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Chapter Text

Hiccup was oblivious to the sprawling labyrinths beneath his feet when he first prepared for the arrival of the Berserkers with his father and uncle. 

On the rickety docks that morning, seawater clung to his pants and stung his hands from the angry ocean battering against the planks under him. As Hiccup watched the first streaks of daylight form through breaks in the thick blanket of clouds, he swiped his wet palms onto his fur vest. The act caused the bruises on his abdomen to flare in pain, thanks to Snotlout and the twins’ cruel games. 

Hiccup furrowed his brows, looking up as if it would help him think about his cousin. They had been friends, once, but as Hiccup grew older, Snotlout’s prideful nature had twisted and taken root in his heart. He had recently begun to vye for Astrid’s hand, though Hiccup couldn’t wrap his head around why Snotlout would be running after a girl at only seven winters. 

He privately rolled his eyes at his cousin’s actions. Astrid was bound to be a shieldmaiden when she got older, and marrying into such an oppressively regimented household as the Jorgensons’ could only stifle her. She also loathed egotism, as Hiccup noted in every interaction he viewed between her and her self-absorbed uncle Heimskr, and the way Snotlout acted around Astrid would ultimately end their friendship if he wasn’t careful. His eyes refocused on the pale light seeping through the clouds, watching them meander past. Light soon hit his eyes, and he looked away and towards his father.

Stoick the Vast, Chief of Berk, stood next to him, tall and unending from Hiccup’s perspective as the boy looked towards him. He had his ceremonial belt on, golden and shining from his father’s polishing earlier in the week, and his unruly orange beard was trimmed and as neat as one could force it to be. He also had a thick fur cloak on, courtesy of an unfortunate bear, that Hiccup was currently holding on to. His shirt was more fashionable than usual, cream linen bearing teal and red geometric designs, though he kept his usual pants and boots on. His father glanced down at Hiccup, catching the boy’s stare, and Stoick smiled fondly as he moved his hand to rest securely on the boy’s shoulder. 

Where a Chieftess might have once stood, to the Chief’s left, now only saw Gobber, the Master Blacksmith and Stoick’s best friend since childhood. He shuffled on his feet (well, foot), muttering something about timeliness under his breath. 

The keel of a ship cut through the fog, and Hiccup turned his attention to the arriving tribe. 

The hum of the warriors shouting orders at each other sharpened with the boy’s view of the ship, though his vision and hearing were dulled by the furious seas, and the Berserkers seemed either unknowing or uncaring of his curious view as they flitted about the ship. A group of sailors approached the mast, and Hiccup followed their gaze upward to the looming emblem of the Berserkers: the Skrill. Its crookedly painted teeth and claws lended the creature its menacing appearance, the empty holes that were the thing’s eyes seeming to bore into Hiccup’s own. Then, the sail slackened, dropped, and the Skril was no more as the ship turned to its side against the docks and a small group of warriors hopped down to secure the boat with rope.

A plank breached the gap between the vessel and the docks.

He looked up from the plank to the herald as he announced, “Presenting Osvald the Agreeable!”

A helmeted man chuckled as he stepped down the plank, a shadow of a child falling in line just behind him, and the Berserker Chief stared down Stoick and his entourage as silence enveloped all that stood facing each other. 

“Stoick!” he called, stepping the rest of the way down the plank and taking his helmet off to reveal long, unruly braided hair, dark as the feathers of the Allfather’s ravens.

“Osvald,” Stoick replied amusedly. “Wife still has you wearin’ the helmet, eh?”

“Aye. You know how Sigrid is,” Osvald said with a soft smile. 

“Oh, do we,” Gobber chuckled. Osvald shared in his laughter before crouching in front of Hiccup curiously. 

“Hiccup, I presume?” Osvald asked good-naturedly, smiling again as his ice-blue eyes met Hiccup’s own. The boy tilted his head. Had his father been talking about him? What could he have been saying? Nothing good, surely. 

Of course, even a seven-winters old Hiccup could see what the village thought of him: a menace, a curse, a blight. Despite people choosing to ignore him when in his presence—unless one of his small wooden contraptions had hit them in the eye—he still heard their cruel remarks from behind his back. Some had even gone so far as to tell each other that he would be better off dead. 

He’d once confided in a select few, Fishlegs, his cousin, his grandfather. He’d played games with the former two, handmade dragon cards for Fishlegs and simple sticks and stones for Snotlout. His grandfather had taught him quite a lot, such as how to build a seaworthy boat, or talk to Romans, or outmaneuver his opponents in wits when he couldn’t do so in combat. But, it seemed none of it had been meant to last. Fishlegs was pulled away, fearing for his status and his fate at Snotlout’s hands once Spitelout had corrupted the boy, and Old Wrinkly had been dead for a year. Hiccup missed them all, but he dared not say so in front of anyone he knew.

The hand on his shoulder squeezed lightly, and Hiccup registered that he had been asked a question. He nodded slowly in response as he leaned into his father’s side. 

“Y’know,” Osvald stage-whispered, leaning in conspiratorially as he continued, “Your father wouldn’t let you out of his sight when we met up at first. There he was, the great Stoick the Vast, with a hammer in one hand and a babe swaddled in the other. He went on for ages about you once we’d gone from allies to friends. ‘Hiccup played with his little axe today!’ and ‘Hiccup held his first shield!’ and ‘Hiccup’s started helping at the smithy!’ He never shuts up about it.”

Hiccup couldn’t help but giggle, listening as Gobber spoke to Stoick about ‘the unfairness of it all,’ that ‘his jokes didn’t make Hiccup laugh like that’ and bursting into cackles. His laughter died down as Osvald stood up facing the two other adults, and his eyes locked onto the child that had peeled away from the Chief’s back and now stood in front of him. She had striking emerald eyes and long, braided orange hair, with a kransen wrapping around her short, choppy fringe. She looked underfed, but what mass she did have was entirely lean muscle.

“Well, off we go,” Osvald told Stoick, looking briefly down at Hiccup. “Glad I’ve finally met you, son,” he added, and Hiccup hummed an acknowledgement as Stoick and Gobber led Osvald away. 

Berserkers began to filter out of the ship, heavy boots thudding against the docks as they strode past him and the girl. They brushed past, some of the rougher soldiers shoulder-checking each other and sending them crashing back against the docks. The low sounds of conversation melded together into a low, energetic thrum, some laughing or yelling as they walked into Berk. As he and the girl continued to stare at each other, the crowd surged, pressing in on them both and sending them tumbling into the thick of the untamed Vikings. Hiccup yelped as pain twinged in his abdomen, but he ignored it to duck between the mess of thundering soldiers. He soon found the girl in the crowd, and he ran up to her as she continued weaving between everyone.

“Hey,” she finally greeted, holding her hand to Hiccup as they ran together. “I’m Rytin, heir apparent of the Berserkers, but everyone calls me Dagur.” 

Hiccup took her hand and yelped again as she pulled him out of the crowd and onto Berkian soil, just to the side of where the docks met the village. They continued on around the mingling Berkians and Berserkers, Rytin making a beeline for the forest.

“Come on, Hiccup!” she called back at him, grinning toothily. “It’s a beautiful day!”

As Rytin whooped gleefully, dragging him along, the fog and clouds seemed to lighten like Frigg herself was smiling. Hiccup couldn’t be sure what for, but he would soak in the sunlight while he could.

Berk rarely did anything but rain, after all.

Hiccup followed Rytin as she stomped about the forest, taking the time to admire the scenery in what she might have considered a race. 

It was beautiful; summertime always brought so much lush greenery to their cold, dreary island. Rain had come just a few days ago, but now its only indicator was softened dirt and petrichor. Hiccup trotted along, listening to the bird chatter above him and Rytin’s cheerful shouts far ahead as he watched the light filter though the canopy. He felt the wind tousle his hair as it brushed past him gently.

“Hiccup!” shrieked Rytin from however far ahead she now was. “What are you waiting on, you snail?!”

Hiccup sped up, jogging towards her voice. “Coming,” he called back, significantly quieter than she so as to not scare away the animals that he had heard gathering nearby. He strolled to a stop next to her, peeking down at the glen she was looking out on. 

The forest thinned and broke around the depression as the craggy rock walls sloped downward into greenery. Light streamed, unbidden, into the glen, and he spotted a tawny lynx curled up asleep on one of the many boulders in the shade of a silver birch. Many of those same trees grew around the edges, save for a relatively barren section of the wall, and a stream from the forest trickled down into the glen’s large, clear pond. Birds twittered to each other in the trees and shrubbery.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured, and Rytin turned towards him incredulously.

“Beautifully boring, maybe,” she groaned, before swinging down a small crevice to the glen’s floor. Hiccup followed, though far more carefully, and rejoined her at its bottom. 

“Why are we down here, Dagur?” Hiccup questioned. He wasn’t complaining, not at all, but she’d claimed it to be boring only a moment before. 

Rytin shrugged. “Thought it would be fun, I suppose,” she returned, before turning and spotting something. “Oh, look!” she yelled excitedly, pointing to a part of the glen’s walls that looked particularly plain. Except…

Hiccup looked closer. 

No, those were indeed the faint markings of cut stone. He stepped across the glen, around the pond, and towards the apparent man-made wall.

He heard Rytin hop up next to him, but she couldn’t take his eyes off of the stone bricks blocking off something from their view even when she began speaking.

“What’dya think it’s hiding?” she asked excitedly. 

Hiccup hummed in lieu of an answer, squinting at the bricks. Rytin’s idle chatter died as he drew closer to the wall, and her sudden trepidation was quickly rubbing off on him. He poked at the lines between the large stone bricks.

Rytin followed him to look at the middle of the wall, and if any had walked through the forest at that time, they’d have made an odd sight: the two stood side by side, peering at what seemed like a random stone wall. 

Hiccup’s eyes caught small indentations on the stone, and he leaned over them so much that his forehead nearly brushed the rock.  

“Call on Magni not; he will leave you to rot,” Hiccup read. “See the stars from the sky; you’ve got a good eye.”

Rytin gazed up at the wall again, and Hiccup followed suit. 

“Well,” she began, “It’s obviously telling us to remove only the bricks with stars on them!”

Hiccup looked up. “But I don’t see any…?” He immediately proved himself wrong, shutting up as he saw the shape of a four-pointed star on the brick below the one holding runes. Looking back up, he saw another far too high for either of them to reach on their own. 

He quickly pointed that out to Rytin, and she began muttering to herself as she thought, pacing in short steps parallel to the wall. 

“Maybe we…” she began every so often, before discarding her thought with a “No, that’s not right…but what if—”

Hiccup let himself tune her out, looking for the star-engraved stones. He counted three: a small one that even he could pull out, just below the runes, one slightly above and to the right, and one up near the top of the wall. He told Rytin as much, and she nodded before continuing on.

“I know!” she finally shouted, turning his way. “I’ll pull the middle one and climb the wall, before you pull the bottom one and I pull the top one at the same time!” She paused, and Hiccup suddenly felt as though ice had seeped into his veins. 

“But you’ll be at the top when they fall,” he tried, but she was no longer listening. She’d already pulled out the middle brick and was halfway up the wall, digging out the dried clay between the stones for places to put her feet and hands as she climbed.

Honestly, he had to admire her strength for that. He wished he had the kind of easy power she—and all of his peers—held.

Finally, she reached the top, and she looked back at him with a sly grin. 

“Ready?!” she called down. Hiccup shook his head frantically. 

“Too bad!” she continued, reaching for the stone. It took a few tries, but she eventually heaved it out and tossed it down, thankfully away from Hiccup. He sighed and pulled the tiny brick out with little difficulty. 

As the rock wall came tumbling down, so did Rytin come with it. She yelped, kicking herself away from the wall and instead throwing herself into a tree. She took hold of a branch next to her with the momentary pause in her momentum, allowing her to swing from branch to branch as she lowered herself gracefully to the glen’s bottom again. 

Hiccup suddenly felt embarrassed, as though he was as unworthy of her presence just like he was unworthy of everyone else’s.

“That was so cool,” he said instead of letting his shame close up his throat. Rytin smiled proudly.

“I know,” she declared. “Let’s see what’s inside!” 

“I-I don’t think that’s a good idea—” But she had already disappeared into the entrance. He sighed defeatedly at the uninviting darkness looming in front of him with stalactites and stalagmites like the teeth of an impossibly massive dragon, and resigned himself to following her. 

The light from the glen only went so far into what Hiccup now knew was a cave. He could barely see fifteen meters in front of him, and the cold, rough rock offered no comfort. Even so, Rytin pranced over to one of the sconces lining the walls, plucking the torch from it without fanfare. Hiccup stared grouchily after her, jealous of her height, as he followed. 

She passed the torch to him, and he watched as she took two pieces of flint from one of her pockets and struck them against each other. Soon, sparks fell, and fire flared up from the coal within—straight into Hiccup’s face.

He yelped in pain, the hand holding the torch lurching away from the rest of himself as he covered his face with his other arm. Rytin only cackled, and he felt her take the torch from him before he opened his eyes. 

He scrambled after her. Along the way, he picked up a small rock and began dragging it along the left wall to make a clear line that would tell them where they had been, though the scraping sound made him feel vaguely ill.

Better than being lost, he told himself. They continued on until they reached a fork in the road, though the branching paths did not alleviate Hiccup’s anxiety about their impromptu hike in the slightest. Rytin had since silenced herself, seeming to finally understand the weight of their decision. Hiccup sighed. He seemed to have been doing it a lot that day.

“Let’s go left,” he tried. Rytin turned back to him.

“Why?” 

“Well, if we go left, we should eventually be able to follow all of the branches of the cave. Same thing goes if we go to the right, but I’ve been making marks on the left.” Hiccup shrugged.

Rytin nodded. “They should both be on the left,” she spoke sagely, before grinning at him. “It’s sharper. At least sharper than going right would be.”

Hiccup nodded back just as wisely, though only the smallest part of him understood. Rytin turned back and rushed forward, nearly leaving Hiccup in the dark before he followed after her.

“You overprepared for this,” Rytin told him as they stared towards the door embedded into the end of the left fork of the cave. 

No such thing, Hiccup thought to himself, but he had no real response except to keep staring at the door.

Symbols of the Aesir had been carved deep into the wood of the same silver birch that he had seen in the glen, deep grooves forming familiar shapes. On the left side of the door, Thor’s hammer was trapped in an invisible grip, jagged marks cut into the weapon to give it the striking appearance of lightning as swirling patterns coated its handle in the likeness of intricate clouds. To the right, the simple shape of a sunwheel took form in short, geometric cuts embellished with sun rays and spirals. In the center of everything, the helm of awe stood proudly, its eight arms reaching outwards like the branches of Yggdrasil into every piece of the door’s design. Between each symbol and lining the edges of the door laid runes, woven together and against all of the larger symbols to whisper things of power, protection, and knowledge. Prayers, also, cut into the pale wood over and over again, mad scrawling with a knife sitting just next to the wisdom of a philosopher given physical form. Just above the helm of awe’s center lay an iron door knocker, rusted with age but no less well-made than the carvings. Hiccup felt entranced just looking at it all.

“The gods aren't widely worshipped outside of one’s own home,” he said to shake himself out of the thrall that the door seemed to ensnare him in. 

“No, but they’re certainly important enough to,” Rytin replied distractedly, stepping forward to swipe off the dust coating the engravings where they jutted out from the rest of the door. She laid her hand on the wooden beam holding the door closed, held upright by steel mounts on either side of the door. She heaved it up, away from the mounts, and laid it on the floor as Hiccup watched. 

The door soon began to open on its own, a draft blowing through the cave. Hiccup shivered despite his warm clothes, and Rytin’s torch flame wavered. She reached forward and pulled the door open completely. 

They stepped into a towering cathedral, a natural skylight filtering the weak sun into a massive underground cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites lined the edges of the cave, though they softened under a thin stream of water that poured from an opening at the top of the cave to the door’s left. The water pooled outwards into a small depression in the stone flooring, though it continued to spill towards the far side of the cave. There stood a bookshelf as tall as the Chief himself and twice as wide as Hiccup’s father was tall, one of its corners warped where the water touched it. The books, many as they were, cluttered the table in the middle of the room, as well, where long-rotten food had decomposed into nothing but festering dust. Inlaid within the cave wall on the table’s right held a space for a fire to burn and to cook food, as evidenced by the empty cauldron and stack of firewood just outside it, and some stalagmites acted almost as a natural grate around the area. 

“...Woah.” Rytin was the first to speak, her neck craned upwards as she walked further into the cavern. Hiccup followed after her, his eyes wide with awe as he brushed past the dining table in the middle of the room. He paused momentarily, fingers tracing the rough grain of the wood, before moving on towards the bookshelf. Rytin stopped at the edge of the pool, wandering along its edge and peering into the crystalline water. 

Hiccup reached upwards, fingers brushing the spines of the worn books as he felt along them, occasionally polling one from its place to read the title. This went on for some time, with Rytin joining him in looking through the books. Hiccup filtered through stories of Yggdrasil, Valhalla, the Vanir, and the Aesir, flicking through some of the stories he had not yet been made aware of. 

Eventually, Rytin called him over. 

“Hiccup, come look at this,” she told him. Hiccup obliged, moving to peer over her shoulder at what she was reading, only to find a closed book on The Genealogy of Grimbeard Speedfast ‘the Ghastly’ and the Hradrson Clan in her hands. 

Hradrson was the last name of Stoick. Hiccup didn’t like that the name Grimbeard was attached to his father’s bloodline.

“Have you not opened it yet?” he asked her. 

“No,” she replied. “You know about the Ghastly, right?” 

Hiccup tilted his head. “I thought everyone did,” he responded.

Rytin shrugged. “Just making sure,” she said, opening the book to the foreword on the first page.

“Grimbeard the Ghastly is a name that nearly every Viking child knows, from the Hysterics, to the Hooligans, to the Berserkers, to the Outcasts. However, no one seems to know the true story of his reign, or what led from his rule to all that now rest on his lands. These records tell the tale of the Berkian Chiefs’ line, from the start of Grimbeard’s reign to the present day. 

I write this as peace talks continue between the Berk and Berserk Chieftains, currently Stoick the Vast and Osvald the Antagonistic, just after Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III has been born.

I have been writing this book since the very day I was assigned the status of Keeper, spending my days both in the village, my own home, and this cavern. I have been dedicating my time to the preservation of our mythos and times long past for what must now be centuries.

If anyone is reading this despite what I have gone through to keep it hidden, I hope this is worth it to you.

        -         Gothi Bokhorddottir, Elder of Berk, Record Keeper of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe”

Rytin continued reading as Hiccup wished he’d never followed her into the woods, the glen, the cave. 

Gothi, Hiccup thought. The Elder of Berk, and his father’s most trusted counsel, had been here. Lived here, at least part-time, if her foreword was any indication. Hiccup hadn't thought that a record keeper was a real thing, in all honesty. 

…It could be a career, if Hiccup put his mind to it.

“...Well,” she began as she finished reading. “This ought to be interesting!”

She turned the page.

Eventually, the fading light from the hole in the cavern’s ceiling brought them reluctantly back to Berk, sticks caught in their hair and dirt smeared over their clothes and faces from the race against the sun. Hiccup held the genealogy book tight to his chest, uncaring that it was nearly the size of his own torso and that his ribs still ached.

After stopping at the Chief’s empty hut to tuck away the book, they crept quietly into the Great Hall, where Rytin piled her plate high with salmon and beans. Hiccup, instead of using the older heir’s ‘fill your plate with protein’ approach, carefully portioned potatoes and a single chicken breast, being careful to let no differing food touch another.  

Rytin dragged him off to a relatively secluded corner of the Hall, muttering about what they had learned, as Hiccup glanced up to where Chief Osvald and his father were, in the center of the hall, with a smile and wave towards them. Stoick stood up instead of waving back and began to walk over as the two sat down, followed by Osvald. Rytin sighed, knowing what was next, and Hiccup murmured an apology. 

“Tell me, what exactly was so important that you two were gone for the entire day?” Stoick asked, hands on his hips like a disappointed mother—not that Hiccup would know what that looked like. He glanced toward Rytin, eyes widening.

“We were out exploring!” she almost shouted, grinning widely. “We found a lynx and smelled the most disgusting rotting thing, somewhere around the woods near the Hall,” she continued, beginning to ramble like any excited child would.

Osvald chuckled, cutting her off as he turned to Hiccup. “Well, you two have certainly kept yourselves busy then, haven’t you?” He glanced at Rytin. “Just don’t make this a habit.” 

The Berserker Chief left, walking to the middle of the hall once more to pester a tipsy Gobber, as Stoick looked down upon Hiccup.

Does he know we’re lying? he couldn’t help but ask himself, gaze firmly on Stoick’s beard and intent on not meeting his eyes. Stoick leaned forward slightly, and Rytin all of a sudden found her food the most interesting thing in the Archipelago.

“…I’m glad you’ve made a friend, son,” he finally said, putting a hand on Hiccup’s shoulder. 

Hiccup smiled. “Thanks.”

Stoick cleared his throat, nodding and walking away as Hiccup turned to Rytin. 

“Wow,” she commented, watching Stoick’s retreating form through her lashes as she pushed her food around on her plate. “That was more awkward than my parents and I.”

Hiccup blinked. “But Osvald seems so carefree? How could he be awkward?”

Rytin scoffed. “To you, maybe. Have you seen him actually address me yet?”

Hiccup had not. He shut his mouth. 

“Anyway,” Rytin said, taking a bite of her fish before continuing, “The genealogy book, huh?”

Hiccup sighed, spearing a chunk of potato on his fork. “What about it?”

Rytin stood up suddenly, bench scraping against the floor harshly, “What about it?! We’re the grandsons of Grimbeard the Ghastly!” 

“Ssshhhh!” Hiccup shushed her harshly, before turning to check that no one was near their table. A couple of Vikings turned to peer at the duo oddly due to the harsh noise Hiccup had made, but no one looked like they’d heard about what, exactly, Hiccup and Rytin had discovered. He turned once more to face her, finding her sitting down once more. “And, grandsons?”

“Of course, why not?” She took a bite. “Also, you can relax,” she told him with her mouth full, flinging her fork dismissively like it was her hand. Hiccup cringed away from the pieces of food that shot away from her utensil as she continued. “You think I’m dumb enough to let people overhear us? Never. We could take over the Archipelago!” she hissed at him, lowering her voice. 

“Why would we want to do that?” Hiccup asked, bewildered. “Not like the Chiefdom of an entire Archipelago leads to anything, except for delegating all of your duties and running around your islands like a dragon with its wings cut off.”

Rytin harrumphed. “You take the fun out of everything. Just think about it! We would be kings!”

Hiccup thought it over in his head. 

“Listen,” he finally said, taking care to be slow and articulate. “Our ancestries lead back to Grimbeard the Ghastly because one of his sons ruled each of our islands, but he had several more children. He had enough heirs that he could give each of his islands to one heir as a way to teach them how to rule and rule well, in preparation for their possible days as king—if, that is, the book is even to be believed. You know this all to be true?”

Rytin nodded, drumming her fingers against the table with one hand as she cut up the fish on her plate. Hiccup took a breath.

“Great. So, if we could both be the kings of the entire Archipelago, what does that mean for the other tribes’ lineages?”

“That they can be kings too, I guess…” 

Rytin groaned dramatically, putting her head in her hands. “I can think about this later. Hey, maybe I’ll even come up with a plan to wipe out all of the other islands’ lineages!” she shot back up, grinning at him.

“Please don’t,” Hiccup replied, soon becoming distracted by his food and the increasing volume of the Great Hall. His father and Gobber were laughing, the Vikings right behind Hiccup had started a brawl with Spitelout, who’s son was probably off gloating to his peers about something or other. Rytin had begun to ramble about her home island, how great the Berserkers were, all of the times she’d trapped something using classic Berserker traps and the time she’d seen a family of Gronkles as she wandered the forest. 

Hiccup tuned back in to hear that last one, listening to her meandering self-propelled conversation about the dragons as he ate his food.

“...The dam was a dark, evergreen Gronkle, and she was muscular and scarred. She had this wild look her eyes—hey, kind of like what people say I look like! The sire looked soft, though that may only have been the fact that he was yellow. Behind them were two hatchlings, one the color of fresh grass and one slightly cooler-toned. They were only peacefully wandering along the rocky coastline, scooping up rocks every so often and watching as the hatchlings played together.” Rytin trailed off, her eyes glazing over slightly as she became caught in the memory of what she had witnessed. “After I made that comparison,” she began again, shaking her head harshly, “I couldn’t just go tell anyone about them.”

She paused, sighing. “The littlest one came up to me, y’know?” 

Hiccup’s eyes widened as she nodded to herself.

“Yeah, let me play with it and everything. The parents were angry at first, but when I made sure they knew I wouldn’t hurt it, they seemed nice enough about it. Let me and the dragon keep messing around, at least.”

Hiccup coughed as he finished his plate, catching her attention. “Makes you wonder, right?” he asked rhetorically. “If all dragons are like that, I mean.”

Rytin snorted. “That’d be nice. Too bad we don’t give them a chance to show it.”

Chapter Text

The next year, as winter gave way to spring with its dainty wildflowers and emerald leaves, Dagur took the liberty of pulling Hiccup away from rickety wooden docks filled with sweaty, old Vikings and into the wilderness of the forests surrounding Berserk’s cliffsides.

She was so excited to show Hiccup her hideaway out in the woods, far enough that the red-hot words that the Berserkers spat at her no longer burned when they reached her. She led him along the downtrodden path. Clusters of tiny white flowers reached out like hands towards the children—though the deadly poisonous ones were barred by their edible twins. From the ground, Dagur watched the canopy, where Terrible Terrors both chased after tiny birds and napped at each other’s sides alike. Hiccup lagged slightly behind, and the gap widened every time his hand brushed a flower bunch. 

Thin legs carried Hiccup back to Dagur’s side.

“There are differences between some of the plants I see on this path,” he observed. “Their flowers are almost identical, but some have darker leaves and purple spots and others have fuzzy red stems.”

“They’re very different,” Dagur replied, sage as her elders. She plucked a hairy green plant from the ground and pulled up a large white taproot. “This is a type of carrot that grows on Berserk—I think I saw them on your island last year—and it’s delicious when put in fish soup. It has white flowers that I’ve heard are good when made into jelly. They’re the ones with the fuzzy stems. The others, the ones with the hairless, purple-spotted stems, are poisonous.

Dagur pressed the carrot into Hiccup’s arms, leaving him to peer at it as she pushed forward.

Hiccup caught up to her again eventually as she waited in front of a low-hanging branch.

“Took you long enough,” she groaned, rolling her eyes in the most dramatic way she could manage as she turned to push the branch out of the way. “Say hello to the coolest, most secret base of operations in Viking history!” Except for the cave at Berk, of course, but she held her tongue.

She didn’t wait for him to pass by before letting the branch drop. It hit his face with a painful thwack! noise, and she giggled as he yelped. Then, she turned to admire her sanctuary.

The first thing that always caught her eye was how charred everything was. Rather than the bright green of most other parts of the Berserker forest, this area of it only showed the grey-black of trees long ago turned to charcoal and the brown of the dirt that had once been as vibrant and populated with animals (tiny though they were) as the underbrush and canopy. Nothing living remained in this area, as even the foxes, wolves, and birds were unwilling to live in a place so dead, so barren, so void of anything to hide them from whatever predator had lived here and left this destruction in its wake. A dragon, but what size? The hole in the branches suggested something larger than the hut she lived in. It was astonishing, how branches had been cut off so cleanly, though she imagined the dragon’s fire had done most of the work. That imaginary dragon kept her up at night, pondering and dreaming of emerald, indigo, tangerine scales being overtaken by vines and moss. She liked to think it was emerald, but the rage that danced on her tongue whenever she entered this charcoal palace of grief spoke to the creature’s saffron fury. Not saffron, she corrected herself, that was far too refined for a dragon’s anger. Carrot was too soft, as was apricot… Copper. Yes, that was the color of this dragon’s emotions. 

Mildly put, this was the most unappealing place on Berserk. 

Which made it all the more perfect for Dagur.

(She had always enjoyed doing things she wasn’t supposed to, after all, and visiting a place as despairing as this—having fun in a place as despairing as this—definitely seemed like the type of thing that Dagur would be forbidden from.)

Beside her, Hiccup shivered. 

“His place is so… sad,” he murmured, a pitying frown flitting across his face before he settled into a resigned sort of neutrality that Dagur was unaware the boy could feign. 

“It used to be,” she returned, grinning down at him. “I come here whenever things get—” scary, mean; whenever the white-hot flames of cruel words licked up her skinny little body and nestled into the folds of her brain “—boring at the village.”

“Huh,” Hiccup breathed, peering around the desolate space. 

Then, in a meek voice expecting dismissal: “Will you teach me more about surviving out in the woods, like you did with the carrots and the poisonous plant?”

Dagur fought against the joy tightening her throat. “Sure thing!” she replied, leading the way through the charred space of hers and into more of the striking jungle unbefitting of a place as cold as the Barbaric Archipelago. 

She resisted the urge to show Hiccup how much the request meant to her. As soft as the boy was, the two weren’t close enough for him to have earned the right to see her that way just yet. 

And even at their arms-length relationship, Dagur knew that a rejection from him would burn worse than the flames that Berserkers already spat at her on the daily.

She managed to distract herself soon after by telling Hiccup all about more plants, animal tracks, and dragon scales that Hiccup surprisingly seemed to know more about than even she did, despite how young he was. Though, when she remembered that Hiccup lived on an island where dragons blew apart half the village every other week, she figured that it wasn’t so strange after all.

Eventually, they started making their way up the mountain range that populated most of Berserk. Dagur continued her rambling about survival tricks—such as finding clean water (a running source, preferably not from the ocean), finding or making shelter with any and all of the possible resources within the archipelago (logs and sticks leaning against a tree, woven together and covered with leaves and pine needles), and so much else that even Dagur had a hard time keeping track—while Hiccup seemed to try his best to internalize Dagur’s teachings whilst not tripping and falling.

They both lost track of time.

The skies slowly darkened around them, even though the duo had climbed so high that the green around them was now often interspersed with cerulean—which soon gave way to yellow, orange, red, and finally navy. They were still out exploring so late in the night that they became blinded by the pitch darkness around them, and the little moonlight that made its way through the leaves did not help in the slightest. Deafened, however, they were not, and the growls coming from below and around them did not lend themselves to comfort. 

“It’d be too dangerous to go back down now,” Hiccup muttered. “We should make camp. Uh, I mean, if that’s what you think so too?”

Dagur nodded. “No, you’re right. It would be a bad idea to head back to the village at this point, given the limited visibility and the presence of all the newly-awakened creatures of the night. We need shelter.”

As they carefully made their way down the mountain, moving at a sloth’s pace to not hurt themselves, they found it.

Dagur crept into the cave, traversing the uneven ground confidently as she brushed her fingers along its stone wall. Hiccup followed with far more unease, glancing back and forth with such a paranoid fervor that Dagur wondered minutely if his eyes would fall out. The thought brought a smile to her lips as she continued. She felt the cave wall slope inward, and she paused to move her hand in front of her face. Sure enough, the cave’s wall never left her fingers, so it was safe to say that they’d reached the end. When she turned, she couldn’t see the entrance of the cave, but she was sure that if she were to move five feet forward she would be able to. Safe enough from prying eyes, then. 

Dagur no longer worried at all about whether this was a place they could stay the night, because she now remembered exactly what this place was. Turning back to the end of the cave, she continued to feel along the rock with her fingertips until her inner elbow made contact with a shelf’s edge. She hissed in pain, but felt around the shelf for where she now knew firestarters were. Flints in hand, she turned back again and shuffled forward until her feet hit a small ledge of stones, and she leaned down to feel for how, exactly, the wood and leaves within were placed. Finding their arrangement suitable enough, she struck the pieces of flint against each other, and sparks flared in the leaves. She watched as they brought fire to the sticks and logs. Smiling proudly, she internally patted herself on the back.

She was glad that she had had the foresight to make this place a feasible shelter. Who knew where she and Hiccup would be without it right now.

Probably struggling to sleep on the cold, damp ground in the dark.

Dagur turned back again now that the fire was lit, remembering her friend and realizing his absence. She found him staring right back at her from just behind where she’d stopped at the shelf, shifting from foot to foot.

“Glad I had the foresight to make this a good enough shelter,” she echoed her thoughts, “Because it’s probably the only time I’ll manage to do something smart in my life.”

Despite her irredeemable unfunniness, she found herself startling a laugh from him. She giggled along with him before she set about making her bed. 

She pushed a fur into Hiccup’s arms before laying her own atop a bed of straw, but pursed her lips when she realized she hadn’t thought to make another when she’d befriended Hiccup. She cursed slightly to herself and snatched the fur back from Hiccup to lay next to hers on the straw. 

Hiccup blinked, uncomprehending as he looked between her and the single bed. 

“Are we sharing?” he asked, eyebrows raising. 

“Yeah,” Dagur replied, turning to grab some dried fish jerky and offering some to the boy. “I didn’t think to make another bed when we became friends, and we should probably conserve heat anyway. You got a problem?”

Hiccup shook his head. “No, I just didn’t…” He paused and looked to the side, thinking. 

“Didn’t what? Didn’t think I’d want to share a bed with ‘the likes of you’ or something stupid like that?”

He tensed, and she figured that she’d hit the nail on the head with that observation. She shrugged as he looked back at her. 

“I don’t really care about how you are,” she stated honestly. “You’re my friend, and I don’t want you to freeze. Anything else is secondary.”

He sniffled. Dagur startled; did he truly get so little attention and care on Berk that someone not wanting him to die was so revolutionary that he needed to cry about it? She knew that her metric for love was screwed, to say the least, but he shouldn’t have thought so little of himself at only eight years old. 

(Gods, this kid was four years younger than her and had, like, twice the trauma. Come on, dragon raids and bullying? Pick a struggle, Hiccup.)

Dagur awkwardly moved to hug Hiccup after setting her jerky down, carefully maneuvering her arms to be as comfortable as she could while his arms lay still at his sides. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brought them up to rest on her back as his tears seeped into the shoulder of her tunic. She patted his back and rested her lips on the top of his head in a poor imitation of the comfort she’d seen some people give each other when they were grieving.

Soon enough, he was slumping forward, eyes drooping shut.

This boy needed to talk to someone who could help him through his problems. It seemed that nobody on his home island was willing to do that, though.

Which was so strange, she thought as she moved him to rest on their bed and put her fur over him. Every Berserker was so terribly endeared by Hiccup and his antics. How could the whole of Berk choose to hate him for it instead?

What odd creatures, Berkians were. She tsked in the otherwise silent cave, disappointed with whatever fools in the village had cast aside their heir apparent. What a way to end a bloodline, Berk! Go ahead and applaud yourselves for that streak of idiocy. She knew that Vikings were morons, but such an act was a new level of stupid. 

She’d steal him one day, she promised herself, away from all the judging eyes of both of their villages and into the great unknown beyond their cramped archipelago. Probably somewhere further south, because the boy was freezing to the touch.

She packed up her jerky once more and laid down beside Hiccup, moving him to face the wall so she could watch the rest of the cave. She hoped that the fire would be enough to stave off any desperate wolves or foxes, and dragons didn’t like her island for some reason, so they should be fine for one night. 

She hoped.

But hoping wouldn’t do much for her, so she just closed her eyes and prayed for a restful night.

Dagur’s first thought upon waking up, disoriented in the low light of the dying campfire, was that the dragon was huge.

(Well, her first thought was “That’s an odd shape for a tree,” but she had still been shaking off sleep when she thought that, so it couldn’t have counted.)

The dragon, a Nadder, she remembered, had scales as brown as the trunks of the trees just outside the cave, which gave at least a little merit to her half-asleep thought that mistook it for such. Its underbelly, though, was a closer color to the planks that could be made from the tree’s insides, the flat panels of wood that formed the Berserkers’ buildings having been twisted to form the Nadder’s chin, stomach, and the tips of its spikes. It was tall and stocky, too, its build more akin to a warship than the simple fishing boats she would compare a normal Nadder to. 

But the dragon’s structure was not the most pressing thing on her mind. 

What was more important to her in the moment was the creature’s sheer spikiness. 

She could have sworn that Nadders weren’t so sharp, even when one took into account its class. Normally, the spikes on their crowns were thinner and shorter, and the ones on their tails weren’t quite so wicked. She also didn’t think that normal Nadders had spines on their legs, the tips of their wings, or along their spine.

Dagur thought back to her escapades into the heart of the village. She would slink around and hide behind corners or in shadows, never showing her face for too long lest the villagers get tired of seeing it, and she would listen to their hushed gossip. On one such occasion, she had eavesdropped on two warriors, speaking in a haunted tone about a Titan Wing dragon. Bigger, faster, stronger, they said, and twice as deadly. 

Dagur couldn’t think of any other explanation for what she was seeing. This was a Titan Wing Nadder, and it was here to kill her. 

But it wasn’t doing a whole lot of killing at the moment.

All it was doing was staring at her. 

Slowly, its head cocked, tilting to the side curiously. Dagur shivered despite herself. The reminder that such a large creature was not, in fact, a statue carved of stone and was instead a living, breathing mass of teeth and talons and spikes was distressing. How could it not be? She was only twelve years old, not yet impassive to bloodshed or flippant in the face of death, not like the soldiers or elders or even her peers. 

But she was also the son of the Chief. She didn’t get the liberty of being a child.

Regardless, this wasn’t a time for reflection. This was a time for watching the Nadder as it took an apprehensive step towards her, its body as low to the ground as it could bring itself without jeopardizing its balance. It took another step, then one more, closer and closer until Dagur felt its hot breath blow onto her face. She leaned back slightly, hoping to get away from her front row seat to the dragon’s beak and nostrils. It refused to let her move away, though, and nearly pressed its face to hers to, what, smell its next meal? 

Feeling scales brush against her skin, Dagur flinched away. She wasn’t ready for Valhalla.

With frantic wingflaps, the Nadder was suddenly jumping backwards, scrambling out of the cave with the squawking of a frightened bird. Dagur heaved a breath, feeling herself start to tremble. Why was she only shaking after the danger had passed? She thought over this as she hiccuped quietly, giggling hysterically and muffling herself as tears began to stream down her face. Why had that Nadder run away as though it thought she was the danger? Why had it been in the cave at all?

Dagur wasn’t sure how long it was until her crying and quivering subsided, but it did eventually. The adrenaline that had kept her awake for so long finally wore off, and her eyelids began to close of their own accord.

At some point, she finally closed her eyes for the night, her mind’s eye picturing how the flickering embers of the fire that had been keeping them warm sputtered and died while she drifted off.

When she awoke, Dagur found Hiccup busy tending to their makeshift shelter. Daylight streamed in around the bend from the cave entrance, their only source of light. She supposed her half-awake dream about the fire had turned into a reality. She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a yawn. 

“G’mornin’,” she slurred, watching the way Hiccup moved around the cave like preparing for the day was second nature. She supposed it was, to most people, but she thought it might have said something about Stoick that she likened Hiccup’s behavior more to Sigrid’s than Osvald’s. Stoick’s widower status was obvious to all in the Archipelago, and it seemed Hiccup had learned to take her place in the home. 

“Good morning,” Hiccup replied, his speech significantly more discernible than hers. He passed her some more fish jerky from the night before, which she ate gratefully. Hiccup shared in the simple breakfast. They sat in silence together only long enough to finish it. Then, they were up, flitting around the cave to pack up everything that Hiccup hadn’t already put away. It didn’t take very long, seeing as the only preparation was putting up the remainder of the fish jerky, a fur, and laying firewood and leaves into the fireplace. 

Then, they were off, beginning to make their way down the mountain at the fastest pace Hiccup could handle. Dagur, on her own, could have gone faster, but she had only woken up recently and wasn’t quite ready to push herself that hard yet. 

They passed the same lush green they’d seen yesterday, and although Hiccup still lagged to peer at every little sprout and bud, Dagur spared it all no second glance. She was surrounded by this same forest every day of her life, after all, so she didn’t see the point in pausing to take it all in. She did, however, lend an ear to her surroundings, listening closely for the sounds of stomping, growling, or fire. Even so, she only heard the chirping and fluttering of birds, the wind rustling through the canopy, and the occasional snarling of a late-to-bed coyote or wolf. After listening with bated breath, having inadvertently stilled to hear better, her ears only caught the wandering footsteps of Hiccup growing closer. So, reluctantly, she paid a little less attention to what was around her. Still, she kept her pace slower than it had been previously to listen better. The detritus under her feet crunched with the volume of a dragon’s roar for each and every footstep taken, and Hiccup’s own (however light) steps certainly did not help. 

Dagur blinked, bringing her hand to shade her eyes from the dappled sunlight that shone through the thinning canopy. She looked down to better avoid the light and watched the dirt and leaf litter pass below her. With her focus now on the ground, she caught its earthy scent, mixed with the smell of the pine from the sparse needles that had died out late or early. It was damp and soft, barely sinking under Dagur’s weight and leaving clear imprints in her wake. 

She looked back up as sunlight brightened her vision.

Their scenery had changed violently from forest to village all too soon, and Dagur tensed against her will. The people within went about their day to day lives, trading, selling, and buying goods all over the place. The sudden sound of the blacksmith’s hammer clank-clank-clanking as it slammed into the red-hot steel that made their swords and axes was so much worse than the noise of the leaf litter that had been under Dagur’s feet only moments before. It was unfortunate that they had emerged so close to the forge. Hiccup was oddly unaffected at Dagur’s side, which seemed strange at first—shouldn’t the constant raids have made him more receptive to loud noises?—but that was before she remembered that he worked in a smithy as well. They continued along the path, making their way to the Berserker’s Great Hall, an opulent building where glittering gemstones and gold intertwined with silver. It was of a similar shape to Berk’s own, though not carved out of a mountain, and despite those differences, they were practically identical.

Dagur idly wondered if Berk had copied Berserk, or if such perfect architecture was recreated coincidentally.

When they stepped into the Hall, Osvald was already stomping up to them, face carefully concealing what was likely a cherry hue of fury, and asked Hiccup to find his father. 

Hiccup glanced towards Dagur worriedly, but she only smiled and waved him away just before she was dragged out of the Hall by her ear.

“Rytin Hradrson,” Osvald said, quiet as ice, “Where did you take that boy?”

Oh, great. This would be worse than usual. “Where I go every day,” she replied. “The forest.”

“And what, exactly, kept you from coming back with him before night fell?” Osvald asked, unconvinced.

Dagur shrugged. “We just lost track of time,” she answered honestly. “It was too late to come back safely, so we camped out in a cave near the middle of our island’s mountain. I made a fire, we didn’t encounter any danger, everything was fine.”

That was less truthful, but her mentioning a dragon sighting would send her father into a rage and ensure she never went outside again. Osvald stared her down, disapproving. 

“Braindead argr,” he muttered, and Dagur flinched back as if she had been struck. “That was unacceptable,” he continued, and turned to walk away.

Dagur brushed away the tears building in her eyes. She was glad it was her father, at least. She preferred plowing fields to mending clothes. She still had blistered hands from the time Sigrid had caught her sneaking out to the training ring…

But the past was the past, and she would not dwell. With that in mind, she went back inside the Great Hall to find Hiccup. It seemed he was done being berated by his father, and was now sitting by himself with a more proper breakfast in his hands. 

She stalled near where Stoick sat, head in his hands, with Gobber sitting next to him.

“...I can’t believe I forgot.”

Gobber snorted. “Not many people can find it in themselves to forget. For the gods’ sakes, Stoick, how d’ya forget somethin’ like that?”

Stoick groaned. “I don’t know.”

Dagur furrowed her brows and continued on, skipping her breakfast in favor of watching Hiccup as he ate his. She sat down in front of him with little fanfare.

“So, your dad chewed you out too?” she asked, feeling her gut twist in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. 

“No,” Hiccup replied, pushing his stew around his plate. “He only said he was worried and to tell him before doing something like that again.”

Dagur glanced back at Stoick and Gobber with pursed lips, trying not to make it obvious. 

Hiccup sighed, catching her eyes when she looked back. “They think I can’t hear them,” he murmured, “Like Vikings can be anything but loud.”

“That’s so stupid!” Dagur whisper-shouted. “How could he forget you like that?! He didn’t have any trouble remembering you last time we saw each other; what gives?”

“He only remembered me because I was right in front of him,” Hiccup responded, tears pricking in the corner of his eyes. 

“Can we not talk about it?” he requested politely, still poking at his food, and Dagur reluctantly dropped it.

Silence stretched between them awkwardly. Hiccup shifted before finally taking a bite of his stew, and Dagur looked on as he did. 

“…I’m not hungry,” Hiccup eventually said, pushing his plate towards Dagur. “If you want, you can have this.”

She didn’t need to be asked twice. Without fanfare, she took Hiccup’s fork and dug in, savoring the taste of mutton, peas, and carrots as she shoveled the stew into her mouth. Hiccup watched her with a grimace.

“What?” she asked through a mouthful of food. Hiccup’s grimace deepened. 

“Sorry,” he prefaced, “It’s just…You eating with my fork feels unsanitary.”

Dagur shrugged. “Vikings are unsanitary,” she replied. Hiccup continued watching her, disapproving in the way only children could be.

When Dagur had finished her meal, she sighed in satisfaction and nudged her plate to the side. Hiccup looked at her like he’d just seen a dragon tear into a sheep. She probably wasn’t too far off; she’d gotten numerous complaints about her eating habits. But she wasn’t bothered by his stare, not when it was so lighthearted. In fact, she couldn’t help but giggle at him, and he followed in her laughter.

“You didn’t eat like that last time we saw each other,” he said between laughs. 

Dagur responded, “That was because I was distracted by what we found.”

Their laughter died all of a sudden, and they watched each other awkwardly. 

Hiccup sighed. “...I almost forgot about that.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Slowly, their chatter resumed, and they began talking about nothing in particular as the village faded away from their table.

That same year, as summer softened and autumn took its place, Hiccup trotted along the snow-laden path to the glen that had become his haven.

He was so excited! He’d set up some of the traps that Dagur had sent him diagrams of in the letters they passed between their islands through Trader Johann. She’d shown him several, and he’d become comfortable enough with their models that he’d begun to adapt them to his own. This was the day that he’d finally be able to see whether they actually worked. As his trot accelerated to a sprint, the path bled into green on green rather than individual leaves and vines. He wondered how he’d become so similar to his friend after meeting her only twice; his usual routine was to walk slowly enough to admire his surroundings. It was a change for the better, he was sure Dagur would have told him had she been there. Hiccup found it in himself to agree.

He approached the natural stairwell the glen created, the stone worn down by feet and paws and hooves, and found himself relaxing as the walls of grey closed him in. It felt like a hug from Jord herself, and he was grateful for her presence. He hoped that she had graced him with a rabbit or fox, something easy to turn into lunch or dinner so he wouldn’t have to retreat to the already-frozen village.

But when he stepped into the glen in earnest, there was something waiting for him. 

Within the strangler trap Hiccup had laid, a creature watched him. Its bloodied mouth suggested that it had eaten whatever was initially caught in his trap. Its eyes reminded it of pears, and their light green color might have been soothing if it wasn’t attached to that pitch black, scaled body, with wings and claws and a tail.

A dragon. No, not just a dragon.

A Night Fury.

…At least his trap caught something?

Hiccup shrieked when the dragon lunged for him, snapping wildly against its bindings. However, the attempts soon proved futile. For once, it seemed as though Hiccup’s creation was doing the thing it was made for, rather than doing its own thing. The dragon, hissing and snapping though it was, was unable to free itself. Its neck was too short to cut its bindings with its teeth, its claws were too blunt to scratch itself free, and there was nothing nearby that could help it free itself.

Its struggle died, and Hiccup thought himself victorious. Snotlout would have no choice but to shut his trap and keep his hands to himself if he came back home with the head of a Night Fury, no matter how small it was. Ruffnut and Tuffnut would think him a proper Viking, and he could replace his cousin as their co-conspirator—maybe even push them to be a little more productive in their chaos for the village. That would be a greater feat than killing a Night Fury, he was sure, but it would earn him the village’s respect doubly. Fishlegs would no longer fear speaking to him—he would not become a pariah for associating with the only person to have seen and killed such a dragon, no matter their age—and Astrid might even acknowledge him apart from her pitying glances. This would fix everything!

That is, he thought so until he realized that the mighty beast he imagined himself taking down was suffocating.

Its panting, heaving breaths shuddered with the strain on its constricted throat. It wheezed and coughed, glaring at him all the while. Hiccup couldn’t deny the guilt beginning to crawl up his spine. It choked him like his trap choked the Night Fury. 

This was a coward’s way of killing. Hiccup’s lips turned downward. He would get no recognition from the village for killing a Night Fury, not this way.

Am I really going to do this?

Hiccup sighed. He pulled his knife from within his vest. 

He pushed the dragon’s snapping head away, baring down on its clawed legs with his weight.

He wedged the knife between the tightening rope and the dragon’s neck.

And Hiccup cut him free.