Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was dark, the only light coming from a small fire at their feet. It was cold, the wind howling around them, trying to blow out the only source of warmth they had. Dipper and Mabel were huddled together, rubbing their arms together, hoping to keep each other warm that way. Their backs were pressed against a big rock that was slightly hanging over them, keeping the wind at bay for a moment. They just hoped it wouldn’t change directions and blow their fire out.

The fall in the water had been rough. The shock that came from being dumped in ice-cold water had almost made Dipper pass out. Luckily, Mabel had been there to pull him back to the surface. They had managed to get on land, fate had smiled upon them, and there had been a small island near where they had plummeted into the water.
Dipper had hurt his left foot and had trouble walking, so Mabel had to do most of the work.

Dipper had, however, been able to make a fire, and their clothes were almost dry. Mabel still had her grappling hook with her and had been able to catch some kind of bird. It had been a challenge to prepare it. Dipper knew how to do it, theoretically, but had never done it before, nor had Mabel. It had tasted awful, but at least they had something in their stomach for the night.
At first, they had removed their clothes and put them near the fire, but as the night grew deeper, the colder it became. Since they were almost set, they had opted to put them back on.
They were just about to fall asleep, when a roar woke them right back up.

“Dipper, what was that?”

“I-I don't know.”

After the roar, they heard several loud thumps. They crawled closer together, and Mabel scrambled to grab her grappling hook and hold it in front of her, trained on the direction the sound came from.
They heard voices, but they were speaking a language they couldn't understand.

When they finally came into view, Dipper felt his heart drop. A group of people stepped through the bushes wearing full armor and fur, carrying swords and axes. Vikings, they had ended up in a place with vikings.

“Don't come any closer! I have a grappling hook and I'm not afraid to use it!”

The person in front, who was wearing black armor, shouted something to the other ones and slowly moved to remove his helmet. He then put up both of his hands in a sign of surrender while saying something.

The other people also removed their helmets, the first person gestured to a girl with blond hair and said something to her. She nodded and moved back through the bushes. Nobody moved or said anything until the girl got back. She was carrying blankets in her arms and moved closer to them.

Mabel was already lowering the grappling hook and was about to step forward.

“Mabel! We can't trust them!”

She turned to him and said with a frown.

“Well, what else are we going to do? I don't want to freeze to death! You are hurt! They can help and they seem like nice people.”

Before he could stop her, Mabel stepped forward and gestured for the girl to put the blankets down and step back, which she did. Mabel quickly picked them up and hurried back to Dipper.
She gave one of them to Dipper and draped the other one over her shoulders.

Two of the people who were lanky and had long blond hair were whispering to each other, before the person in front said something to them. Another one, short, burly with black hair, joined the conversation. He was saying something while gesturing to them.

The one in black armor nodded, he said something in return and the other viking together with the biggest viking in the group that had mousy hair, disappeared together into the forest. After that, the one in black armor shouted something to the back. Dipper and Mabel tensed again as they heard loud thumping coming towards them.

Out of the bushes came a big black form. Dipper let out a gasp when he realized what it was. A dragon! Mabel let out a squeal and the only thing preventing her from running up to it was the fact that Dipper could barely walk and would be left defenseless if she moved. She kept glancing between his foot and the dragon.

The one in black armor noticed her glances and turned to the dragon and grabbed something from a bag that hung on the side of a saddle that was on the dragon's back. When the man turned back towards them, Dipper could see that it was a small bag made of cloth. He slowly approached the twins again and said something in a soft tone, gesturing between his leg and the bag. Dipper didn't say anything, looking at him warily, it was Mabel who rolled her eyes and moved aside, so the man could come closer to Dipper.

“Mabel, what are you doing!”

“Letting him treat your foot, you dumb dumb.”

“We can't just trust them!”

“Come on, Dipper. They have dragons!”

She gestured widely to the dragons, who at some point had turned from just one to five. Even if they had somehow managed to get away from these people, the dragons would have caught them in five seconds flat. Dipper huffed and crossed his arms in silent protest, and stuck his foot out, so the stranger could take a look at it.

Mabel had already run to the dragons and was enthusiastically looking at them. The two lanky vikings looked at each other and then seemed to dramatically introduce the two-headed dragon to her.
Dipper winced when the viking helping him turned his foot. He gave him a sympathetic smile and grabbed a little jar from the bag he had put on the ground. He smeared some on Dipper's foot and then wound a piece of cloth around it.

At that moment, the two vikings that had left returned holding pieces of wood in their arms. They threw them on the little fire that Dipper and Mabel had made. The burly one shouted something to the big red dragon. It snorted before shooting fire at the wood, turning it into a big bonfire. Mabel squealed again and ran back to Dipper, who was sitting beside the fire, hugging the blanket around herself, and started holding her hands out to warm them.

“Don’t hold them too close, you don’t want to get burned.”

She stuck her tongue out, but pulled her hands back a little bit.

The other vikings were also moving around, the blond girl was cleaning the clearing together with a blue-colored dragon with spikes on its head and tail, the big one was feeding a dragon stones, the burly one was tending to the fire and the two lanky vikings were the only ones besides the one still sitting by Dipper who were not doing anything, they were in fact bickering with each other.
Dipper was watching them all very closely and the viking had noticed Dipper staring at him. He gave him a small smile, before pointing to himself and saying something.

“Hiccup.”

He repeated it and then gestured to Dipper. Dipper was hesitant in giving his name, but he didn’t even have to think about it, because Mabel had already beat him to the punch. She enthusiastically pointed to herself and then at Dipper.

“Mabel! Dipper!”

The viking repeated their names a few times before nodding to himself, seemingly satisfied with his pronunciation.
The blond viking came over and handed them some roasted fish. Mabel started eating it immediately. Dipper took his time to look at it and smell it before taking a small bite. Finding it not poisoned, he also started eating rapidly.

Dipper tried hard to stay awake after eating the fish, so that he could keep an eye out on these vikings and dragons, but it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Mabel had already fallen asleep after finishing her portion and was leaning against him wrapped in the blanket the vikings had given them. Chanting to himself ‘stay awake’, his head slowly started drooping, and sleep finally caught up with him.

Chapter Text

Hiccup was looking at the two children they had found on their way back from a mission. They were playing with a group of terrible terrors. Well, it was more the girl egging them on while chasing after the boy.

When they had found them, Hiccup had been suspicious at first. Two little kids alone on an island that happened to be where they were going to rest? But thinking about it, nobody could have known they were going to rest on that specific island, because the group had to deviate from their course because of a random storm. Then he noticed that the boy's foot had been injured, and well, he couldn’t just leave them like that, could he?

The problem was the language. They spoke in a weird tongue that they couldn’t decipher. Introductions had been relatively easy, as that was just repeating a name while pointing, but anything else had been a huge challenge. Trying to explain to the kids that they meant no harm and wanted them to come with the riders had been difficult. The boy, Dipper, had been scrutinizing them from the moment they had entered the clearing. It honestly reminded Hiccup of Astrid when she looks suspicious of something. The girl, Mabel, however, had been very bubbly and had been able to, albeit with some prodding, convince Dipper to let Hiccup pick him up and place him on Toothless' back.

They had gotten them to Gothi on the same day they had left the island, and Hiccup had managed to get Stoick’s permission for the twins - and they had to be twins, just look at them - to stay at Berk, with supervision, of course. When everything was settled, Hiccup, together with Astrid, had gone to Gothi’s hut to see if they could find out how the kids had gotten themselves stuck and alone on a small island in the middle of nowhere.

They had been forced to resort to drawing pictures, and after a lot of trial and error, Hiccup had been able to convey his question.

“What happened?”

The kids had looked at each other before Mabel had elbowed Dipper, and he begrudgingly grabbed the stick to start drawing in the dirt. The drawings had made no sense in the beginning. A triangle with one eye, some kind of hat, a bowtie, arms and legs, and a walking stick. Next, another triangle, but this one had a cross on top of it. The third drawing was more concerning, it was four stick figures in a cage with the one-eyed triangle next to it. The drawings became more disturbing by the second, as the next one was two stick figures being held in one of the hands of the one-eyed triangle, who had a mouth now with sharp teeth. It seemed as if it was going to eat the two stick figures. The last drawing was of the demon shaking hands with a stick figure.

Dipper had put the stick down, and both of the kids had stared at them expectantly. Hiccup and Astrid had studied the drawings and managed to come to a reasonable conclusion, and they didn’t like what it meant at all. It seemed that the village Mabel and Dipper were from, had decided to sacrifice them to this demon. They didn’t really know what the triangle with a cross over it meant, but Astrid speculated that it was maybe some kind of shrine. So the village people had a deal with this demon, and it was to sacrifice the kids to the demon as food. They had probably thrown them somewhere overboard, and they had managed to unexpectedly survive and gotten to the island, where they were then found by the riders.

Dipper's foot had been healing nicely, and the boy was allowed to walk around on it after two days. During those days, Mabel had been getting on with Gothi and the terrible terrors that inhabited the hut, and Dipper had been trying to learn their language. He already knew most of the words for the items in the hut, which had really surprised Hiccup with how fast the boy was learning things. Ruffnut and Tuffnut had also taken a liking to the kids, sneaking into the hut when they thought nobody was looking. So far no trouble had come from it, so Hiccup had let it go, but he would keep an eye on the twins just in case.

While the kids were outside, and he was on babysitting duty, Hiccup had taken up the habit of taking his sketchbook with him, so he could work on his inventions and ideas while keeping an eye on them. Mabel had been curious at first, but after taking a glance at the drawings, had quickly lost interest and turned her attention to the dragons milling about in the fields. Dipper, however, had taken on a more inquisitive attitude when he had seen the sketchbook.

The boy was too shy to go to him, however. Hiccup had seen him glancing at his sketches and schematics more than once and every time he had caught him, the boy had turned bright red from embarrassment and turned around quickly, pretending to do something else. At some point, Hiccup had snorted and gestured for the boy to come closer. When he was close enough, he patted the ground next to him. Dipper had hesitated, before sitting next to him. Hiccup had then shown him his sketches. What had surprised him though had been when Dipper had pointed at his pencil. When Hiccup had given the pencil to him, he had hesitantly hovered over a page in the book. Hiccup had been curious to see what the boy would do, so he had handed the book over with a nod. Dipper had started making little adjustments to a drawing and when Hiccup took a closer look, he saw that the kid had actually improved on his sketch.

After that, the two of them would spend a lot of time together bent over papers, drawing and critiquing each other's sketches. Mabel had found her company in the twins. She was seen hanging around them most of the time.

Time passed quickly and it had been a whole month since they had found Mabel and Dipper on that island. Dipper was now able to hold a very simple conversation and had been trying to teach Mabel, with minor success. She had been more interested in exploring and playing dress up with the sheep and getting roped in trouble with the twins. Speaking of Mabel, Hiccup hadn’t seen her yet today. 

As if summoned by his thoughts, a herd of sheep came barreling through the town, with Mabel riding on the last one, terrible terrors following close behind. Hiccup and Dipper shared a look and got back to their discussion.

Later that day, the riders were resting on an island halfway through their patrol. Mabel and Dipper were helping with cleaning the clearing. They had been allowed to go with them after a lot of whining and pouting lips from the siblings. The sun had just set when everything was finally set up, and they were roasting fish above the fire. Everyone was enjoying themselves, sitting around the fire and were loudly talking and laughing together, when a light between the trees caught their attention. Hiccup hushed everyone and they could hear the sound of people walking and quiet murmurs.

They all tensed as the sound came closer, the riders all had their weapons at the ready. When the mystery people finally stepped through the bushes, Mabel and Dipper couldn’t hold back a gasp.

“Grunkle Stan, grunkle Ford!”

Mabel was the first one to run towards them, with Dipper following close behind. They hugged each other tightly.

When Hiccup got a better look at the two men that had stepped into the clearing, he was stumped.

“Another pair of twins?”

The two men were now tightly hugging Mabel and Dipper, so it seemed that they were people they knew. One of the men said something to the kids.

“We're here, kiddo’s. We're going home.”

Hiccup couldn’t understand what the man had said, but it was clearly something good because Dipper and Mabel couldn’t stop laughing and crying at the same time.

They must be relatives of the kids. Hiccup and Astrid shared a glance and both had the same misgivings. If the villagemen had sacrificed the kids, were these people also in on it or not. They would have to make sure that these men would not harm Mabel and Dipper, but for now, they would let them have their reunion.