rolled his eyes in kind. 

“Whoah,” Tuffnut breathed. “You guys are stealthy.”

“Almost as stealthy as us,” Ruffnut finished, elbowing her brother. Astrid couldn’t help but to smile– if only a little bit– at them. This felt good. This felt normal.

“Flattery noted and appreciated, twins,” Dagur said. His gaze swung to Astrid. “You still haven’t answered my question. Where is he?”

“He’s resting now,” Astrid said, not wanting to add that resting was all he had done, and that it had been weeks since she had seen his green eyes dance. “Back to the important part: you said that Hiccup was going to be in for trouble. Tell us what the…” she tripped over the words, “the symbol means.”

Dagur’s glare softened, if only by a fraction. “I’ve marked it in the book. Long story short: I think you’ve got a drekidóttira on your hands.”

Astrid blinked. She looked at Fishlegs, who’s face was just as blank and confused.

“A…what?”

“Drekidóttira,” Dagur repeated. He shrugged a shoulder. “Must not be a legend you’ve got on Berk. Berserkers have all the best stories anyways. I told you, it’s in the book.”

Fishlegs set the thick tome on the table, and began to flip through its pages. Astrid peeked over his shoulder, and Snotlout followed, as well as the twins. Astrid caught brief blurs of tall tales and monsters under beds before Fishlegs finally settled on the page kept by the braided bookmark. 

“Drekidóttira,” Snotlout read outloud, wincing a bit when his eyes caught the knotted symbol next to the title, “Beware the drekidóttira, who lay in wait for the rain to fall, who call upon the mouths of winged beasts to heed their words. Beware their wretched gaze, sharp and piercing, beware their touch, conniving and intimate, beware their tongue, sweet and deadly. Beware the drekidóttira who roam the earth in search of gods amongst mortals, and mortals that stand amongst gods. Beware, beware, beware.”

“Technically it’s a song,” Dagur cut in. “You messed up the prose. It’s like a lullaby: dad used to sing it to me at night.”

“That’s one messed up bedtime tune,” Ruffnut mumbled. “Makes sense for you, though.”

“Well what in the nine realms is all of that supposed to mean?” Snotlout snapped, slamming the book shut. “Lay in wait for the rain to fall? Beware tongues? Tongues?!”

“It’s probably more metaphorical than anything,” Fishlegs suggested. He pulled the book away from Snotlout and flipped it open again. “Fantasies are rarely literal. Dagur, is this supposed to be anything substantial? I don’t see how a lullaby can help us.”

“I told you, Hiccup got nabbed by a drekidóttira. And anyways, there’s a whole second verse Snot-hat didn’t read.” Dagur ignored Snotlout’s heated protests and began to sing in a surprisingly clear voice: 

“She roams the land in mud and lighting, in wait, in wait, in wait, in wait. Hide your children and hide your loves: she waits, she waits, she waits, she waits. Her power flows through bones of beasts, her blood doth burn the minds of men, her life is drawn from light on high– so run, beware, and hide.”

“Stirring performance, Dagur,” Heather deadpanned when he was through. “That makes even less sense than the first verse. You really missed your calling in theater, though.”

“Why thank you, dear sister,” Dagur grinned. “The song is the key to all of this. We’ve got all the pieces, and now we’ve just gotta find a way to rearrange them.”

“What beasts, though?” Tuffnut cocked his head. “Like…like boars? Yaks? Fish?” He gasped suddenly. “Is the dorkkindora sucking the life out of chickens?”

“Drekidóttira,” Dagur corrected with a punctuating eye roll. “And no, they don’t suck the life out of things, at least I don’t think. Most of those aren’t even winged, Tuff."

“Valkyries then?” Snotlout suggested. “They’re winged.”

“But not quite beastly,” Fishlegs mused. “And anyways, the rest of the song doesn’t fit the description of valkyries. I mean, drawing their life from light on high? Power flowing through the bones of beasts?”

“The song must have been written at a time when the drekidóttira were a more well-known myth,” Heather added. “No need to be specific when everyone knows what they’re talking about. It’s likely that they’ve got a whole religious system that’s completely foreign to us.”

Dagur nodded. “But for whatever reason it is, we do know one thing.” He tapped the page, right over the twisted symbol. “Whatever they’re doing, whoever they're worshiping, they think Hiccup is a part of it. They need him.”

“What are you doing here?” a voice boomed.

Astrid whipped around. Stoick loomed large and dark in the second doorway, once-tired eyes now blazing and resting squarely on Dagur. Astrid and the rest of them had taken to Dagur after some time and a few life-or-death scenarios– Stoick, on the other hand, was a bit tougher to convince. 

Dagur raised his hands in surrender. “Hey Chief,” he said gently, like he was cornered by a deathsong. “I’m not looking for any trouble, promise. We’ve found something that can help Hiccup.”

Stoick’s glare lost some of its heat, but no less of its intensity. “Speak, then, and this had better be something good, or by the gods I’ll drown you in the sea with my bare hands.” 

Ouch. Astrid caught Heather’s grimace and shared one with her. Dagur ignored the threat. Taking the book from Fishlegs, he opened it up and flipped it to face the chief.

“Drekidóttira,” he explained. Stoick’s eyes digested the lines, back and forth. “They’re a coven of witches from an old Berserker tale. I don’t know why they want Hiccup, but the symbols match. We need to go back to where you found Hiccup to see if they’ve left anything behind.”

Fishlegs snapped his fingers. “Those men that attacked us in the cave. They’re definitely still there.”

“What’s left of them,” Snotlout added from under his breath. Astrid elbowed him in the stomach, but knew he was right. Skullcrusher had incinerated some of them in the tunnel, and a week of decomposition in a damp cave couldn’t be easy on the body. 

Stoick looked up from the book. “So you’re saying that the only hope we have of figuring this out comes from a… a fairy tale?”

The rage in his eyes was back, and this time it was no small simmer. Astrid jumped in before Dagur found himself being dragged to the coast by his ankles. 

“All myths are based on something real,” she said. Stoick’s blazing gaze snapped to her. “Please, Stoick, I know this isn’t much. But this? It’s all we have. Maybe someone took the tale on purpose to cover something up bigger, maybe it really is a witch. Either way, my point is that Hiccup needs all the help we can get right now, and if a story is what we have, this is what we’ll use.”

Stoick didn’t answer with words: his expression did the job just fine– anger, desperation, grief, hate. Trust him, Astrid wanted to scream. It’s our only hope. By the gods, put your suspicion and anger aside. This is all we’ve got.

Dagur cleared his throat, and lowered his hands. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care for Hiccup,” he said, and in her heart, Astrid knew that he was telling the truth. “I know you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either. But Hiccup needs help, and if I can help him even a little bit then I won’t stand by. Please, just let me help.”

Silence lulled in the room. Astrid drew a quiet breath, tensing for Stoick’s judgment. 

At last, the rage burned out of Stoick’s eyes, replaced by mournful resignation. “Alright,” he sighed. “Mount up, everyone. We’ve got a witch to kill.”

—

Fishlegs blinked the rain out of his eyes. Not that there was much to see, anyways. They’d been flying through rain and haze for Odin-knew how long. At least this time they had the foresight to bring cloaks and rain gear, though that didn’t stop a persistent chill from seeping into his bones.

Heather rose up next to him, her own hood covering her face. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yep,” Fishlegs replied shortly. “Everything is just fine and great.”

Meatlug burbled sadly beneath him. Even Windshear was looking at him with sad eyes that mirrored her master’s. 

Heather raised an eyebrow. “I see,” she said, and thank Thor she didn’t press the subject. “What about everyone else? I mean, I can tell that Stoick isn’t taking this in a healthy way.”

Was there any healthy way to deal with your only son being tortured and branded and rendered unconscious for a whole week? “Just tell Dagur to be grateful that he still has all of his limbs attached. Make sure he knows to keep it reigned in, okay? Everyone’s walking on eggshells right now. I feel like one wrong move is gonna blow someone’s head off.” 

Heather snorted. “I’d be richer than the gods if I had a gold piece for every time I wanted to tear one of his arms off. Trust me, I know the feeling.” 

They rode in silence for a bit. Fishlegs patted Meatlug’s head, if only to soothe himself. Like Snotlout said: they were going to take care of this, and in a few years it would all be fine and they’d look back on these terrible weeks like they were one big joke.

In a few years, that brand would still be on Hiccup’s back. In a few years, those scars would still tear deep. Bile never failed to rise in his throat when Fishlegs remembered that symbol. Stoick was fragile, not just because Hiccup was at risk, but because Berk was at risk. The ordeal had thrown the future of their home into question. The only thing worse than the uncertainty was that none of them even knew why.

“What about Snotlout, then?”

Fishlegs sucked in a breath. “What?”

Heather looked at him with pity, like she had taken a front-row seat to all his private thoughts. “Snotlout. I know Astrid is probably close to snapping bones and cracking skulls, and I don’t even know how the twins work when something like this isn’t happening. How’s Snotlout holding up?”

About as well as me.

“Not great,” Fishlegs admitted. Snotlout hadn’t made the journey with him, which had surprised Fishlegs. He had insisted on staying with Hiccup even if it meant missing out on vengeance. 

“I have to stay,” he had said, deadly serious, like it was a mission handed down from Odin himself. “I’m not going to leave him.”

“When Hiccup wakes up, he’ll be better.” At least, that was Fishlegs’ hope. A fantasy, if there were ever one. 

Heather hummed, but didn’t say anything. An island was rising out of the mist. At the front of the formation, Astrid singled to make their descent into the clearing in front of a familiar cave. Fishlegs’s stomach dropped the closer they came to the ground: he tried to tell himself that it was just gravity. 

“I’m getting sick of this rain,” Tuffnut grumbled as they dismounted. “I’d kill to see the sun again.” 

“Beware the drekidóttira, who lay in wait for the rain to fall,” Dagur sing-songed. “They attract storms. If we’re going by the legends, they can even travel through lightning.”

“Fantastic,” Astrid sighed. “One more thing to add onto the pile.”

“If they’re even real,” Stoick muttered. He unsheathed his axe, gripping it with white knuckles. “Let’s go. The quicker we deal with this the quicker it’ll be behind us.” 

Without another word he walked into the yawning maw of the cave with Skullcrusher at his side. Astrid and Stormfly fell dutifully behind him, then the twins and Barf and Belch, then Dagur and Sleuther. Heather caught Snotlout’s eye with a knowing look before she too disappeared into the darkness, guiding Windshear behind her. 

Fishlegs once more patted Meatlug’s head, then took a fortifying breath before plunging in. It seemed darker there than before, though it could have been a trick of the clouds. He could barely see the glint of Heather’s clothes in front of him. Hookfang would have been an asset right about now: a self-immolating dragon would have made for an excellent torch.  

A putrid smell hit him in an overwhelming wave. Fishlegs swallowed back a gag, and Meatlug agreed with a heave of her own.

“High flame, girl, but keep it contained,” Heather murmured to Windshear with some effort: she could smell it too. “We need to get a good look.” 

The razorwhip obeyed, and with signals from their riders the other dragons followed. Warm light filled the cave. Mostly it was the same as before: dripping walls, high ceilings, branching paths into more darkness.

The circular arrangement of decaying bodies in the middle of the room was new, though.

“What the fuck,” Astrid took a quick step back. Her foot was barely two steps from one of the grey, lifeless hands. “Are those…?”

“They are,” Stoick breathed. “Those on the far side are burned. And look: those have puncture wounds from Stormfly.”

“Those are the ones Hookfang got,” Fishlegs spoke up in a trembling voice, pointing to the ones closest to them. “Their throats are gone.”

“What is all of this?” Heather asked. “Dagur, is this supposed to mean anything?” 

Dagur walked forward, then crouched down to one of the bodies. “I have no idea,” he said, lifting the corpse’s covered arm. With quick fingers he undid the black vambrace. “I don’t know what any of this means.” 

The armor clattered to the floor. Though the skin was mottled and grey, the burn stretching from wrist to elbow was plain to see. Judging from what was left of the color and texture they were old, by a decade at least.

Dagur relieved the next body of its armor, revealing the same burn. He moved to the third, and found the same.

“Someone put them like this,” Ruffnut said. “Someone’s really into some freaky alternate art.”

“But what does it mean?” Fishlegs asked, blinking out of his shock. “The burns, the pattern, they all must be connected. This has to be some sort of ritual, or worship, or-”

“It doesn’t matter what it means,” Stoick cut in harshly. “It matters who did this. Ruffnut’s right: someone had to be left to arrange them like this, which means they’re still out there somewhere. We need to take them out swiftly and decisively.” 

Fishlegs bit back what he wanted to say, that to know the enemy was to defeat them easier. Stoick had one mission, and that was revenge– and gods help you if you got into the way.

“…the last time we were here I saw a library,” Astrid offered to break the tense silence. She jerked her head to the right. “It’s on the way to…”

To the cage they found Hiccup in, Fishlegs finished in his head. Not that he needed to: everyone save for Dagur and Heather knew.

“We should split up again,” Astrid switched. The other avenue of thought was too painful to travel. “Search the corridors top to bottom. If someone’s hiding here, we’ll find them.”

“I’ll check the library with you,” Fishlegs volunteered. “There’s gotta be something there.”

“Meet you all back here soon, then,” Heather said. She waved for Dagur to follow her down the straight path. Stoick followed them, and the message was clear: Dagur was not to leave his sight. The twins conferred silently, then turned to leave.

“Let’s go,” Astrid muttered. Stormfly squawked sadly, and Meatlug murmured in kind. 

The passageway was considerably shorter than the previous one that Fishlegs had traversed with Snotlout. Combined with Stormfly’s flame, the trip arrived at its end quicker than Fishlegs had expected. Library was a generous term for the room they were in: the four walls held nothing more than a desk and a rotting shelf of books bound in dull colors. On the desk laid another book, with a familiar, knotted symbol burned onto its cover.

“We're definitely taking that with us,” Fishlegs said to himself. He put the book into his satchel, trying his best not to look at the symbol for any longer than he had to.

Astrid scanned the shelf for any familiar titles. “I don’t know what any of these say,” she groaned. She pulled a book the size of her head off the shelf and slammed it onto the table. The toad-colored cover was quickly pulled open. Astrid flipped through pages and pages of crammed writing, and Fishlegs found himself agreeing with her: he had never seen any of the letters in the book before. By gods, he didn’t even know if they were letters. Some paragraphs looked like equations, others looked like lists.

This just keeps getting better and better, Fishlegs thought ruefully. Or more accurately: worse and worse. 

“Damnit,” Astrid growled, slamming the book shut. She grabbed another, this one the color of a rock. She nearly tore the cover off flipping through the pages that bore the same writing as the first. A third book joined the shelf, then a fourth, then a fifth. “Come on, come on, come on-”

“Astrid.” Fishlegs caught her hand. She sucked in a quick breath, then blinked up at him. “Astrid, breathe.”

“I am breathing,” she seethed. “I’m breathing just fine, thank you very much.”

Fishlegs just looked at her. It took no time at all for Astrid’s anger to crumble under his gaze. Collapsing into the chair, she pushed the books aside with a furious grunt. 

“Another dead end,” she said. “I really thought-” she swallowed back what could have been tears, though Fishlegs knew for a fact she was too proud to ever let them fall. “I thought that maybe this could help.”

Fishlegs didn’t say anything. Instead he elected to put his hand on her shoulder, then pull her into a hug. She melted into it easy as anything, clutching onto his tunic, and doing an almost perfect job of hiding her shuddering breaths.

“We’ll figure something out,” Fishlegs murmured. “The truth can’t stay hidden forever.”

“I’m fairly certain it can,” Astrid said with biting fury. “But thanks for the optimism anyways.”

Fishlegs pulled her up to her feet. “So this ended up as a dead end,” he shrugged. “That’s okay. Someone else is bound to find something.” 

Astrid nodded, looking wholly unconvinced. She turned her head away, looking at something.

Fishlegs followed her eyes. The rest of the tunnel loomed dark; both of them knew where it ended.

“I don’t want to go in there, Fishlegs,” Astrid said softly. “I don’t want to go in there.”

“Okay then,” Fishlegs agreed. Personally, he would rather lose both his hands than look at that lonely cage again.

They trudged back to the mouth of the cave with their dragons in tow. The circle of bodies came back into view, and Fishlegs had to look away from the rotting flesh in disgust, not even to say of the smell. 

One by one, the other riders and their dragons emerged from their passages. Each shook their head forlornly– Stoick looked like he wanted to either snap someone’s head clean off their shoulders or dissolve into a puddle on the ground.

“Maybe there’s something we missed outside,” Fishlegs suggested, and the optimism in his voice sounded fake even to him. Even so, they left the cave nearly single-file, out from darkness and into the pouring rain.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Lightning touched down somewhere distant if the shake of the earth had anything to do with it. 

“There’s nothing out here.” Heather had to yell over the pouring rain. “All I can see are trees and grass.”

“There has to be,” Astrid yelled back, the desperation evident in her voice. She plunged further into the bush, never minding the voices behind her. There had to be something out there, something to justify flying all the way to the lonely little island, something to make up for the time they had wasted in the caves. 

“Astrid!” Heather cried. She jumped over the bushes and twigs and caught her friend’s arm. “Astrid, we have to go back. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing-”

“You don’t know that!” Astrid screamed, even though Heather was close enough to hear even a whisper. “You don’t know that. There-there has to be something out here. There has to, Heather.”

Heather held her arm tighter, not saying anything for a moment. It wasn’t the rain getting in her green eyes, it was tears threatening to well over.

“Astrid,” Heather said firmly. Then softer, “Astrid. There’s nothing more out here. We’ll find another way. Don’t lose hope.”

That’s what scared Astrid most: that she could feel the hope leaching out of her heart slowly, ever so slowly. Reluctantly she allowed Heather to lead her back to the huddled group.

Gods, she couldn’t stand the worry on all of their faces. The sight of it made her sick to her-

A flash of metal in the cave, just behind Dagur, caught Astrid’s eye.

Crossbow.

“Duck!” she yelled, and to Dagur’s credit he dropped to the muddy ground, just as an arrow whizzed out from the darkness straight where his head would have been. “Everyone, get down now!”

She crouched herself, and more arrows flew from the cave. But how could that be? They had searched the tunnels, and there was no life to be seen, only dead bodies.

Astrid saw them stride out of the darkness: the corpses, who had been laid in the circle, walked out of the cave, each armed with a crossbow in their rotted hands and a sword on their thigh. 

“What are they?!” Tuffnut yelled. “They’re supposed to be dead.”

“Well they’re definitely not dead now. Windshear, send them a gift,” Heather commanded. The razorwhip obeyed, and with a sharp snap of her tail, sent three metallic spines out just as accurately as the arrows. Astrid watched as one traveled straight through one of the cloaked men’s eye and out the back of his skull, then almost vomited as he kept walking like nothing had happened, even as blood poured from his now-empty socket. 

“That didn’t do much,” Dagur said. “Everyone, spread out. If we can incinerate these guys, that’s sure to stop them.”

Astrid signaled to Stormfly, and the two of them pushed deeper into the bush. Three of the men clambered after them. Astrid heard the clicking of bolts reloading, and knew she had precious little time. The forest was too dense to get into the sky, so she couldn’t get them from above. One-on-one combat would have to suffice.

With a mighty roar she pivoted on her foot, withdrawing her axe and shield and charged forward. Two bolts clanked dead-center on her shield: she slid under the third one, slicing through one of the men’s feet clean. He stumbled down, but did not cry out, instead drawing his own sword and brandishing it.

“Any time would be great, Stormfly,” Astrid cried. The nadder chirruped, then let out a white-hot blast of fire directly at one of the still standing men. The blast enveloped him in light, and the scent of burned flesh rose to meet Astrid. When Stormfly’s barrage ceased, there was nothing more than a pile of ashes where the man once was.

Astrid rolled out of the way of the downed man, raising her axe up high and bringing it down onto his skull. It split deep, almost down to his neck. 

It was like Astrid hadn’t even touched him. She barely escaped the point of his sword, her axe still stuck in his head, blood bubbling around it. 

Oh gods, was her only thought before a hand pulled her backwards. An arrow slid just past her nose, embedding itself down to the fletching into a tree truck far past her head. 

“They’re undead,” Stoick said from behind. “Skullcrusher,” he called to his dragon. The rumblehorn charged the man reloading his crossbow, his front horn piercing the man’s chest. For good measure, the dragon released a stream of fire.

“How does all of this just keep getting worse?” Astrid groaned. The third and final man was still crawling towards her, axe and all. With a mighty tug she gripped the handle and yanked it free from his cranium– then Stormfly took care of the rest.

Astrid stood there for a moment, chest heaving, soaking wet with both rain and blood. The Great Beyond held some oddities, but zombies were certainly the first. 

Something pricked the back of her neck. Not a touch, not a weapon, but something more. Astrid turned to the dense woods.

A woman, a tall woman, stared back at her.

Her jet-black hair fell almost to her feet, streaked with white. Some inky locks fell into her face, but could not obscure the color of her eyes: light grey, almost white- like the color of a cloud that was just beginning to think of rain. She held a staff in her hand made of wood and decorated with something white.

She smiled at Astrid. Her mouth held too many teeth.

Stoick gasped behind Astrid. Skullcrusher snarled at the figure right as Stormfly screeched. Before any of them could take a step, a brilliant bolt of lightning cracked down, and she was gone.

Drekidóttira.

“The others,” Astrid said, but Stoick was two steps ahead of her. Turning back on his heel he raced back to the clearing, with Skullcrusher clambering not far behind. Astrid followed right on his heels. When she burst through the bushes, though, she stopped dead in her tracks.

The woman was there again, staring a blood-stained Dagur straight down. At his side, Sleuther cocked his head at the woman.

“Drekidóttira,” Dagur said simply. His grip tightened on his axe.

“Dagur. The Berserker,” the woman responded. “I’ve seen so much about you.”

Dagur’s eyes widened. “How do you know my name?”

The woman smiled again. There was an arrow embedded into the tree next to her: the same arrow that had almost caught Astrid. The woman pulled the arrow out, and without dropping her grin, dragged it across her cheek. A bloody cut opened up, red descending down her face.

“I know all you,” she said. She brushed her fingers against her cheek, back and forth until they were coated in blood. “Astrid. Stoick. The twins: Ruffnut and Tuffnut. Snotlout. Fishlegs, and your dear long-lost sister, Heather. The little godling is terribly fond of all of you.”

Stoick bolted forward with an angry roar. The woman whipped around, light exploding from her staff. As Stoick’s axe bore down, it bounced off what looked to be a purple pane of glass. 

Dagur joined the action, not intent on being left behind. He went low for her legs, but she disappeared once more in a booming flash of light. 

They travel through lightning, Astrid remembered. Oh gods, that’s an honest-to-Thor witch.

She caught a smear of black in her peripheries, and the air around her flexed. Astrid swung her axe, but her attempted blow glanced off the same as Stoick’s. 

“Cute,” the woman sneered. Quick as a flash, her bloody hand brushed against Astrid’s arm.

And oh gods, it burned. Astrid couldn’t bite back a scream, nor could she help herself from dropping her axe. The woman disappeared before her very eyes while Astrid stumbled back, gripping her arm tight.  

“Astrid!” Stoick cried, racing towards her. She saw the same distortion just behind him, felt the same odd tensing of the air. Her warning was drowned out by a flash of lighting.

The woman materialized right next to Stoick, and her bloody fingertips tapped ever so gently against his forehead. The Chief stumbled back with a pained groan. 

Dagur leapt to his feet. Astrid caught flashes of the twins running towards the clearing. She could barely say anything beyond a pitiful croak, so great was the pain in her arm.

But what was worse was Stoick. He shook his head, then righted himself. He did not grab for his axe, though. His eyes were wide, shell-shocked, trained forward on…nothing. 

“Stoick,” Astrid gasped around the pain. “Stoick-”

“Astrid?”

Hiccup?

Astrid whipped around, and wondered if she had died. Hiccup was there, right there, with his leg and armor and smile and none of the new scars or bruises, just as he was before he had gone missing all those weeks ago.

“Are-are you okay?” he asked, and Astrid almost sobbed at the love and concern in his eyes. He must have woken up and flown to the island at double speed. “Gods, that burn doesn’t look too good. Here, let me take a look.”

“Hiccup,” she breathed, tears prickling in her eyes. Hiccup smiled shyly at her, as if embarrassed at how scared she had been for him. “I…I thought you weren’t ever going to wake up again. You had all of us so worried. How…?”

Hiccup grinned fully, his eyes sparking with humor. “You thought I was going to sleep forever? Astrid, I’d never dream of letting you down like that.” He opened his arms to embrace her, and Astrid stumbled right to them on unsteady feet. The warmth of his arms was just a few feet away. He was okay, he was okay-

“ASTRID, SNAP OUT OF IT!”

Something crashed into her side, launching her off her feet. Heat flashed somewhere to her right as she and Dagur (Dagur?) collapsed to the ground. 

“Astrid, look at me,” Dagur said. “Astrid.”

Dagur’s eyes caught something, and he whipped around, pulling Astrid’s shield out of her hands. Astrid’s vision went white as a stiff inferno enveloped her, as a boom filled her ears, as Dagur’s pained cry and the smell of static and burned flesh rose above it all. 

She blinked, and the world careened back to normal colors. Hiccup was gone, the shield was gone, and so was most of the skin on Dagur’s arm. Shards of burnt wood were embedded like porcupine’s spikes in his tender flesh.

“Astrid, Dagur!”

That was Heather’s voice, those were Fishlegs’ hands, those were the twins clambering above it all, something like “did you see that?”

Dagur slumped off Astrid, unconscious. Stoick (Stoick, Stoick was here, what happened?) caught him before he could fall, his face sheet-white and eyes haunted.

Astrid hissed as feeling began to come back to her body. She looked at her arm, and watched, semi-entranced, as the rain washed the blood away.

“What,” Ruffnut was out of breath, and ash was smeared across her face, “What was that?”

—

Snotlout curled into the chair. Hiccup hadn’t so much as twitched since everyone had left. That was to be expected though: at least his chest still rose and fell regularly.

“I’m not leaving him,” was what he had said to Fishlegs, and that was the gods-honest truth. He had already left Hiccup behind before (every so often he would wake up in a cold sweat, remembering Hiccup and Toothless on the other side of dragon proof bars, slowly succumbing to the strange gas pouring out of the walls) and he had sworn after that to never leave Hiccup in a moment of need. 

He shifted in his chair. His legs were falling asleep. It would be a day before everyone came back, leaving Snotlout with a whole lot of silence to fill with his thoughts. 

Preferably not. His thought had tended to take dark turns as of late, and this wasn’t the time or the place for them. There were plenty of other ways, if a bit cumbersome and rusty, to fill the lull.

Snotlout shifted again, drawing his knees to his chest. For good measure, he folded his hands and closed his eyes.

“Um, hi,” he said, feeling a bit stupid. “I know it’s been a while since I've talked to all of you like this. I don’t really know who I’m talking to, so just make sure this finds whoever can answer it, okay?”

This was already an embarrassing excuse for a prayer, and he hadn’t even gotten to the part where he had asked for anything. Swallowing his shame, he pressed forward. “I need Hiccup to wake up. Please. Not just for me, but for everyone. He needs to get better. Everyone is really worried about him.” He paused again, then added, “I’m worried about him. He’s my cousin, and sometimes he’s really stupid. But he’s not all that bad though. He’s actually a pretty good cousin. I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I…I love him a lot. I don’t always show it like I should, but I do. So if you could, I don’t know, do some gods-stuff to make him get better, I’d appreciate that. Thank you,” he added at the end, if only because he didn’t really know how you were supposed to end prayers. He sighed, letting his hands fall back to his sides. That was that, he guessed.

Something creaked. Squeaked. Like sifting on a wooden bed.

Snotlout’s eyes flew open. He sat up straight in his chair, drawing a sharp breath. 

Hiccup was staring right back at him, unblinking and unmoving. Toothless purred at him, but he paid his dragon no mind, not even when he nudged his black snout underneath the hand that wasn’t twisted around the blankets.

It wasn’t just any stare, though. Something was wrong, like he was staring right through Snotlout into the wall. It was scary, if Snotlout said so himself.

Snotlout cleared his throat. “How much of that were you awake for?” he asked sheepishly. Hiccup gave no response. He only continued to stare.

“Hiccup, stop, you’re scaring me,” Snotlout said seriously. He felt frozen in his seat. “Hiccup, stop.” 

Sadness, for just the briefest of minutes, filled Hiccup’s green eyes. Just as quickly as it was there it was gone, replaced by a blankness smooth as river stones. Without speaking, without even so much as acknowledging Toothless, Hiccup shuffled to the edge of the bed, stood up, then with great effort, hobbled to the door and left. 

Chapter Text

Three weeks earlier….

—

“Oh come on, bud, don’t tell me you’re scared of getting a little wet,” Hiccup teased as rain began to patter gently onto his back. Toothless glared at him and grumbled back mockingly. 

“Hey, none of that attitude out of you,” he scolded. “It’s just a patrol, bud, we do it once a week. And besides, the peace and quiet is kind of nice, don’t you think?”

Toothless rolled his eyes, but didn’t stray from their path. Hiccup chuckled to himself and patted the night fury’s head for a bit of encouragement. In truth, he wasn’t fond of patrolling either: miles and miles of open sea and the occasional rock formation wasn’t the most stimulating of views, especially when he’d rather be tinkering. He’d promised to take the early shift, though, even though it was technically Snotlout’s turn. Perils of being a leader, he supposed.

And besides, the day was beautiful, even after dark clouds began to crowd out the sun. Some rain never hurt a soul.  

“Let’s make this interesting,” Hiccup said, and Toothless trilled excitedly. He pointed to the left, where sea stacks dotted the darkening waves. “See those stacks? I wonder how fast we could maneuver around them.”

Toothless didn’t need a second encouragement. Hiccup had barely gotten his final word out before the dragon surged forward and downward, the expanse of his wings tracing a sharp wake against the waves. Water sprayed Hiccup in the face, but he didn’t much care: the wind whipping wildly through his hair and past his ears, the thrill of the rush, the blurring sky filled him with a joy so hot and fierce the rain might have well evaporated the moment it touched his skin.

He let out a whoop as Toothless banked a sharp left around the first towering stack. He rose and fell with every roll and twitch of his dragon’s muscles, their bodies responding to each other like they were one entwined being. With each turn Toothless coiled tighter and tighter, ready to explode with all the power hidden within his wings. Yet, Hiccup could have let go entirely of Toothless and never once fear for his life.

The pair wove in and out, up and around, over and between the stony formations smoother than silk, faster, faster, faster until the world lost its shape in favor of blurred colors. Toothless let out a mighty roar as his path spiraled upwards around the last stack, and Hiccup replied with a shout in kind, unable and uninterested in holding back a laugh that echoed just the same as Toothless’ roar, rising high into the sky, just shy of breaking the clouds and soared above the deluge. He threw his arms wide, like he too had wings to spread. This, Hiccup was sure, was what Valhalla felt like. 

“Not bad,” Hiccup sighed breathlessly as Toothless idled above the last sea stack. Toothless grumbled to himself: if he had been capable of words, it would have been something along the lines of “not bad, my ass.” 

“Oh, fine, you’ve got me.” Hiccup flopped forward, resting his head on top of the night fury’s, stroking the tip of his scaled snout, pulling a purr from  Toothless’ chest. “That was fantastic. I’m proud of you.”

Hiccup closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, content to stay in the clouds just like this forever. Toothless’ heart hammered steadily beneath his ear, his scales cool against his cheek. Rain poured down on both of them: the faint sprinkle had expanded into a good old downpour, complete with rumbling thunder and dark, rolling waves. 

“We should start heading back,” Hiccup sighed. “The storm will probably blow its way to the Edge. If we hurry, we can beat-”

A thick bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, cracking the darkness in two. In the flash of light, something small on the surface of the sea stack that wasn’t there before caught Hiccup’s eye.

“Hey, Toothless, did you see that?” Hiccup sat up and leaned forward, eyes searching through the rain. Toothless cocked his head. “I swear I saw…”

Well, he didn’t quite know what he had seen. It could have been anything: a downed branch, a rock he just hadn’t noticed. Hiccup shook his head. They didn’t have the time for exploring. Astrid would want the Edge prepared as soon as possible for the incoming storm. 

“Nevermind.” Hiccup nudged Toothless forward. Let’s get–”

A second bolt of lighting split the sky, only this one was louder, hotter, brighter, more. Hiccup heard it connect, felt sparks fly against his back.

The next thing he knew, he was plummeting– and Toothless was screaming.

He twisted midair to see what had happened. Smoke poured from what was left of Toothless’ prosthetic tail as the night fury struggled to right himself. 

“Toothless!” Hiccup yelled, trying to angle his body to fall closer to his dragon. Toothless’ eyes snapped to Hiccup, pupils narrowed into terrified slits, almost lost in a wild green expanse. “Toothless, just-just calm down, okay? Try to make your way towards me.” 

They were either going to hit the sea stack and die, or hit the ocean and also die; how could either of them stay calm about that?

The sea was rising to meet them— and more pressingly, the rough detail of the sea stack was coming into stark relief. There was nothing Hiccup could do but fall.

Toothless scrambled, finally falling upright. His wings billowed, somewhat slowing his descent, but without the guidance of his tail, there would be no flight. Still, it seemed the night fury had a plan. With a last-ditch flap, Toothless closed the distance between himself and Hiccup, grabbing onto the human with all four of his paws, then wrapping him in the protective grasp of his wing and angling so Toothless came between Hiccup and the ground.

Hiccup barely had time to protest before he felt the impact. Rock and hard earth did not meet them, though the branches of a forlorn clump of trees wasn’t much better. The entwined pair skidded across the wet grass in a flurry of leaves and smaller branches, and though Toothless absorbed most of the blow, Thor’s hammer might have well struck Hiccup upside the head with all the strength the god could muster. A terrible jolt shot up his leg; Hiccup’s cry was lost in Toothless’ pained screech, and as they skidded to a stop, thunder added itself to the hellish mix.

“Toothless,” Hiccup gasped, untangling himself from his dragon’s hold. He tried to stand, then immediately pitched forward: his head pounded, vision flashed, stomach turned backflips. Worse, his metal leg had twisted almost completely sideways in the fall. He let himself fall, dragging himself to Toothless’ crumpled form.

“Oh gods, bud.” Hiccup’s breath hitched as he took stock of the damage. The dragon’s prosthetic tail was completely burnt through, and most of the leather aspects of the mechanism connecting it to his saddle were gone as well. Though the trees had broken some of their fall,  branches had torn thin lines into the membrane of Toothless’ wings. One of them hung at an unnatural angle– a small bump where there should have been smooth bone protruded at the joint.

Toothless moaned in pain, eyes wandering. Hiccup bit back tears and crawled forward through the mud the best his spinning head would allow.

“I’m here, Toothless,” he murmured, cupping the dragon’s chin in his hands. Toothless sighed and relaxed into the hold with a wince. “Don’t worry, I’m here. I’m right here, I promise.” 

How in Odin’s name did this even happen? At a closer look, it seemed that lightning had struck Toothless’ tail, but the precision of the bolt was near-improbable. Even a centimeter in any direction and the bolt would have stuck the base of Toothless’ tail, possibly paralyzing him instantly. They had flown in a hundred storms, and not once had his tail ever attracted electricity.

Bad luck was just that, though: bad luck. Hiccup’s mind kicked into overdrive. Most pressing: Toothless’ broken wing. That could be set with a splint easy as anything. His torn membrane would be slower, but stitches were possible. Hiccup suspected a concussion, which would ground Toothless for a few days even if his wings healed overnight. Hiccup hadn’t strayed from the established path, though– even if they couldn’t get off the sea stack within a day or two, help would arrive sooner or later.

That just left himself. He was also certain he had a concussion, but the worst of his injuries were the deep bruises Hiccup could already feel blooming on his arms. His leg was no problem: as always, he had a backup, and three– the life-debt incident with Barf and Belch had convinced him to prepare for extremes– backups for the back up. 

“I’m so sorry, Toothless,” Hiccup said, resting his forehead on the dragon’s. “I promise we’ll be out of here in no time, okay? We just have to stay calm. After the rain stops I’ll build us a fire. It’ll be just like that one time when we all went camping and Snotlout fell off that rock and hit his head so hard he saw double for a week, remember?” 

Toothless let out a gurgling laugh, and that uncoiled some of the tension in Hiccup’s chest. He would have much preferred the camping trip, even if they had all been worried Snotlout had endured permanent brain damage. Closing his eyes, he called the memory to the front of his mind: Fishlegs’ excited chatter about the unknown fauna of the quiet beach they had found, the twins arguing who could survive falling from the taller point, Snotlout chasing Hookfang after his dragon had stolen his dinner, Astrid’s body warm against his side as he pulled her close. They had watched the fire dance together against the starry night, and stolen a kiss when it had finally burned out. 

Of course, that had prompted Ruffnut to screech at the top of her lungs and for her brother and Snotlout to make fake gagging noises, but that was to be expected. Hiccup laughed softly at the thought. 

Toothless’ green eyes flicked to something behind him, pupils narrowing into slits. Hiccup shook the memory away.

“Toothless, what…?” 

A chill came over him, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up. For just a moment, he could have sworn that the rain felt harsher against his skin.

Someone was watching them.

Hiccup turned. On the other side of the sea stack, partially hidden in the trees, a tall woman with a staff stared back with wide eyes.

“…hello?” Hiccup struggled to his, well, foot, leaning against a tree for support. The woman watched him stand, fascinated. “Um, hi. I’m so sorry for crashing in. Do you, uh, live here?”

She didn’t respond. Maybe she couldn’t? And anyways, that was a stupid question: people didn’t just live on top of sea stacks. 

But if this wasn’t her home… then what was she doing all the way up here?

Her gaze slid smoothly to Toothless. That must have been it: not many people saw dragons in a positive (or any) light, much less someone riding them. She was probably scared of him just as Berk had been all those years ago.

“He won’t hurt you,” Hiccup added, leaving out that Toothless was too dazed to even lift his head. He crouched down by the night fury’s head and stroked it as a sign of gentleness. “He’s not scary at all.”

The woman began to emerge out of the trees. Her outer smock was in mud-stained tatters, and her dress looked to be stitched together from black fabric of varying qualities and shades. He could barely see the features of her face behind her white-streaked hair; what little he could see was sharp, almost animalistic. 

Her eyes, though. They did not hold fear or trepidation or even confusion. It was closer to… reverence, Hiccup realized.

“You have tamed the dragon,” the woman breathed. She was maybe a few steps away from Hiccup. “How?”

Hiccup shrugged a shoulder. The line of questioning wasn’t unique, but there were more pressing things to do. “I honestly couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Best I can say is that you’ve got to trust the dragon just as much as you want it to trust you. After all that, it’s easy as anything.” He scratched behind Toothless’ ear flap, pulling a gargling purr from the dragon’s throat. “Isn’t that right, bud?”

He could feel her eyes boring into him, though he was facing Toothless. Should he introduce himself? It couldn’t hurt, but maybe it wasn’t wise to give his name out to random women on top of sea stacks. Scratch that: it definitely wasn’t wise, especially when said woman was looking at him like he imagined sharks looked at fish before they feasted. 

Well, he could always work around her if she was just going to stand there and stare. Was that weird? Certainly. Was it the only option he had? Unfortunately.

“If there’s nothing else I can help you with, I’m gonna start on helping my dragon, now,” Hiccup said cautiously. Thunder rumbled overhead. 

The woman blinked down at him like she was just realizing he was there, then extended her hand. Hiccup took it gratefully. His lack of leg was always an annoyance at best, but this particular scenario was starting to irk him greatly. It would probably sink into the mud the second he put it on, but it was better than dragging himself around like a beached whale or hopping around and praying to Odin that his balance had suddenly improved. 

Her hand was ice cold around his wrist, and he swore that a shock traveled through her fingers when their skin met. She hauled him up with a surprising strength– Hiccup almost pitched over again when his foot was underneath him. 

“Okay,” Hiccup mumbled to himself, wincing at the pounding of his head. He could sort of balance on his twisted foot, at least well enough to hobble to his saddle bag. Things might not have been as bleak as he thought.

“You can, uh,” Hiccup looked down at her hand, still gripped around his wrist, her knuckles white with effort. “You can let go of my wrist now. Please.”

She towered over him: he had to tilt his head to even look her in the eye. It occurred to Hiccup that he had only seen her blink once.

“You’ve given such a sacrifice to the gods,” she breathed, her eyes now locked on his broken prosthetic. Her grip tightened, and Hiccup winced as her fingernails carved crescents into his skin. “They have smiled so graciously upon you. I wonder, is your power a result of their favor?

Gods? What gods? Power?

“Let go of me,” Hiccup repeated firmly, trying not to let fear creep into his voice. He tried tugging his wrist away, but her hand might have well been a shackle. “Let go.”

Her eyes were heavy on him, pinning him in place. A smile, too wide, too sharp, spread across her face.

“And why would I do that, Hiccup?”

She shoved him backwards, never letting go of his wrist. His twisted foot could find no purchase in the slick grass, and with every step he stumbled backwards, she advanced forward, the smile on her face growing.

“Who are you?” Her nails drew blood: he could feel its warmth trickling down his wrist. Hiccup had no space of mind to try to break free, not when he was losing more and more ground against her. He cast a frantic look to Toothless– the dragon could barely keep his eyes open, yet he still flailed with distress, teeth half-bared. “What do you want from me?”

“I want many things, godling,” she replied. Lighting crackled in the air, almost drowning out Toothless’ angry screeches. He tried to struggle to his feet, then collapsed with a muffled whine, his wings twitching, itching for flight. “And you’re going to give all of them to me.”

Branches scraped against Hiccup’s cheeks, arms, leg, back. The diameter of the sea stack was not large.

Oh gods, Hiccup thought as his foot ceased to slip in the mud and began to scrape against exposed rock. Toothless’ roar rose above the angry elements. Oh gods, oh gods she’s going to kill Toothless. 

With a final mighty shove, Hiccup found himself falling through the rain once more.

It was a significantly shorter fall than the first, and Toothless was not there to break it. He didn’t even have time to yell before he plummeted into the rolling waves with a sharp splash, pain exploding across his whole body. The cold was nearly as bad: it took all of his will to not scream as the ocean enveloped him completely.

Think, Hiccup, think. You might still be able to get to Toothless. You can see the lightning, you know which way is up. Get your head on your shoulders and swim for Odin’s sake.

The shadow of something large slid over him. A boat, he realized, right as something harsh and new enclosed him, shot from the tumultuous surface. Rough-hewn rope tangled around his limbs as he was hauled upwards at a terrifying pace.

Black crowded the edges of his vision, his chest straining for a breath he could not take. Hiccup frantically tugged at the ropes, searching, straining for some weakness in the knots or a gap big enough to slip through, anything. 

I’m going to die down here, he thought, though even that was as hazy as his vision. I’m already dying.

The more rational and pessimistic part of his brain knew that it wasn’t going to be that easy. I want many things, the woman had said. And you’re going to give all of them to me. 

She had called him godling. She knew his name.

The net, and Hiccup along with it, broke the surface. He sucked in a blessed breath, though there was no relief to be found in it– a boat with sails he had never seen loomed large in front of him, illuminated by lightning, yet still shrouded in rain.

Toothless was still screaming. He could hear it echoing around the sea stacks. Hiccup wanted to scream back, but his chest suggested a retching cough instead. 

He was unceremoniously dumped onto the deck. Hands grabbed at him, pulling away the net, tugging more rope tightly around his wrists. Hiccup knew that combat would never be one of his strengths; Astrid always said that what he lacked in muscle, he made up for in pure rage when the time was right.

He kicked out with his metal leg, connecting against something hard with a satisfying crack that set his teeth on edge. He fought against the hands without faces, kicking and hitting on complete and frenzied instinct. Voices shouted around him, mostly lost over the rain and thunder, though Hiccup could catch bits and pieces.

“Damn brat broke me nose-”

“By the winged ones, can none of you restrain a runt-?”

“She has commanded us to take the godling alive-”

“Didn’t say anything about how many pieces he had to be in.”

A hand thread through his hair and slammed his face down against the glistening deck. Fireworks of pain exploded across his vision, all his limbs going limp against his will. The hand hauled him up again by his hair, still more pulling his arms behind his back, this time succeeding in binding his wrists tight. More rope wound across his chest in a death hold, intent on trapping what little breaths he could take in his chest. When they were done, he was dropped with prejudice.

His vision finally adjusted to the deluge. He could see none of their faces, only suggestions of features. One of them glared daggers at him, his blue eyes placed on either side of a newly broken and bloody nose. Hiccup couldn’t help but to smile at his assailant, just a bit. If Astrid were here, she would have smacked him upside the head for it.

“Give me five minutes with the brat,” the blue-eyed man spat. He brandished the mace hooked to his belt. “I’ll wipe that smile right off his pretty face.”

Another taller figure shrouded in darkness grabbed Blue-Eye’s arm and squeezed tight. A pained yelp escaped Blue-Eyes.

“The godling is not to be touched,” the bigger man seethed. “Not by your unworthy hands. Our lady will deal with him accordingly.”

There it was, that word again: godling. Hiccup wiggled, testing his bonds. No good– the knots were tight and out of reach. 

“I’m not your godling,” Hiccup snapped. “I’m not your anything. Let me go now and I won’t make any trouble for you.”

The bigger man laughed harshly. He let go of Blue-Eyes’ arm and strode to Hiccup, yanking him to his knees by his hair. Hiccup winced, but bit back his pained gasp.

“What trouble could a bound and one-legged slip of a thing like you cause me?”

Hiccup tried his best not to struggle– something told him it would only earn him another head-slam. “My friends will know I’m gone in a few hours,” he said, gasping when the hand in his hair drew tighter. “They’re gonna rain fire down on your little operation and cook you to a fine ash. If you want to live, let me go.”

The man laughed, pulling Hiccup close, so close he could feel the man’s hot breath against his face. “Godling, you must think me a fool if you believe I fear death. There are much worse things to cower before.”

Lightning struck the middle of the deck, rocking the boat more furiously than the waves could ever hope. Light and heat overwhelmed Hiccup, as well as the choking taste of static. 

The woman appeared out of the smoke. Her staff glowed purple. Across the deck, each cloaked figure bent on one knee.

“My lady,” the man bowed as she approached. He tossed Hiccup forward: he had neither the time nor arms to catch himself– he crashed against the deck, curled on his side. “Your prize.”

She knelt down. Her ice-cold hand tilted his chin up, appraising him. Hiccup didn’t have anything to say: all his thoughts, save for one, died on his tongue the second he tried to summon them into speech.

“What do you want from me?” Hiccup breathed. Toothless was still screaming. Gods, he was still screaming. It rose above the rain, above the thunder, above the roar between his own ears. It would still echo in his ears even if he were struck deaf by the gods right this moment.

“I told you, godling,” she smiled. There were too many teeth in her mouth, all perfectly straight and slightly pointed. “I want everything.”

Chapter Text

Astrid blinked, then blinked again to clear the rain from her eyes. Vaguely, she could hear voices swirling around her and a pain, once hot, now rapidly cooling on her arm. 

“We have to get out of here,” Fishlegs said, not bothering to keep the fear out of his voice. “The drekidóttira, she’s probably still out there. We have to go now.”

“Wait just a minute,” Heather snapped. She tried to not look at her brother, but his unconscious form screamed at her in the corners of her vision. “Everyone just wait. We’ll lose the chance to get any more information if we fly off at the first sight of danger.”

“Yeah, and if we stay here someone’s going to get express-shipped to Valhalla on a lightning bolt,” Tuffnut said. “Gods, the one time we actually need Snotlout he’s off being all noble.”

Heather shook her head. “Why would Snotlout make this any different?”

“Because Thor hates him,” Ruffnut added cryptically. “Did Dagur die? We might have to amputate that arm.”

Astrid’s stomach lurched at the thought. “No, on both of those counts.” She winced as pain flared on her arm again. “We need to find shelter. She could still be out there waiting for us while we’re out here licking our wounds.”

“Speaking of wounds,” Fishlegs said hesitantly. He pointed to her arm. “Is that from…from her blood?”

Astrid dared to peek at her injury. The rain had completely washed the blood away, leaving an angry red burn on her forearm. It was shaped in the exact path of the drekidóttira’s fingers where she had touched Astrid.

“I think it is,” she replied, her stomach lurching once more. “But there’s something else. Something that’s gonna sound crazy, but I swear on my life that it happened.” She took a breath. 

“I…I think I saw Hiccup. Scratch that, I don’t think. I know.”

Thunder rumbled overhead. Silence fell over the battered group as they digested the words. Astrid looked at Stoick, for confirmation or otherwise– his eyes were trained to the ground, though his arms curled tighter around Dagur. 

“You saw Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked.

“As in, our currently unconscious and perpetually one-legged fearless leader, Hiccup?” Tuffnut added. 

Astrid groaned. “I know it sounds impossible, I know that. But I’d swear it before all the gods of Asgard: he was right there.”

“That’s why you froze,” Heather breathed. “You were completely spaced out and staring at nothing. I was calling your name, and you didn’t even look in my direction.”

“I didn’t hear you,” Astrid admitted. “All I could see was Hiccup. Then Dagur pushed me out of the way from the lightning and he was gone, just like that.”

Stoick held Dagur tighter, practically cradling the man. His face was pale, his eyes wide and somewhere entirely unpleasant. Astrid didn’t want to know, but she had to.

“Stoick?” she ventured. “She got her blood on you too. What did you see?” 

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, searching for words that wouldn’t come. Finally, he closed his eyes and sighed wearily.

“I…” he swallowed to calm his trembling voice, “I saw Valka.”

Stunned silence ripped across the group like a backhand to the face. He opened his eyes, and when he saw the confusion on Heather’s face, he added, “My wife. Hiccup’s mother. She’s been…she’s been gone ever since he was a baby.” Stoick took another trembling breath. “I could have reached out and touched her face. She looked exactly the way she did the last night we had together. Odin’s beard, I could hear her voice.”

“Same with Hiccup,” Astrid echoed. Her hands curled and uncurled in her lap, straining to strangle the life out of something that wasn’t there. “He looked exactly like he did the day he went missing all those weeks ago.”

“Okay, wait, so let me get this straight,” Tuffnut broke in with raised hands. He pointed to Astrid. “The witch lady slapped her blood on you, and you somehow saw Hiccup, even though he’s a million miles away and also hasn’t woken up for a week straight and is in varying stages of injury.” When Astrid nodded numbly, his pointed finger swung to Stoick. “And you saw your very deceased wife that none of us have met and barely anyone outside of Berk knows about exactly like she looked the day the dragons took her.” He shook his rain-soaked hair out of his eyes, brain churning.

“It makes sense that she showed Astrid Hiccup,” Ruffnut picked up on her brother’s line of thought and carried it forward, “because she’s been beating the Odin-loving shit out of him in new and exciting ways. I’d figure that’s a lot of time to get to know a guy. Sorry Chief,” she added when Stoick bristled at the description. “But…” she trailed off, lacking any explanation for the second part of the problem.

“But how could she know about Hiccup’s mom?” Fishlegs finished. “She’s been gone for years. How could she know exactly what she looked like on an incredibly specific day too?”

The question was somewhat rhetorical, not because any of them knew the answer, but because they didn’t. Astrid brushed her fingers over her burn once more just to feel the pain and to keep herself from fading into the noise of her own mind. 

“Is, um,” Heather took a deep breath, changing the subject to a more solvable issue. “Is Dagur okay? He hasn’t woken up yet.”

Sleuther rumbled sadly at her side, then nudged his nose into the little group and against Dagur’s neck. Astrid could see the stuttering rise and fall of the man’s chest. He was alive at least– in what condition of alive, though, was harder to tell. Gods’ sake, he had taken a bolt of lighting and an exploding shield for her. That would be enough to take anyone out of the game for a good while. 

Sleuther nudged his neck again with more purpose, chittering subvocally. Dagur’s brow furrowed, and he groaned as his eyes fluttered open, unfocused, searching, and blinking to clear the rain from his sight.

“Hey Chief,” he said, blinking hard and squinting. “Is your face okay? You don’t look too hot.”

“Dagur, you gods-damned idiot,” Heather sighed without a hint of annoyance. Dagur blinked a third time, and with a great deal of Stoick’s help, sat up. Heather brought him into a hug while being mindful of his mangled arm.

“Aw, sis, I’m glad you were worried about me,” Dagur smiled. He patted her on the back. “What happened? Everything feels so hazy.”

“What didn’t happen would be a better question,” Fishlegs replied.

“So far, we’ve got zombies, lightning, witch, witch that can control lightning,” Ruffnut listed off on her fingers.

“Oh, and Astrid and Stoick are hallucinating,” Tuffnut added. “But hey, at least the worst that happened was your arm getting fried, right? That's pretty easy to fix. What are your feelings on gaining a metal extremity?”

Astrid dared to assess Dagur’s injury while Heather filled her brother in on the situation. The wound’s epicenter was in the middle of his shredded forearm, with smaller branches cracking out from the point like splitting earth. Chips of burnt wood littered both the wound and the parts of his arm that had escaped the lightning’s wrath. Two separate but smaller burns wrapped around his hand and the middle of his forearm- that must have been from the leather straps of the shield. Of course, the shield was gone, save for the bits embedded in Dagur’s arm, so any of her musings were guesswork at best. She had to look away, less her stomach revolt right out of her mouth.

She didn’t want to leave the island. Far from it– the drekidóttira was most certainly still lurking in the woods, maybe even listening in on their conversations. They could end this swiftly, right here and now; in her heart she knew it was an impossibility. Even if Dagur was uninjured, this witch was leagues above any of the enemies they had faced before. They could deal with dragon root arrows and fire-proof cages and cunning intellect well enough. But a witch that had lightning at her command and the power to alter their perception of reality? Forget it. 

“We need to leave,” Astrid said quietly once Heather was done. “I hate to say it, but there’s no way we can go another round with her, not in this condition. We can be back on the Edge in a day and make a new plan that doesn’t involve anyone else getting struck with lightning or blood-tapped.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Fishlegs said. 

“Us too,” the twins answered in unison.

Heather shared a look with Dagur that inevitably slid down to his arm. Some of the fire in her eyes burned out, replaced with mournful resignation. “You’re right,” she sighed. “I hate it too, but you’re right.”

“Stoick?” Astrid asked. She may have been their leader, but he was (at least most of) their Chief. 

That haunted look had not left his face. Astrid could only imagine her own expression mirrored his: pale, unfocused, drained. Exhausted, in less words.

He heaved a bone-weary sigh. What fight was left in him drained away. “You’re right, lass,” he said softly. “Let’s fix Dagur’s arm the best we can. If the storm doesn’t hold us long, we’ll be home by first light tomorrow.”

—

Was it ever going to stop raining? Snotlout didn’t know the sky could hold so much water. In fact, he didn’t even know the last time he had felt anything other than drenched to the bone.

It was weird to miss the sun. He’d never known he could before, but now that it had been weeks since he had seen it in the sky and felt it on his skin, he would do anything to bring it back.

“When d’ya think the storm will lift?” Snotlout asked Hiccup, not expecting any answer besides an empty stare. He definitely hadn’t gotten used to that, to the sheer wasteland that Hiccup’s eyes held. Odin’s beard, he had just walked out the door of his hut like he hadn’t been missing for two weeks and unconscious for one and branded like a head of prized livestock. Snotlout didn’t even want to touch on the fact that Hiccup probably shouldn’t have been moving around unless he wanted his stitches to rip right out of his skin.

He didn’t want to think about any of that. If he were truly honest with himself, he just wanted Hiccup back– Hiccup with his ramblings and inventions and stupid grin and assuring words. He just wanted everything to be normal again.

“Hiccup?” Snotlout knew it was useless to try again, but it was the only thing he could do. “Please, just say something. Anything.”

Nothing but the cracking fire in the middle of the clubhouse answered back. Hiccup remained in the corner with his wan, empty expression. 

Snotlout sighed, collapsing into a chair.  Toothless seemed to agree with him, adding a mournful noise to the silence. He hadn’t left Hiccup’s side since he had woken up; Hiccup didn’t seem to notice he was even there. 

He heard a thumping on the door. That must have been Hookfang, which meant that everyone was back. Gods, he hoped they had fared better than he did.

“Okay, Hiccup, don’t move,” he ordered his cousins, throwing on a cloak that really didn’t help much with the rain. “I’ll be right back with everyone, okay? Toothless, watch him.”

No answer. Snotlout swallowed back the worry creeping into his throat and left the warmth of the clubhouse for the pouring rain. In the distance he saw the outlines of six dragons growing ever larger. No one had been left behind: that was good, at least.

He hopped on Hookfang and met them on the landing pad. The first thing he noticed was an incredibly pale Dagur being heavily supported by Heather. Bandages were wrapped tightly around his arm and partially hidden by his cloak. The second thing he noticed came in a pair: a red mark slashed across Stoick’s forehead, and a similar one trenched across Astrid’s arm. The third thing was the most obvious: everyone’s eyes were wide, with expressions reading of pure confusion and horror. In short, it looked like everyone had seen ghosts.

“Guys?” Snotlout ventured. “Are…are all of you okay? Did you find anything?”

“Define ‘okay’,” Fishlegs grumbled. “Because if you mean uninjured, untraumatized, and hopeful, we are most definitely not okay.”

“We’re all in one piece,” Astrid sighed heavily. She looked at Dagur, then amended, “more or less. Any progress here?”

“Well…” Snotlout ruffled the back of his hair. “Uh, yeah. Actually, a lot of progress. Technically. Maybe not a lot a lot, but-”

“Snotlout,” Stoick rumbled. “Spill it. Now.”

Snotlout swallowed. Where to even begin?

“You guys can’t be freaking out,” he started. “I mean it. All of you have to stay calm and just listen, okay?”

“Snotlout,” Astrid growled, eyes burning. Snotlout threw up his hands in a sign of peace.

“Okay, okay, Astrid, just calm down.” Snotlout dropped his hands, and it took more effort than he thought to not nervously wring them together. “Hiccup’s awake. He’s in the club– hey!”

Astrid remounted Stormfly and blew right past him, nearly knocking him off his feet. Stoick wasn’t far behind her, and that’s exactly what Snotlout was trying to stop.

“Astrid, Stoick, stop!” he called after them. “Oh Thor, c’mon Hookfang.”

It wasn’t a long flight, but Hookfang’s wingspan was double that of Stormfly’s and Skullcrusher’s. He easily passed them, and when he landed, he planted himself directly in front of the clubhouse’s door. 

“Get out of the way, Snotlout,” Astrid seethed. She had her axe in her hands, her knuckles white against the leather hilt. Snotlout had no doubt in his mind that she’d actually take a swing at him– that was Astrid for you, and usually that fire and rage was a good thing.

“No,” Snotlout shot back. “No, I said wait. Something’s really, really wrong, and I think you might make it worse if you just rush in like always.”

Stoick was a bit (and only a bit) more rational. “Spit it out, son,” he said. “What’s wrong with Hiccup that we can’t see him?”

The rest of the dragon riders were arriving, each more confused than the last. How could Snotlout even explain what was happening to Hiccup if he didn’t know himself? What was he supposed to say– hey, Chief, you can’t rush in and make a commotion because I’m afraid that the next loud noise is going to give your son a heart attack or maybe just cause him to fold in on himself and never come back.

“…I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Snotlout said honestly. The rest of the dragon riders weren’t far behind, landing one by one. “I have to show you, but you can’t freak out and rush him or crowd him or anything. Got it?”

Stoick nodded. He put a hand on Astrid’s shoulder.

“You can put the axe down, lass. Snotlout’s not going to fight you.”

Her shoulders slumped, her hands loosening around the weapon. With obvious reluctance she strapped it back to Stormfly. 

“Okay,” she said, looking anything but. “I’m calm. Please, just let me see him. Please, Snotlout.”

He didn’t know how many more times his heart could take this kind of pain. Snotlout nodded, opened the door, and motioned for everyone to follow him inside. For a split second, he was terrified that he would enter only for that corner to be empty.

It wasn’t. Hiccup hadn’t budged an inch, and neither had Toothless. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, Snotlout couldn’t say.

“Hey, Hiccup,” he said gently as the rest filed in quietly behind him. “Everyone’s back, and they were all really worried about you.” 

No answer. No recognition. No light behind his eyes. What did Snotlout even expect would happen?

Toothless nudged his nose against Hiccup’s hand. That didn’t get a response either– Toothless looked like he was about to cry, and Snotlout didn’t even know that was an expression that a dragon could make. 

“Son.” Stoick stored forward, ever so slowly. “What are you doing up? You must rest if your body is to heal properly.” He held out his hand.

Hiccup just stared right through him. Snotlout had been on the receiving end of that look more often than not in the past day, and he would never forget how awful it felt. You just wanted to reach forward and shake Hiccup by the shoulders and scream don’t you see? You’re safe, you’re here with us, and we won’t let anyone hurt you again. Snotlout curled his fists at his side to keep himself from doing just that.

Toothless nudged Hiccup again, more urgently. Still nothing. If Snotlout hadn’t felt his cousin’s heart beating underneath his hands while he dressed his wounds he would have been terrified that they had brought home a dead, empty husk instead of Hiccup.

Stoick took Hiccup’s hand, gently leading him from the corner to one of the benches. “I just need to check that you haven’t pulled any of your stitches,” he said softly. “Then back to bed with you. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Hiccup’s eyes didn’t even flick over to the congregation huddled by the door. He sat, and he stared straight forward.

Snotlout caught Astrid’s expression from the corner of his eye. Stricken was the shallow word for it– it was some nauseating combination of agony and fear that was painted across her face. Snotlout had to look away.

“Come on guys,” he said, clearing the lump out of his throat. “Let’s give them some space.”

“Wait,” Dagur said. “I need to see something.” 

Before Snotlout could ask, he quietly walked across the room, stopping behind Hiccup. He watched intently as Stoick gently pulled Hiccup’s tunic off, revealing the mottled, burnt, and stitched-together skin on his back.

Of course, the brand stood out like a beacon in the night. Heather gasped, cupping her hand over her mouth to keep from making too much noise. Her green eyes doubled in size, utterly horrified. Dagur claimed the same expression, though in lieu of gasping he merely curled his non-bandaged hand into a fist so tightly his whole hand turned white. 

Stoick said something soft to Hiccup that Snotlout didn’t catch. He felt like an intruder onto the scene, though he was the one to set it up in the first place. Certainly, he would suffocate on the room’s tense atmosphere and Hiccup’s empty eyes if he stayed in the clubhouse for even a moment longer.

“Let go,” he repeated, and without waiting for anyone to follow him, he turned in his heel and pushed through the door. Right before that, though, he heard a familiar voice, void of its usual timbre and duller than a rusty blade.

“You’ve already tried this before,” Hiccup said. “It won’t work on me. Not this time.”

—

There was very little keeping Astrid from screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing her axe until something was destroyed. Her one consolation was that Hiccup was alive, though in his condition, alive might not be all that applicable.

“Maybe he’s sleepwalking?” Fishlegs tried. They were all back in the clubhouse, listening to the rain drum against the roof and completely ignoring dinner. Astrid pushed her plate away; the sight of food made her stomach churn. “He’s unresponsive, but still aware enough to walk around.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” Snotlout said. He pushed his food to Hookfang, who seemed about as interested in eating as the rest of them. “Right when he woke up, I could see that he recognized me. Then he blinked, and he just left. I had to chase him down to even get him to put his leg back on. He wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even look at me after that unless I was right in his line of sight. You probably could have dropped a mountain right in front of him and he wouldn’t even care.”

“Hypnotism?” Tuffnut offered. “Our great-uncle Haakon got hypnotized into thinking he was a yak for three years.”

Heather shook her head. “That can’t be it either. He wasn’t acting hypnotized. I mean, did you see the look in his eyes? There was nothing there. And what he said, right before we all left. It won’t work on me? What does that mean?”

“We haven’t considered the fact that he might just be traumatized and terrified,” Stoick said. “He’s been through so much. Any Viking, no matter how strong, would have a terrible time coping with that kind of pain.”

Stoick didn’t sound convinced, and Astrid knew why. That explanation was better fit for their regular enemies. What they were up against was anything but regular.

Ruffnut heaved a sigh and flopped onto the table, hiding her face in her elbows. “Nothing makes sense anymore,” she groaned. “I miss when the worst thing we were up against were Viggo’s monologues and board-game obsession. Zombies? Zombies?! Give me a break, those are just supposed to be scary stories. They’re not supposed to be real.”

“I wish I would have been there,” Snotlout growled. He slammed his fist on the table. “Me and Hookfang would have charred them to a crisp.”

“And then you probably would have gotten blood slapped across your face and hallucinated your dad or someone like that,” Astrid snapped. Snotlout’s jaw snapped shut. Her axe was at her side; she picked it up with her hand and squeezed it, just to feel the burn against her palm. “We couldn’t have won that fight, and what’s worse is that the whole trip was a fool’s errand. All that danger, and we’re no closer to learning anything about the drekidóttira. All we’ve got is a nursery rhyme and a handful of hallucinations and a completely unresponsive Hiccup. What can you even do with that? I’ll tell you: we can’t do anything!”

She snapped her arm out, her axe flying end-over-end and imbedding itself into the wooden wall with a sharp crack. The noise made her flinch, and her own words made tears prick into the corners of her eyes.

She looked around the table. Wide eyes stared back, save for Dagur, who seemed to be in deep thought.

“I…she said hoarsely. She suddenly felt very small. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She pulled the axe from the wall, taking a chunk of the paneling out with it. Heather took her hand and guided her back down to her chair without saying a word. Astrid sank down, biting the inside of her cheek to keep the tears from falling. She couldn’t lose hope this early in the game, she just couldn’t.

Fishlegs’ expression lit up. He snapped his fingers. “That’s not all we’ve got,” he said, rustling through the satchel at his side. “Astrid, you remember all those books, right?”

“The ones with pure gibberish in them?” she sniffed. “Yeah, I remember that just fine.”

Fishlegs pushed a leather-bound journal across the table. The cover was blank, save for an all-too-familiar symbol burned on the front.

“This one was different from the others. And look,” he flipped the cover open. “These runes. They’re really old, but I can translate them with a little work. Astrid, we weren’t there for nothing, I promise.”

She took the book with trembling hands. The runes weren’t like any she’d ever seen at a glance, but with a closer look she could see similarities between the old letters and the language she knew.

A spark of hope caught in her heart. She hugged the book close to her chest, afraid to let go lest the whole thing dissolve just like her vision of Hiccup had in the forest.

“Fishlegs…” she didn’t know what to say. More tears welled in her eyes. 

“We weren’t there for nothing,” Fishlegs repeated firmly. “We will figure this out. It could take a good while, but nothing stays hidden forever. We just have to keep holding on to our hope. If we do that, no amount of blood-slinging lightning witches can keep us back.” 

Astrid looked around the table. Snotlout and Stoick nodded firmly, and the twins flashed her small smiles and thumbs-ups. The spark in her chest was beginning to flame into something more, something stronger and hotter; she just hoped she could keep it that way.

“Dagur?” Heather looked to her brother. “You’ve been quiet. Is your arm bothering you?”

He blinked out of his thoughts. “Not yet,” he said. “Can’t even really feel it. I was just thinking about what the drekidóttira said in the forest. She knew all of our names, but she said she had seen so much about me. Not heard: seen.”

“So what?” Snotlout asked. “She’s a freaky witch. Maybe her grammar isn’t too hot.”

“Maybe,” Dagur said, entirely unconvinced. He looked at Stoick. “How’d you know what you saw was your wife the exact day she disappeared?"

Stoick’s brows drew together. “What kind of a question is that? She was my wife, for Odin’s sake, I think I’d remember what her face looked like.”

“Yeah, yeah, obviously, but how did you know it was the day she disappeared?" Dagur pressed. “It could have been any old day in all the years you were hitched. How did you know it was that day, and no other day?”

Stoick looked a bit shocked, like he hadn’t considered what he had seen. “Valka has made dinner for us that night,” he said slowly, “and she had added too many carrots to the soup. When it was bubbling, some splashed into her tunic and dyed it orange. She had that orange spot on her when I saw her in the woods.” 

“Her blood doth burn the minds of men,” Dagur mumbled to himself. His eyes snapped to Astrid. “Your burn is gone.”

“What? No it’s…” she looked down at her arm. She remembered the pain: there should have been at least a red, raw path marked across her skin. To her shock, her arm was smooth. 

“Yours is too, Chief,” Dagur added. Astrid could see the wheels turning behind his green eyes. She and Stoick shared a confused look with each other. 

“Um, Dagur?” Snotlout asked. “Is that supposed to mean something? You’re acting really weird.”

“Weirder than you normally are,” Tuffnut added. “I mean, lest we forget about the Deranged part of his title.”

“That’s not helpful right now,” Heather snapped. “But seriously, Dagur, what are you thinking?”

“Just give me a minute, I’m trying to put it all together,” Dagur replied. He closed his eyes, deep in thought. “Okay, so the drekidóttira says that she’s seen so much about me, and she calls you my long-lost sibling. She slaps her blood on Astrid and the Chief, and he sees his wife exactly how he remembers her on the night where it would hurt most to remember. Astrid sees Hiccup like the last good memory she has of him before he was taken. That’s all the both of you saw, and now your burns are gone. Hiccup said that ‘you’ had already tried ‘this’ before, but other than that, he isn’t responding to anyone.”

“Hiccup was burned by the brand,” Fishlegs said. “Does that have anything to do with…whatever you’re trying to put together?”

“It’s not a brand. Not the way you think it is,” he replied. He opened his eyes, and he looked pained. “I think I might know why Hiccup is ignoring all of us.”

“And?” Astrid said, her stomach dropping to her toes. He looked at her like he didn’t want to speak it into existence. 

“I don’t think Hiccup knows we’re real.”

Chapter Text

Three weeks earlier

Hiccup woke up with a start, then winced as he attempted to flex his bound and cramped arms. Someone was clanging on the bars of his cage. 

With a disheartening amount of effort he got his arms out from beneath him and sat up. A black-cloaked man was staring at him, the one with piercing blue eyes and now-crooked nose. Hiccup wouldn’t take back the satisfaction he had gained from breaking the man’s nose all those weeks ago, but the man seemed to hate him with a special vengeance. Whenever he appeared, pain was guaranteed.

“Wake up, brat,” he sneered. He unlocked the door and stepped in, looming large over Hiccup. Hiccup squared his shoulders and tried not to look too pathetic; the days he spent without food or water were definitely not an asset in that endeavor. “Today’s the big day. You’ve got an appointment to keep.”

“Oh, joy,” Hiccup replied. “More torture: just the way I wanted to spend my morning. Y’know, you’ve really gotten intuitive–”

“You’re lucky you still have that sharp tongue of yours, brat.” The man yanked him up by his tunic: Hiccup had to stretch to the tips of his toes just to stay on the ground. With his other hand the man fingered the dagger on his belt. “If it were up to me I would have muzzled you from the start, and maybe cut that snark right out of your throat.”

Hiccup prayed that his tormentor couldn’t hear how hard his heart was pounding; to himself it seemed like it was echoing across the cave. It wasn’t even like any of his threats were out of the ordinary– Hiccup had lost track of how many times he had been dragged out of his cage only to be thrown to a pack of more masked men and beaten within an inch of his life. He had gotten used to the taste of blood and a persistent ache that settled heavily from head to toe. Still, he felt himself withdrawing as far as he could. There were times for bravery, and there were times for keeping quiet.

A twisted smile spread across the man’s face. “That’s what I thought,” he said, pulling the knife from his belt and slicing through the ropes around Hiccup’s wrists. Throwing Hiccup to the ground, he added: “And that tunic comes off.”

Hiccup’s heart screeched to a dead stop. Cold swept over him. 

“What?” he said, his own voice sounding far away. 

“Oh, no comeback for that?” The man knelt down, the knife still clenched in his hand. He pointed the tip inches away from Hiccup’s throat. “I said the tunic comes off.” The knife drifted down, coming to rest lightly against Hiccup’s chest. “Or by the winged ones, I’ll cut it off of you, godling.”

It still wasn’t computing. Hiccup heard the words, but they seemed to bounce off his brain. Taking off his tunic was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. The thought of it being cut off him, though, stole the breath right out of his chest. He couldn’t imagine a more debasing act.

So, then, that was his choice: take off his tunic and bear whatever cruelty was in store for him with his chin held high, or be held down and debased even more than what was planned for. Neither option was preferable. 

With trembling hands, Hiccup wiggled out of his tunic. The cave was already cold enough, but it seemed to strike him anew when there was no more protection, however thin, from it. He tried to concentrate on that instead of the man’s burning eyes.

After folding his tunic, he stood up, squaring his shoulders and ignoring the dull pain that it caused. 

“Alright, then,” he said, taking care to make sure his voice did not tremble. “Do your worst.”

The man smiled at him again, wider, sharper, like a wolf staring down a hare. “After you, godling,” he sneered, shoving Hiccup out of the cage and down the dark hall. At least he was not bound, though Hiccup found little comfort in that. He didn’t find comfort in much of anything these days.

The tunnel widened out into the main part of the cave. More masked people milled about, and Hiccup felt all of their eyes upon his bare skin. He kept his eyes straight and ignored them, ignored the roughness of Blue-Eye’s guiding hand between his bruised shoulder blades, ignored his peripherals, in which he could see leering and whispers behind cupped hands. 

Humiliation: that’s what it was. It wasn’t enough for the woman and her cronies to try and break his body– they had to break his spirit as well. The question remained, though: why?  He turned over all the facts he knew in his head, if only to ignore the gawkers and keep his mind away from whatever awaited him. 

Godling. That was the one piece of the puzzle that was unique. Hiccup had been called many things in all nineteen years of his life, had many things attributed to him, but ‘godling’ was certainly a deviation from the norm. If he was a godling, what was he a godling of? What did the mysterious woman want from him? 

“Keep walking,” the voice behind him huffed, shoving him extra hard down one of the dark tunnels. Hiccup stumbled over an invisible crack on the floor of the cave, narrowly avoiding a total wipeout through sheer force of will. He didn’t want any more hands on him than necessary– the warmth of Blue-Eye’s palm on his spine was already too much. 

“If I could see where we were going I wouldn’t be so slow,” Hiccup muttered. He wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to stave a chill. “Where are we going?”

“Our lady wants to speak to you in person,” the man replied. “She went through all the trouble of finding you, and hasn’t gotten the pleasure of your company yet.”

A different type of chill shot through Hiccup. He hadn’t seen the strange woman since she had traveled through a bolt of lightning– already that told him that she was something less or more than human. Hiccup had faced all sorts of enemies before, but none of them were anything more than dangerous men who wanted to rule the world. None of them, for all their wealth and cunning and might, had ever commanded the forces of nature itself. 

A dim light shone at the end of the tunnel, growing ever brighter as Hiccup half-plodded, half-stumbled towards it. He felt like he was being led to his grave; he shook that thought away, finding it to be more possible than he had previously thought. Whatever was waiting for him on the other side, whether it be torture or death, he resolved to bear it in silence with his head healed high. They could beat him into the ground all they wanted: he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crumbling. 

“One godling, as you ordered, mi’lady,” Blue-Eyes announced upon their entrance. He shoved Hiccup forward with extra force. The scent of blood hung thick in the air. The woman was there, standing next to a wooden column erected in the middle of the room and flanked by two more masked men. At her feet was an earthen bowl filled with a dark liquid. She looked paler than the first time Hiccup had met her. Dark circles under her eyes made her look hollow, gaunt, and ghostly. 

“Bind him,” she commanded. The two men stepped forward, each grabbing one of Hiccup’s wrists and dragging him towards the column. He knew it was useless to fight, but he put up as much of a struggle as he could, digging his heels into the ground and pulling back with all his might. Regardless, he was forced to his knees– he shuddered involuntarily when his arms were pulled high above his head and secured to the column with metal chains. Already his shoulders ached, the chains straining his arms just a bit higher than possible, drawing the muscles his back taught and rendering him unable to move.

“Whatever you want out of me, you’re not going to get it,” Hiccup said. He curled his hands into fists, refusing to let his forehead rest against the pole. He turned his head so he could look at the woman in her grey eyes. “Whatever you have planned for me won’t get you anywhere closer to your goal. My friends are coming for me, and when they get here, you’re going to regret the day you even heard my name.”

The woman stared back. Her gaze made Hiccup’s skin crawl: no human had eyes like that. He still his head high, returning her stare with all the heat he could muster.

“You have no idea the power you hold, godling,” the woman said. She walked towards him on unsteady feet. “All that fire in your soul, and you only spit out sparks. I suppose you’ll learn your place soon enough, though.”

“I am not your godling,” Hiccup replied, with furrowed brows. “I am not your anything. I don’t have any power, and I will never bow to you.”

The woman hummed. She reached out her hand, and when the long sleeves of her dress rode up her forewarms, Hiccup could see that they were heavily bandaged. Interesting. A bit terrifying.

“You have power beyond your wildest imagination, Hiccup Haddock,” the woman said, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. Tangling her hand in his hair, she turned his head towards the pole and held it there, her nails digging into his scalp. Hiccup bit back a wince. “You use it aimlessly, carelessly. But I have a higher purpose, one that benefits greatly from your… abilities. The world is due for a cleansing, and you will help me with it.”

Her hand fell away from his hair, trailing down his neck and splaying across his back. Hiccup tensed involuntarily, then swallowed a grimace when she hummed appreciatively. 

“You give me no choice, godling.” Her hand disappeared. In his peripherals, Hiccup saw Blue-Eyes walk forward with the bowl in his hands. The scent of blood arrived with him. “You spit sparks: I breathe flames.”

She dipped two fingers into the bowl. They came away red. For a brief moment, time seemed to slow down.

Fire, or at least what felt like fire, erupted across Hiccup’s back. He barely held back a scream; white-hot pain flooded his brain, snatching the breath from his lungs, evaporating every thought and impulse besides pure agony. 

He would not scream. He would not scream. She didn’t deserve the satisfaction of his pain.

But gods, gods, it just wouldn’t stop. Hiccup remembered the pain, the heat of flames enveloping him as he defeated the Red Death. This was a thousand times hotter, more painful, more terrifying than any wall of flame. For what seemed like an eternity, he forgot how to breathe.

Keep your head high. You cannot break. You cannot break. You cannot–

A whimper escaped his lips. The fire kept burning: through the pain, Hiccup thought he could feel the light press of fingers against his skin, though any feeling was lost in the overwhelming onslaught. 

I’m burning alive. That’s what’s happening: I’m burning, and it won’t ever stop. Oh gods, please, please make it stop. Make it STOP, MAKE IT STOP–

Whatever wall he had built in his head crumbled swiftly, destroyed by that small, soft noise that he couldn’t hold back. He screamed like the sound was being torn out of his throat, he screamed because it was the only part of himself that he could still feel, could still control. His throat burned, tears streaming down his cheeks, unable to cool off the inferno that had utterly enveloped him. 

I want my dad. The thought was crystal clear through the haze. Please, I just want my dad.

It was the last coherent thought Hiccup had before his vision whited out, ushering him into blessed unconsciousness.

In the present

“You cannot be serious,” Snotlout sputtered. “How the Hel would Hiccup forget we’re real? Did that lightning bolt fry your brain too?”

“What do you mean, it’s not a brand?” Fishlegs jumped in. “There’s nothing else it could be.”

“I feel like we should jump in with something accusatory too,” Tuffnut said. “Ruffnut, got any ideas?”

Ruffnut shrugged. “Actually, I’m kinda interested to see where this is heading. Please continue free of Thorston judgment, Mr. The Deranged.”

Dagur rolled his eyes. “Thank you, girl-nut. If all of you would just stop jumping all over me, I could actually explain. Does anyone have a stick of charcoal and some paper?”

Fishlegs pushed his journal with a pencil looped to the front cover across the table. Dagur flipped to a blank page and began sketching.

“So here’s what we’re working with,” he said when he was done, flipping the book so everyone could see his work. “This is the symbol on Hiccup’s back, and that’s the symbol,” he nodded to the recovered tome Astrid clutched in her hands, “that’s the drekidóttira’s. They’re similar, but not exact. See how the circle on Hiccup’s back isn’t quite perfect? The inner lines aren’t perfectly symmetrical, either.  The journal, though, is perfect. It’s got consistent depth, edges, and design. That’s a brand. What we’re dealing with is something else entirely.”

No one spoke for a moment. Save for Heather, six pairs of wide eyes stared incredulously at Dagur.

“What?”

“There is no way,” Snotlout said slowly, “that that’s accurate. You looked at his back for ten seconds tops.”

“Yeah, she really must have fried your brain,” Heather remarked. She took the sketch in her hands and examined it. “It never takes you that long to memorize things.” 

“If I start seeing double we’ll worry about it,” Dagur replied. “My point is, I’ve seen brands. What’s stamped on that journal was made by a brand. What’s on Hiccup wouldn’t be made by metal unless the drekidóttira’s got some really shitty craftsmen in her little group.” 

“So if it’s not a brand, then what is it?” Stoick shook his head. “You’re being more confounding than usual, Dagur.”

“Aw, thanks Chief,” Dagur smiled. He stood up and walked around the table to Snotlout with the pencil in hand. “Observe.”

With quick hands he drew, or at least attempted to draw a circle on Snotlout’s arm. The Viking screeched and pulled away.

“What is wrong with you?!” Snotlout yelled. “Ask before you draw on people. I’m not a coloring book for Thor’s sake.”

“Keep your helmet on, Snot-hat, it’ll wash off.” Dagur dropped the pencil and grabbed Snotlout’s arm, holding it up for the group to see. “See how it’s lopsided? If someone had been holding Snotlout down I could have done it better, but it still wouldn’t be perfect. We know that the drekidóttira’s blood burns people and makes them see things.”

“So that means she drew it on him,” Astrid finished with dawning horror. “But…but why?”

“Well, duh,” Ruffnut said. “She drew a rune on him. Your blood-slap scar is gone with the wind, sister, and you’re not seeing anything that’s not right here right now, right?”

Astrid shook her head. Tuffnut’s eyes lit up. 

“Oh, I get it now! The door hinge-”

“Drekidóttira,” Fishlegs sighed. Tuffnut waved him off

“Yeah, her, whatever. Her magic doesn’t stick around unless it’s got something to stick on.”

“Hence, a binding rune,” Fishlegs said, looking more than a bit ill. “She gave herself free rein of Hiccup’s brain. And now…”

“And now she’s using it to make him doubt his own reality,” Stoick finished. He closed his eyes and drew a shuddering breath. “Who knows what she’s shown him, how many times she’s conjured an illusion of us abandoning him?” 

“She broke him,” Astrid said in a small voice, hugging the journal tight. 

Dagur snorted. “Astrid, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Other than Fishlegs, of course.” 

Astrid’s head snapped up. “Excuse me?” she seethed. “What the everloving fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Dagur looked at her like she had grown a second head. “What do you think it’s supposed to mean? If something as ridiculous as this is the thing that finally breaks Hiccup I’ll eat my gods-damned boots. Take it from my personal experience: Hiccup is one of the most stubborn, unyielding, fucking obnoxiously noble and strong people the gods ever deigned to throw into the archipelago. I mean, not physically strong, because, you know, he’d probably snap in two if you pushed him hard enough–”

“Rambling,” Heather cut in, still studying the sketch intently. Dagur nodded.

“Right, sorry, right. Remember when Hiccup pushed me off a cliff?”

“…yes?” Astrid said, feeling like she had suffered whiplash.

“Okay, well, there was a whole lot of that story that Hiccup didn’t tell you guys, mainly about the dragon hunters that were there, but the big huge part he left out was that one of the hunters tried to brand him–”

“What?” Stoick jumped in. Dagur waved him off.

“Yeah, it didn’t happen though, obviously. But my point is that when Hiccup was there, when he was face-to-face with a white-hot brand pulled straight out of the fire inches from his face, he didn’t cry or beg or even flinch. He looked up at that hunter like he was daring him to stop being dramatic and do the deed already.”

He laid his good hand on the table. “I’m dead serious: Hiccup doesn’t break. The reason he doesn’t break is because he’s basically a human weed, yeah, but more importantly, because he has all of you. He’s not broken– if he were, he wouldn’t be against us. He’s convinced that someone’s still out there looking for him, and that he just has to hang on a bit longer until we kick the drekidóttira’s ass into oblivion. Do you see my point?”

“If Hiccup was broken, he wouldn’t care if we were real or not,” Fishlegs said. “He’s just the opposite of broken: he’s fighting.”

“Exactly,” Dagur said with a satisfied nod. “So at least we have that.”

“But how are we going to convince him that this time it’s real?” Astrid asked. “It’s one thing to say he’s fighting, but that means it’s Hiccup against us. You know how he is: anything we’ll do he’ll rationalize away.”

“Haven’t quite figured that part out, yet,” Dagur admitted. He went back to his seat, leaning over Heather’s shoulder. “You’ve got something?”

“This inside part,” she said. “It looks like Windshear’s tail. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

“Probably,” Stoick said. “But we still haven’t answered the most pressing question: what does this witch want with Hiccup anyways?”

“Beware the drekidóttira who roams the earth in search of gods amongst mortals, and mortals that stand amongst gods,” Fishlegs recited. “She called him godling. That’s gotta mean something too.”

“Got any ideas?” Heather asked. Fishlegs shook his head sadly.

“I don’t,” he admitted. “All of this is like one big puzzle, but we can’t reference a finished image. All these pieces have to interlock somehow. They just have to.” 

“However they do, we need to put this puzzle together quickly,” Stoick said. “This drekidóttira, she won’t be pleased with us. She’ll come for Hiccup with an army of the undead. Fishlegs, how quickly can you get that journal translated?”

Astrid passed the book to him. Fishlegs took it with trembling hands and a pinched expression. “I’ll try my best to expedite the process,” he said. “I can’t make any promises on speed, though.”

“No pressure, Fishface” Snotlout muttered under his breath. Astrid rolled her eyes and punched him on the shoulder. This wasn’t any time for defeatism, and it certainly wasn’t the place for putting anyone under any more pressure than they were already dealing with. 

They had a lit fuse now, though for how long it would burn, none of them knew. Fishlegs was right: the whole thing was one giant puzzle, and all of it was balanced upon finishing it before the Edge was overrun by zombies and a witch that could control minds.

No pressure indeed. 

Chapter Text

They were talking about him, he could feel it in his bones.

Hiccup twisted his blanket in his hands; at one time he would have marveled at how real it felt. At an even earlier time, he would have been fooled by it entirely. That ship had long sailed: no amount of magic could fool him now, no matter how deeply he wanted the scenes playing before his eyes to be real.

Toothless– no, not Toothless: a pale copy of his best friend– warbled sadly and nudged his nose under Hiccup’s hand so that his palm rested on his snout. 

Hiccup pulled it away like Toothless was made of hot coals. He screwed his eyes shut and sucked in a sharp breath that made his bruised chest burn.

This isn’t real. That isn’t Toothless, this isn’t the Edge, those aren’t your best friends and your father in the clubhouse whispering about gods-know-what. 

Illusions. That’s all they are: illusions. Poor imitations of the ones you love most. She’s just toying with you. Are you really going to let her win that easily?

Hiccup clenched his jaw until it ached. He would not break. Not now, not after all he had been through, not after (days, weeks, months… years?) of enduring the witch’s schemes.

It would pass, like all of them did. Eventually she would grow tired of watching him resist. He’d be yanked back into the real world for another round of beating, then be left on the ground wheezing and gasping for air and a respite to the pain.

The respite would never come– at least, not soon. Hiccup had accepted that a long time ago. He didn’t know whether the witch had gotten ahold of his friends, or whether she had hidden him so well he was unable to find– either way, they would still be awhile. Hiccup could hold on for as long as he needed to.

He opened his eyes, a wave of bravery overtaking him. 

“They’re coming for me,” he said to Not-Toothless. She was listening and watching: she always was. “I know they are. You can show me anything you want, beat me till I break: they’re coming for me, and when my friends find me you’ll regret the day you ever heard my name.”

Not-Toothless cocked his head. He looked… sad. Sadder than Hiccup had ever seen him be. 

It was a trick. Just a cheap trick to chip away another corner of Hiccup’s heart, and nothing else. He closed his eyes again, twisting the blanket around his hands, then letting it go, twisting, then letting go.

They’re coming for me. I know they are. I just have to hold on a bit longer.

—

Fishlegs had never felt so close to breaking before: not when Heather had been taken by Viggo’s hunters, not when Hiccup had almost drowned in that Thor-forsaken diving bell, not when Astrid was a step away from the halls of Valhalla with the Scourge of Odin. The gods-damned journal stared up at him placidly, tauntingly, jam-packed with scrawled lines and diagrams and lists and who even knew what else. He was half a second away from throwing his arms up, tossing the journal into the volcano, and curling up in his bed so he could finally have a good cry.

He wondered if anyone else had cried since they found Hiccup. Most everyone seemed too shell-shocked to do anything but press grimly forward. What he wouldn’t give for the twins to pull off some crazy, mind-meltingly stupid hijinks just so he could hear Astrid and Hiccup scold them while Snotlout tried not to burst out laughing.

Fishlegs pushed the journal away and buried his face into his folded arms. Three days of effort, and he had barely gotten through the first fourth of the journal. The writing was so dense, using words Fishlegs had never seen before. Why couldn’t it all just be okay? Why couldn’t he just snap his fingers and fix everything, understand every awful word in that book, and present an easy solution to get his friend back? 

He knew he didn’t have that power; no one did, no one ever would. None of them even had the power to stand up to a single witch without risking blood-hallucinations or death at the end of a lightning bolt. 

Fishlegs wondered what he would have seen had the drekidóttira gotten ahold of his mind. He had no great skeletons in his closet, no major tragedy that the mere memory of would halt him in his tracks. No long-dead wife, no tortured boyfriend, no nothing. That was good, he supposed. He was blessed that tragedy had never marred his life; he had to prepare for whatever the witch could possibly show him nevertheless. 

The door creaked open. Snotlout’s dark head peeked into the room.

“You’re still up?” He let himself in; Fishlegs didn’t mind that much. “Thor, Fishie, it’s almost tomorrow. Most everyone’s asleep by now.”

“Most?” Fishlegs asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, you. And me. And I think I saw Dagur wandering around by the beach, but he’s been doing that for the third night in a row and could be nocturnal for all I know, so that really doesn’t count.”

Despite himself, Fishlegs snorted. Gods, he must have been exhausted to actually laugh at one of Snotlout’s quips.

“I’ll go to bed soon. It’s just…” he gestured to the book and his own harried notes.

The small smile that twisted Snotlout’s lips fell. “Right. The book.” He pulled a chair over and sat down, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. “Have you found anything?"

“Just a lot of confusion so far,” Fishlegs sighed. “I haven’t even gotten to any part where she’s mentioned Hiccup. I don’t even know how she would know about Hiccup or why she would want him. I–” his throat closed with emotion, tears threatening to slip out of his eyes. He sighed. 

“I don’t know anything, Snotlout. I… I don’t know. I’m letting everyone down.”

“Hey.” Snotlout punched Fishlegs in the shoulder. “That is not true. You’re the only one that can read any of that. You’re trying your best; don’t you ever say that you’re letting any of us down.”

Despite himself, Fishlegs almost laughed. Snotlout looked so serious, like he was imparting some immovable truth. He was not often serious, but the deep furrow of his brows and his sharp frown told Fishlegs that this was tantamount to a matter of life or death. 

Fishlegs sniffed, swiping the beginnings of his tears away with the heel of his palm. “Thanks, Snotlout. That’s… weirdly uplifting for you to say.”

Snotlout huffed and looked away, though in the light of the candle burning at his desk Fishlegs saw how red the tips of his ears burned. “Everything is wrong now. You’re freaking out over a book, I’m being uplifting, and Hiccup won’t even look at any of us.” 

His gaze dropped along with his shoulders. “You… you should have seen how he looked at me, Fishlegs. I can’t even describe it right. He looked right through me, like–”

“Like you weren’t even there?”

Snotlout nodded, barely a tip of his chin. “I need him back, Fishlegs.” His voice was small. “I need him to come back. Everything needs to be normal again. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.”

Fishlegs nodded and, despite knowing that Snotlout would rather rip his own teeth out than ever be vulnerable, wrapped his friend into a hug. Snotlout didn’t even try to pull away; his whole body relaxed into the hold, and Fishlegs thought he heard a small sigh.

It hit him, all at once: if the drekidóttira got ahold of him and his mind and showed him Snotlout, bruised and bloody and on the verge of death, that would be the thing to hurt him most. He couldn’t even bear the thought. 

“So, um,” Snotlout pulled away, blinking harshly, “so what did you actually find?” 

Small steps, Fishlegs supposed. “Starting from the beginning, the drekidóttira keeps rambling about a cleansing. ‘The world shall be purged of darkness and deceit’ is a phrase that pops up often.”

“Cleansing?”

“Yep, a cleansing that the gods themselves demand of her and her clan through fire, bone, and lightning. I think there used to be more drekidóttiras: the journal makes repeated references to fallen sisters.”

“Huh.” Snotlout’s brow furrowed. “Those can’t be our gods, right? She can’t really trigger Ragnarok unless she’s got a direct line to Asgard, and last time I checked I don’t think Odin told anyone to cleanse, whatever that means.”

“See, that’s the thing that’s getting me,” Fishlegs said. “There are all these references to the gods: sometimes they’re called the old ones or the winged ones, but they’re never given any names. She’s not calling on one’s specific god, but acting on behalf of a large group.” 

“Beware the drekidóttira who roam the earth in search of gods amongst mortals, and mortals that stand amongst gods,” Snotlout said. “Like you said: she called him a godling. She thinks Hiccup has some kind of connection to her gods.”

“So if Hiccup was a god,” Fishlegs replied. “ a god that required the world to be cleansed of darkness, what kind of god would he be?” 

Snotlout thought for a second, leaning back in his chair. The realization hit him all at once; all color drained from his face, his jaw going slack.

“Fishlegs, holy shit, I’ve got it.”

—

Dagur liked the ocean. It could be calm, it could be wild, it was vast and untamable and dangerous and always beautiful. The expanse was dark now, reflecting the color of the midnight sky, but it was just as lovely as it was when the sun was at its peak. There was untold peace to be found in the ocean. 

He didn’t know how long he had been out here pacing the length of the beach. If Heather were here she would tease him about wearing a track directly to the center of the earth, and maybe falling straight through and out the other end. Pacing helped him think; and anyways, he was very aware of the fact that he was terrible at being still, and even worse at sleeping. When he paced it allowed him to line up his thoughts into neat rows.

Problem one: Hiccup was convinced that all of them were a delusion. Solution? Still unknown. That one was going to take a bit of work to figure out.

Problem two, part one: there was an honest-to-Thor drekidóttira wandering around who now had a very personal vendetta against not just Hiccup, but the whole group. Solution? Obviously, kill her. How to kill a lightning witch who could induce hallucinations with her blood was something he still needed to work out, though.

Problem two, part two: if the drekidóttira had full access to Hiccup’s head, she knew where the Edge was. She also had a zombie army. Solution? Technically if they killed the drekidóttira, that might take care of the zombies. Possibly. 

Problem three: he was one arm down. Solution? Well, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. He had been in worse scrapes than that before. It would work itself out. Hopefully. 

So those were the facts. It was not lost on him that very little, of any of those problems, had easily attainable solutions. He wasn’t too worried about it just yet: he had seen Hiccup and his dragon riders pull off impossibilities, wriggle their way out of situations that any sane person would lie down and take. So–

He stopped. Something was rustling softly in the woods, and getting closer. 

His fingers brushed against one of the (many) daggers he had. To his knowledge, there was no one else on the island; Dagur had lived hard enough to know that one could never be entirely certain of anything beyond what was in your own head and heart. Really, you couldn't even be certain of that either: that had been proven to Dagur many, many times over. 

He took a step back, every muscle tensed to strike. If one of the drekidóttira’s minions had somehow followed them here, there would be Hel to pay. 

The bushes parted. Dagur nearly lunged forward to strike, then caught himself at the last moment.

It was just Stoick, with heavy eyes and drooping shoulders, though he snapped to life immediately when he laid eyes on Dagur.

“What are you doing out here at this time of night?” He walked onto the beach, looming over Dagur. Most everyone loomed over him, but most everyone wasn't Stoick the Vast. 

Dagur considered turning the question right back on him, then thought better of it: he was still trying to build any sort of trust with the chief, and needling him would not be the way to get it. Out loud, he said: “I’m not good at sleeping.”

Internally, he smacked himself on the head. He didn’t need Stoick to think he was any more strange than he already knew he was. I’m not good at sleeping? He might as well have told Stoick that he was bad at breathing or walking or blinking.

But Stoick nodded. “I haven’t had the most success at sleeping either, recently. My mind is… busy.”

Right. Of course. Dagur willed himself to relax, and prayed that it was dark enough for Stoick to miss Dagur’s hand going for a blade. “How is Hiccup?”

Stoick sighed, and it seemed like ten years of age were added to his face with the question. “He… he won’t even look at me. It’s like I’m not even there. He won’t even react to Toothless: the poor thing has been trying to get Hiccup to touch him, and he won’t even do that. He pulls his hand away like Toothless will attack him.”

“I’m sorry,” Dagur said. He looked at the ocean, at its glassy black surface and the moon reflected in it. He hated people’s eyes on him in moments of stillness, when he could properly feel the weight levied on him, and Stoick’s gaze was no different. “I know there's not a reason in the whole archipelago for you to believe that, but I swear it’s the truth.”

Stoick didn’t reply for a moment. Only the waves crashing gently onto the beach had anything to say.

“Were you telling the truth? In the clubhouse, that is.”

“I know what I am, Chief,” Dagur said. He willed himself to stand completely still: concentrating on the waves helped with that. “I know that I’m a lot of things, and almost none of them are things someone should ever be. You know that too, and I’m more sorry for all of it than you’ll ever know. But if there is one thing I’ve never, ever been, it’s a liar, and I'm not about to start now. Especially when Hiccup’s life is on the line.”

Stoick didn’t respond to that either. Dagur pulled in a quiet breath: he could feel the weight of Stoick’s eyes on him, poking and prodding for any ounce of insincerity or deception; Stoick was a man with an exceptionally heavy gaze. 

“So then, what changed?”

“With me?” The waves went in and out, in and out, regular and gentle. Dagur caught himself from rocking in his heels along with their motions. “Heather, mostly. Everything I do is for her. But… I think it really did start with Hiccup. He’s funny like that. He believes that there’s good in everyone, no matter how much or how often they prove him wrong. When that gets into your head, really gets into your head, it’s kinda hard to ignore it. If Hiccup believes in you that much, if he’s so willing to give everyone he meets the chance to be the best they can be, you can’t not take it.”

Stoick let out a short chuckle, one that was heavy with grief, yet laced with fondness. “Hiccup does have a strange way of changing people: I know that well. It’s what he does best.”

Dagur dared to look at Stoick. A smile– small, and so very tired– tugged at the corners of his mouth. 

“Thank you. For doing everything you can for Hiccup.”

Dagur shrugged his shoulders. “Eh, it’s pretty much the least I can do. But thanks for the thanks, I guess. I’m assuming dragging me by my ankles to the sea is still on the table, though? You’ve got a pretty short trip if you do it now.”

Stoick laughed, actually laughed at that, and no matter how tired it sounded, Dagur believed it was genuine. “Aye, I suppose now would be the best opportunity for that. I might wait for another day, though. Just to keep you on your toes.”

Dagur snorted. “Heard loud and clear, Chief.”

The leftover tension coiled in Dagur’s gut melted away. If he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn he had just… bonded with the Chief. Over words. First zombies, now patching up old wounds. Next thing any of them knew, their dragons would start talking. 

Dagur caught a glimpse of something in the sky behind Stoick, something dark, fast, and big.

And it was growing bigger.

“What is that?”

Stoick turned right as the mystery object whooshed over their heads with a mighty flap of wings and a panicked, human, and familiar screech. Hookfang’s form came clearly into view, manically racing to the beach. The monstrous nightmare landed with a clambor, and Snotlout tumbled off end over end over his dragon’s head, hitting the sand with a loud oof.

“Snotlout?” Stoick raced over, Dagur hot on his heels. “Snotlout, what’s wrong?”

“Chief, we’ve got it,” Snotlout wheezed. He struggled to his feet, leaning on Hookfang for support. “Chief, we– me and Fishlegs– we figured it out. I don’t know how we didn’t before, it was all right there–”

“Snot-hat, take a second and breathe,” Dagur said. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck with a landing like that. What did you and Fishlegs figure out?”

Snotlout coughed out some sand out of his mouth, shook his head, then coughed again.”

“Dragons,” he said. “The drekidóttira, she worships dragons.”