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Chapter Text

“I-I can’t believe it! I did it! This- This fixes everything!”

Dagger raised high and poised to strike if the beast made any sudden move- Hiccup needn’t worry much as he creeps up upon the felled dragon in front of him.

The next sight he sees makes him gasp.

For there lie none other than the offspring of lightning and death itself, a creature that is fabled to be painted from twilight- The Dreaded Night Fury…

…Tangled in a bola of Hiccups own design and with a humongous tree branch laced in scarlet, skewering the dragon straight through its chest.

It wasn’t moving.

The harrowing sight seemed to whisk Hiccups own breath away- And he could only assume that the gross heavy feeling in his chest was a perfectly ordinary thing for a Viking to feel when face to face with their first kill.

He held his tongue though, the heavy atmosphere and scent of dragons blood in the air making the small clearing far too tense to shout with accomplishment.

And so, he approaches the downed and punctured dragon ever cautiously- His appallingly small dagger in hand and bright green eyes darting frantically for any sign of life. But even as he came to be a few meager feet away from the beast, it still did not move.

The branch that protruded from its chest was almost like a stake, its tree of origin having been felled and split in two- Most likely from the collision in the first place. Hiccup could only assume that once he had struck the creature with his rope trap, it must’ve fallen straight into the trees and that’s how it had ended up this way. With a broken branch the width of Hiccup’s own puny torso punching a hole straight through its insides.

It lay in a strange position as well, with its belly slightly up and tilted, its limbs still bound awkwardly as its back pressed up against the large tree the branch had stemmed from. It almost kept the creature aloft, hanging on the bough like a spike.

The young teen tried not to stare too hard at the blood stained branch, or notice how the red had begun to crust into a rusty brown color more near the tip, while the parts near the base seemed to drip more freshly. It actually made him want to gag- But he tried to keep down his bile in favor of fixing his grip on his dagger.

After all, real Vikings don’t bat even an eyelash to gore- Hiccup would just have to toughen up and get used to it he supposed. Besides, if he puked all over a literal Night Fury- He’d literally never hear the end of it.

Inhaling sharply and truly trying his hardest not to acknowledge the pungent scent of iron in the air- He placed a small leather boot upon the felled beast and raised a triumphant fist to the air, preferring to gaze skyward instead of down.

“I’ve done it! I have felled this mighty be-”

He gasps sharply as the Night Fury finally stirs- The small movement of a foreleg to nudge the unwelcome boot away. The young Viking and his rattling legs where extremely quick to scamper backwards as the beast twitched beneath him and let out an almost unheard whine of… Pain?

Right, yes pain- Because when Hiccup put his boot to its side, it must’ve pushed the dragon down just enough to jostle it’s critical injury, sliding further into the wooden spike. Right, yeah, no wonder it woke up.

Wait.

It woke up. It’s ALIVE! As in- Well, not dead.

And it’s true, now more so apparent than before. If he had cared to notice before hand, he would’ve seen how the dragons breaths were low and wet- And every now and then it would twitch a little in its bindings and whine or groan some more.

Soft noises, of being in pain.

A dragon in pain, because of Hiccup? Ha! Laughable thought. Guess they aren’t the cold unfeeling monsters that everybody thought they were…

An even more laughable thought.

But it’s no matter- Going by the looks of things it probably wouldn’t be alive for much longer- After all, not even a dragon could survive being stabbed straight through for this long…

Hiccup, ever the over-thinker, couldn’t help but glance over the dying beast with an apprehensive gaze. He clutches his dagger close to his chest as he inspects the barely moving dragon. Very anxiously, might I add.

Absently, his thumb rubs against the hilt of the small blade and his face becomes even more apprehensive, brow quirking downwards and lips squeezing together.

Should he just finish it off now then? It wasn’t an appealing thought for sure, but for some reason just… Leaving it there to die slowly rubbed him even more the wrong way.

‘I mean… It’s not really the Viking way to just sit and wait right? Dad would want me to do it myself- Something about honor… Then again, most Vikings haven’t killed a Night Fury yet so maybe it’ll be different…’

Either way, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter, the dragon would be dying today no matter what he does or doesn’t do- And if he ever wants to get the recognition he so desperately dreams of…

It would have to be by his hand…

“Ok. This is still… Salvageable. Y-yeah-Ok Hiccup, you’ve got this. It’s already halfway there anyways, all you have to do is just…”

Steeling his nerves yet again and clenching his dagger with both hands until his knuckles went white, he bit his lip as he scanned for the best place to strike.

“Put it out of its…”

He never noticed before, but the dragons scales seemed to shimmer. It was a stupid thought, but he kind of thought that they were… Pretty. Not to mention but the dragon itself was almost majestic in its own right. Well, majestic in a terrifying, creature of night, would-eat-you-in-one-bite sort of way.

“It’s…”

…The way that the creature was built anatomically told great lengths of how it was quite literally BUILT for flight. Hiccup took a moment to skim over its wings- How even while tangled in rope he could see how intertwined every muscle was. The aerodynamic design of the dragon was not to be missed either, it’s slender head tapered at the end like a spear to be thrown. Truly unlike any dragon he’d ever seen before…

Before he could truly lose his nerves, he reminds himself that this is a DRAGON- And averts his gaze, practically forcing himself to spit out his next words like venom.

“…It’s Evil… Draconic…”

He decides to bite the bullet and raises the dagger right above were he assumed the dragons head would be, he wouldn’t REALLY know considering the fact that he kept his eyes clamped firmly shut… Though, perhaps he should remedy that. A good Viking should be looking as they go for the kill, right?

He cracks one eye open, legs trembling and arms shaking, and when he gazes downward he nearly topples over.

All he sees is green.

“…Misery?”

The dragon is looking at him. It’s more than just still alive, it’s AWAKE. And it’s gazing up at him, it’s belly still slightly showing in that awkward position, still pinned to the tree branch, still rasping with every breath, and still oozing coppery blood from its damning injury.

And Hiccup can’t move.

“Oh gods…”

…Because in that moment, the young Viking runt couldn’t tear his own eyes away from the dragons open ones- Slit like a cats and large- The singular eye was practically glowing against its black as midnight scales.

As if by some miracle of the gods, or curse, Hiccup cannot find it in himself to draw the dagger any closer to the downed and dying dragon. He saw something- He sees something in those eyes- Something he hadn’t noticed before.

Hiccup looks into those eyes and he sees… Fear.

Resignment and uncertainty…

When he looked into those orbs, it wasn’t the sights of a senseless beast, or a soulless demon… But the gaze of a dying animal. It wasn’t cursing him, roaring or hissing. It wasn’t snapping or glaring or anything like that. All that fight must’ve melted away long ago- If the frayed ropes restraining it had anything to say about things.

The young Viking had seen quite a bit of fear in the span of his 15 year old life. Gods, he saw it near every other night when dragon raids plagued the village. He sees it every day when he looks in the mirror, and he sees it sometimes in his fathers eyes, when the Chief doesn’t think anyone notices.

Fear- though there are many shapes, forms, and variations- Hiccup would like to think is an emotion that he is intimately aware of.

So as this felled creature looks at Hiccup with viridian eyes not so dissimilar to his own- The young teen can easily recognize the emotion, clear as the ringing of a bell- And in a variation he had yet to truly see in person.

‘Please. Please. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready to die. Please.’  That’s what it seemed to say.

THAT was the kind of look Hiccup saw when he gazed into the eyes of the Night Fury- The so called offspring of lightning and death. Suffering from a kind of fear that Hiccup had yet to know- The soft sort of terror, the slow sort that creeps into your skin and seeps into your bones. It’s harrowing…

It’s wrong.

Nobody, not even a dragon should look up at him with those kinds of eyes. The kinds that spoke a million thoughts without saying a word.

He took a step back as his face fell and so did what felt like his heart. After a few moments, he drops his dagger along with his arms, and a feeling of none other than guilt enveloped his senses.

“I did this…”

He moves as if he were a wooden puppet and some cruel god above a puppeteer- His fingers not his own or perhaps more so his own than ever before as he fumbles for his dagger. He begins towards the dragon,  this time with far more purpose than ever, and his thoughts were heavy in his conscience.

The dragon was about to die, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’m…”

It let out another rumbling moan, soft and wet- It made Hiccups own inners churn with unrelenting remorse for this creature he hadn’t even the chance to know.

He cuts the reptilian creature free of its bindings as its breaths get slower and less frequent- Hiccup believing in that moment that at the very least he should have the decency to allow the dragon freedom to move unrestricted as its death draws nearer.

Despite being essentially free of Hiccups binding, the creature only moves a small bit once the ropes are gone, muscles relaxing slightly as one less ache and scraping pain had left them. Though, there isn’t much room for movement anyways with the great tree bough piercing it straight through. There is still pain in the dragons eyes, and the relief is short lived.

It did not move from its spot, and the young human teen could only step closer as he feels his dagger slip out from his hands and onto the soft earth below.

Shakily, but somewhat finding resolution in his actions, Hiccup then places a dainty pale hand onto the snout of the great and dying beast. A monster, which had been no monster at all, but rather a victim- Hiccups victim- and dying creature who feared the beyond just as any other.

The dragon had initially flinched a bit at the humans apprehensive touch, that green bulbous eye still not leaving the young boy as he seemingly realized that the strange humans touch was not a harmful one.

It was perhaps in that moment that Hiccup could feel his heart split clear in two.

“I am so sorry… I… I don’t know why I did this…” Hiccups voice is thick with emotion- A strange mixture of guilt and sorrow. Peculiar things for a Viking to feel towards a Dragon. The creature below him only lets out its own low keen in response.

He did this. He did this.

He gazes down at the creature below him, and it’s all he could think about. That this Night Fury would die, and that it was all his fault. His fault- His kill. This dragon was about to die, it WAS dying, and while most Vikings would be over the moon- All Hiccup could do was force down endless bile and hopelessly stare as the creatures green as emerald eyes grew dimmer and dimmer with each passing moment.

And his own eyes were burning too, why? Why were they burning- It was one thing to feel sorrow or guilt over the death of a dragon- After all, some people can be sensitive in the face of something gruesome like that…

But to shed tears? Impossible.

Yet here he was, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the 3rd, dragging his fingernails back and forth as gently as he could across the snout of the downed Night Fury, his eyes burning with regret and with traitorous tears as the dragon moaned a soft garbled mess.

“I’ve messed up… So badly. I’m sorry…”

He should put the creature out of its misery- He should, after he can’t imagine having a tree puncturing your inner’s would be a good feeling to die with.

“I’m so sorry…”

But Hiccup was too much of a coward for even that.

He continued to smooth his hand over the creatures head and snout, finding his fingernails scratching in between the dragons strange flayed outwards crown- The scaly feelers twitching ever now and then when the young Viking hit a nicer spot than before.

It wasn’t much, but the dragon had started to make a new sound- A low rumbling that sort of sounded like a purr. It was a fragile noise too- Because after a few moments the creature would halt and whine again as its limbs spasmed and squirmed with pain.

Hiccup couldn’t imagine it- With fresher eyes than before he had no choice but to acknowledge that this was a cruel way to die- Just like this. In front of your enemy and feeling all your innards fail you.

As the young teen traced shapes in the Night Fury’s scales, he whispered things he never ever thought he would utter to a beast like this. Millions of “I’m so sorry’s” and “It’s ok’s” and “I’m here’s” escaped the Viking boy’s lips as he did this.

Traitorously he thought to himself, that maybe this was okay. Maybe this was a better death than what he should’ve given it. Even if he did raise a dagger to the dragon, Hiccup likely would’ve just found a way to make things even worse.

He doubted that he could’ve even picked up the dagger again anyways. His feet rooted to the ground, he wouldn’t have been able to do it.

That, he knows deep in his guilt ridden soul.

“Oh buddy…” He tries and fails to swallow down tears.

Hiccup allowed himself to cry too, at this point he’s already petting a dragon, there wasn’t any use in hiding it. It was an ugly kind of cry too, snotty and gross and he was forced to scrub his nose every now and then. Worst of all, crying made him feel even worse than before- Because he did this. He caused this, he’s the reason this dragon would die. He had no right to be sad about it, but he was.

300 years and Hiccup Haddock was the first Viking to cry over a dying dragon.

He doesn’t really know how long he’d been standing there, his knees having locked long ago while he stood comforting the dying dragon- Stuck in an unending loop of painstaking remorse and guilt as the Night fury continued to claw at its last shred of life. It still stubbornly continued to live, despite everything.

He’s been standing here so long, dusk and soon to be darkness had begun to settle over the forest. It wouldn’t be long before he HAD to leave…

Hiccup would stay here petting this creature forever if it meant that the dragon would live. The dream was enticing and a bit foolish- As he was still sure that any other day this dragon would’ve bit his head off- But a nice dream nonetheless.

After a few moments of monotonous petting and soothing- There was a change in the atmosphere once again. Hiccup was forced to yank away his hand in fear as the Night Fury began to twitch and shake much more aggressively than before. Its whines had reached a much louder caliber than it had previous and its paws began to scratch at its chest in a desperate but senseless attempt to unskewer itself. With its bloodied tail whipping around frantically and smearing crimson across the dirt ground, Hiccup could only watch on in horror as the creature thrashed helplessly about- Waves and waves of pain crashing over it relentlessly.

It was a sight to haunt for the rest of his days, he figured.

“Gods help me…” Hiccup uttered.

A new noise was escaping the Night Fury’s toothed maw, which had begun to gurgle as it let out various yelps and whimpers. A strange combination of sounds escaped it as the creature seemingly attempted to scream. Its eyes were blown impossibly wide, glancing around with those slit pupils. It didn’t just look scared anymore, it looked positively terrified…

After a few more moments, the pain seemed to ebb away once more in the dragon, and its head could be seen slumping to the ground with its eyes closed. For a moment, Hiccup thought it dead. But while still barely perceptible, the dragon continued to breathe even more broken than before- And its whines had started to emerge in long painstaking exhales.

The young Viking was unsure if it were a blessing or a curse for the dragon.

The creature began to shudder, and as Hiccup approached the dragon once more, stepping over its twitching limbs and kneeling in front of the dragons head- He could hear its pained warbles combining with the shuddering whines.

It was then that it dawned on him.

This dragon was crying.

Curling up closer to the doomed creature, and without fear of death- Perhaps it would be deserved either way- Hiccup found himself petting the dragon with both hands, one on either side. Without even realizing, he now found the dragons head in his lap.

It’s eyes were still closed, and it continued to cry, just the same as the young Viking had before, and Hiccup couldn’t help but feel absolutely hopeless.

“I’m sorry bud… You didn’t deserve this, you were just…”

Hiccup pauses in his ministrations to mull over his next words- Not really knowing what to say. He didn’t really know what Dragons did aside from plunder the village and attack them. He didn’t even know why they did it- Most Vikings just account it to the fact that dragons were evil soulless demons who liked to spread destruction…

But seeing what he sees now, Hiccup knows there must be much more to them than that.

“…Well, whatever you were doing, you didn’t deserve this…” Eyes downcast, Hiccup sniffles again and tries not to flinch guiltily as the dragon leans more into his touch, inadvertently pressing its head closer into the soft furs of Hiccups vest.

“…Nobody does.”

He could feel the shallow breaths of the dragon in his chest, he could feel as it slows, the gaps between exhales growing longer and longer as time goes on. It continues to whine, and even purr again, just for a little bit. Hiccup can’t do much, just keeps tracing his fingers over the dragons snout and apologizing.

They stay like this, just for a little while- Seemingly the worst of it all over.

He should know better than to hope like that now.

Last he had glanced downwards to the great dragon- Having made sure not to gaze towards the bloody spike in its midsection for fear of vomiting- Hiccup had initially noticed that its eyes are still shut tight. And they stayed that way for a time, or at least he assumed as much, but in that split second of time- Hiccup is shocked to find that they had opened once again- With a bizarre kind of clarity.

They were looking straight at him too. He dares not take a breath.

Emerald eyes meet viridian, and Hiccup could practically see the dragons gaze bursting with life. They seemed to shine with an unknown fire, green and resolute, as if DARING death to take them. It was as if Hiccup was gazing straight into the creatures soul, and it into his…

The boy could do nothing except gaze back, face still slimed with snot and tears, but he stares just as unblinking as if doing so would somehow unfreeze time.

It was actually kind of stunning.

The dragons eyes glowed with a fire of life so blinding, Hiccup nearly convinced himself that the dragon would stay alive through sheer force of will. Not only that, but the creature seemed quite intent to ensure its gaze bore straight into the young Vikings own- As if doing so would unlock some great mystery. As if, hilariously enough, it intended for its last moments to be looking at him.

Hiccup held his breath, just long enough to notice that the dragon too had stopped breathing too. His eyes were beginning to dry as well, but he still held the creatures gaze- Unwilling to break quite yet.  

Hiccup could feel his heart splashing into his stomach as the creature let out one more rumbling groan of pain- Almost growling with unknown fury- It’s eyes were  still sparking with their earlier vigor and determination to live…

…Before inevitably fading into nothingness, bright emerald eyes now nothing but hunks of flesh, dull and unseeing, while still trained on Hiccups own.

Hiccup still couldn’t tear his gaze away, despite the fact that the creature no longer stared back, not really.

The dragon… The Night Fury…

Had died.

Hiccup didn’t dare say a word, mouth still agape slightly with horror as the reality finally dawned on him, about just as heavily as the weight of the dragons now lifeless skull lay upon him.

It died. It was gone.

He saw the light leave its eyes.

He watched and he saw.

Hiccup was officially a dragon killer. He should be jumping for joy, shouldn’t he? No longer would people duck in fear when a Night Fury came near. By all means he should be skipping to the village, shouting to the rooftops that HE- The village RUNT had ended the NIGHT FURYS reign of terror. Any Viking would be happy.

What a joke. All he felt was lament.

He hadn’t even known the dragon, if you could ever know one- Truly. But he supposed it didn’t really matter NOW, did it? The dragon was dead after all, dead as dead could be.

And Hiccup wanted to puke.

It took him a good moment to move the deceptively heavy dead dragons head from up off his lap, his attempts at avoiding its dulled and rapidly graying eyes failing spectacularly. It didn’t help that the dragon had begun to foam slightly at the mouth the second it died, making a mess of Hiccup’s tunic and trousers. There was also the blood, which had clearly begun to ooze outwards from the back of its throat as all the excess air left it at once. It dribbled down the frontside of Hiccup’s lap and onto the ground below in a horrible combination of fluids once the head had been moved off of him.

Scratch wanting to puke- He WILL puke at this rate- Which is a testament to how bad he was feeling. Contrary to popular belief, Hiccup did not have a sensitive stomach- He couldn’t afford to, if he had ever dreamed to endure all of his fathers attempts at cooking throughout the younger years of Hiccup’s life.

Limbs trembling violently, the teenager managed to take to his feet, not without stumbling a bit of course- And for a moment it was awfully hard to breathe. He tried clutching his chest to somehow force his lungs into righting themselves, but it didn’t do much except probably make him look stupid.

“I…Agh…”

He turned to look towards the dead dragon- Still belly slightly up and blood long crusted over and spasming slightly with what could only be the aftershocks of death- Hiccup’s stomach finally gave up the struggle of keeping it all down.

“BLUUURRRGHH-”

Now keeled over, the young Viking was incredibly quick to empty the contents of his stomach- And possibly his heart and soul- As he continued to heave and cry. And boy was he crying, the salt of his snot and tears mixing with the taste of bile on his lips.

‘Some Viking he was…’

But he didn’t feel like a Viking. If anything- He felt like a murderer.

Would it feel like that every time?

If THAT’S what it meant to be a Viking anyways- Striving for this kind of feeling… Relishing in the way a creatures light leaves it eyes as so many have bragged about…

Maybe he’s glad not to be one.

What a traitorous thought.

After finally getting his stomach in order- Or in other words, dry heaving until he literally couldn’t anymore- Hiccup manages to wipe the backside of a trembling hand over his mouth and nose, before moving to stand up straight again though now looking far paler than he had been before.

He glances back at the corpse behind him once more, eyes filled with sorrow as he is no longer able to puke at the sight. It lay motionless, no matter how much he hoped differently. This was irreversible- He couldn’t fix this mistake. Not this one.

The dead do not come back to life after all.

For a moment, he sort of stood there, still reeling and hesitating in which direction he was meant to go. Part of him wanted to go back towards the dead dragon, to do what he had no idea. Pay respects? How would he even go about that, petting it some more? Another part of him wanted to flee the scene, to curl up in his bed and furs and pretend nothing happened. To pretend that he had missed that bola launch, that the Night Fury did not die by his attempts at glory. That he was not a killer.

But…

He couldn’t just… Leave it there, could he?

It was getting dark, darker than he was comfortable to be in the forest with and for a moment he feared that he’d be in more danger being near the corpse- Surely its scent would attract predators who would be more than happy to chew on a toothpick like him.

Then they’d both be goners.

Even so, it felt plain disrespectful to leave though, to leave the corpse in the woods to be feasted on by wild animals. Doomed to be forgotten, locked away in Hiccups memory alone.

Vaguely, Hiccup wondered if it would be missed. Did dragons have families? Where their more Night Fury’s than they one he struck down?

He didn’t just cause an entire species to go extinct, did he?

The more he thought about it, the sicker he got and the more he wanted to dry heave again. But he was still stuck in a rut, mind reeling with thoughts and concerns as he pondered his next move concerning the increasingly deader becoming dragon that he inadvertently killed.

Would other dragons come looking for this one? Would they know it was him? Should he burn the body- Or bury it? How would he move it- It seems cruel to leave it stuck on that branch like some kind of meat skewer.

He can’t just leave it like that… But he can’t deal with it now either. He don’t have the tools nor means necessary anyways…

Walking over to the corpse, he feels his eyes burn again but this time no tears fall- Having cried them all out beforehand and leaving his cheeks reddened and raw. Kneeling just a bit, he places his hand yet again on the snout of the dead dragon- and tries not to shiver at just how cold the creature had gotten in such a short amount of time. Even so, he forces himself to face the dragon with fogged over eyes and grazed his fingernails over the small ridges that made up the tiny spines splitting its face evenly.

“I’m going to make this right… I… I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise...”

Even to him it sounded hollow, but nevertheless his words were resolute. He WOULD be back tomorrow, he WOULD make this right, no matter what happens…

He would.

Briefly he imagines just for a moment that the dragon purrs back at him- But alas, not a single sign of life reveals itself in the corpse.

He pulls his still trembling hands away with a heavy sigh before he turns his back to the dragon and with hard determination he forced his legs to move. Trudging over roots and past overgrown trees with stained boots, he feels absolutely empty the whole way home. Despite the gravity of the situation, he allowed just a small flitting thought to pass.

‘Maybe if I’m quiet, Dad won’t notice me coming in late…’

Chapter Text

“Hiccup.”

Cringing while midway crawling on all fours up the stairs, Hiccup couldn’t help but feel dread while gazing down at the looming silhouette of his father.

‘Well… He noticed.’ His thoughts unhelpfully snarked and silently he hoped that his Dad wouldn’t notice how irritated his nose and eyes were, or the strange stains on the front of his pants.

Of course, his father was a man of many things (muscle especially) but observation concerning his son had never been his strong suit. Even so, Hiccup couldn’t help but worry anyways. Though, now that he thought about it, now might be the perfect opportunity for Hiccup to… Rip off the bandaid concerning his newfound extreme discomfort when it comes to killing dragons…

He tries to ignore the lingering taste of bile on his teeth.

Like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs, Hiccup scrambled hesitantly back down the stairs to face his father- Wondering just how exactly he would break the news to the dragon killing expert.

“Dad! Hey! Uh… Yeah, um- I need to talk to you about… something.”

He tries not cringe at the way his words stumble awkwardly out of his mouth- Just as weird and stumbling as his legs had been not even a few minutes ago. Even so, his father- ever an unreadable wall- Stares down at Hiccup with an expression that he couldn’t manage to decipher in the moment.

“I need to speak with you too, Son.”

His voice is low and thick with an emotion almost like… Apprehension? Strange- What could his dad possibly have to talk to him about anyways? Call him crazy- but something was beginning to tell him that this wasn’t going to be the lecture he was expecting.

‘That doesn’t matter, stop psychoanalyzing your dad and just spit it out!‘

Right, yeah- He’s already gotten this far, hasn’t he? Opting to listen to that annoying inner voice for once, Hiccup took a breath to steel his nerves and clenched his fists tightly, ready to speak his newfound truth. Little did he know that his father also seemed to have the very same idea- And their words ended up overlapping over one another.

“I don’t want to fight dragons anymore.”

“I think it’s time you learned to fight dragons.”

Hiccups eyes widened alongside his fathers own and they faced each-other with eerily similar confused expressions.

“What?” “What?”

“You go first.” His Dad urges him to speak first, but the 15 year old had long lost his nerves and was content to procrastinate as much as possible. He waves away the words of the much larger man and attempts to seem very serious.

“No, no- Ah, you go first.”  

…Besides, he was also incredibly curious now as to wether or not he heard his Dad right the first time- The whole exchange truly throwing him for a loop. His father ends up gathering himself first and was quick to nod firmly in agreement with Hiccups own insistence. He begins to say what he was going to initially, and Hiccup has no choice but to listen with bated breath.

“Alright-” The chieftain clears his throat again- And suddenly Hiccup really hopes he had heard the man wrong the first time.

“-You get your wish. Dragon training. You start first thing in the morning.”

Oh…

…gods.

He really should’ve went first.

“Ooooh, man- I really should’ve gone first!”

The young teen was most certainly panicking now- Dragon Training? DRAGON TRAINING? Why?! Why now- why now when Hiccup had finally figured out how absolutely incapable he was at doing just that? He can’t kill dragons! He didn’t WANT to kill dragons- Not anymore- Not after…

Flashes of emerald green eyes flash at him from beneath his eyelids when he blinks- And he tries his hardest to keep his breathing under control. He had to do something- He couldn’t, he just couldn’t! Maybe he could save this?

“Wait Dad- I was thinking! Um- You know… we just have such a surplus of dragon killing Vikings but how about… Bread making Vikings? Or- Or small home repair Vikings! Or hey- You know I’ve been doing great work in the smithery- Just ask Gobber! Maybe I can make a full time living out of that instead, huh?”

The words just kept spilling out of him, mostly in frantic rambles that left him without much room in his lungs. He tried flashing his father a horribly forced smile too, as if to sell his point but alas, despite his very passionate attempt at swaying the idea, his Dad remained just as… Well, stoic as ever. After taking a few seconds to catch his breath, Hiccup could feel the panic from before slowly shifting into abject horror as it dawns on him. His fathers words were always final after all.

As if waiting for Hiccup to be done freaking out- The burly mammoth of a man simply quirked an eyebrow upwards and hefted an axe out of nowhere only to  shove it (most likely not on purpose-) roughly into the scrawny teens fumbling hands.

“You’ll need this.” His dad seems quite proud almost, but Hiccup couldn’t help but shrink even more on himself as he struggles to lift the axe.

“Dad. This is crazy. I can’t kill dragons!” He can. He has. But he really doesn’t want to.

“You’ll learn.” Was all the chief said, before placing a firm hand on the younger boys shoulder- Clearly supposed to be a soothing gesture but all it did was make Hiccup want to collapse into a pile of fish bones. Hiccup could only manage to shake his head, making his bangs sway.

“Let me rephrase- I don’t WANT to kill dragons.” Not anymore. All that comes to mind are harrowing green eyes- and haunting, warbling cries.

“Don’t be silly boy, of course you do!” His dad seemed to hear Hiccups words as some sort of joke, forcing the normally stoic man to actually flash him a smile and chuckle a bit. Usually, seeing his father like that would make him feel a bit warm and fuzzy- But Hiccup was far too busy trying not to faint dead away with a rapidly increasing feeling of dread.

“I can’t.”

“But you will!”

“I’m… REALLY super extra sure that I won’t.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll surprise yourself!”

“I’m being serious, Dad.” Hiccup tries his best to place steel in his voice, but like always he fails miserably and his dad plows straight through- The older man now looking rather sentimental with his larger than life hand still pressing firmly on Hiccup’s scrawny shoulder.

“As am I, son. It’s been long overdue, I admit… But it’s time, Hiccup.” It’s like he doesn’t see him, like he’s not listening at all.

‘No…’ Dead eyes flash in his mind, and the faint sound of broken purrs drone in his ears.

“Please don’t make me kill dragons Dad, I…” Hiccup begins to beg, at least it sure sounds like he does, with his pleading green eyes attempting to make contact with his fathers. He tries, he really tries to make eye contact- Maybe his gaze would show the man the truth behind his words.

But Stoick the Vast does not meet his eyes, too engrossed in his own perspective.

The giant Viking managed to release his iron grip on Hiccups shoulder in favor of adjusting how the young teen held the Axe from before, his gaze becoming very grave as he looms above.

“This is serious, son! When you carry this here axe, you carry all of us with you. Which means you walk like us, talk like us… And stop with all… This.”

“You just gestured to all of me.” Hiccup, despite the words being sardonic in nature, sounded almost tired as he slumps were he stands in front of his father- Head spinning with recent memories of green emerald eyes fading. He didn’t want to argue with his Dad. But then he remembers those eyes…

Those eyes.

Those eyes.

He tries to shake away the phantom sounds of dragon cries and faces his father with the kind of frustration only a man on his last straw could harness properly. Green irises flashing, he gestures outwards as if to further press his point- And he could hear his voice starting to wobble precariously. All that he could process was the man in front of him and the shadows of his actions.

“Dad I can’t. You need to listen to me! I… I can’t even look at a dead dragon without puking my guts out! So what makes you think that I-” Quickly, Hiccup could feel his teeth clacking together as he slams his mouth tightly shut and breath halting in his lungs again. Like being dunked with a bucket of ice water, the teen realizes that he may have said too much.

“When did that happen?” His father regarded him with concern, and Hiccup curses the man’s clearly selective hearing. Even so, Hiccup becomes all shifty eyed and finds himself smiling nervously despite… Well, everything.

‘Play dumb!’ His thoughts scream.

“Uhhh- When did- When did what?” He manages to squeak out, but his Dad is relentless, and the man nudges downwards the axe that Hiccup had now begun to hide his face behind.

“You saw a dead dragon and puked? When?” He sounds so worried, and his sharp green eyes so soft, it nearly shatters Hiccups will to peaces. How dare Hiccup feel guilty now- Who’s side was he on? Could it even be possible for him to feel bad for both sides? He knows his Dad only wants him to be safe, he KNOWS this, and yet he still betrays him…

…But Hiccup refuses to betray the dead beast too.

“Er- I um- It doesn’t matter! Ignore what I just said- I- I Vikings kill dragons all the time! So- I um, saw one… Die-” Hiccup sort of fades out with a guilty expression as his terribly stuttered out excuse hangs in the air between he and his father. After a few moments of silence, and Stoick gazing at his son with a once more puzzling expression, Hiccup feels like sinking into the floor.

“So… Yeah.” He manages to sigh out pathetically.

“Ohhh… I see what this is about now…” At the sound of his fathers voice, Hiccups eyes snap upwards almost impossibly fast and a look of shock takes to his features. What did he mean by that? There was no way right? Like, there were a million possible things that his dad could be thinking right now- There’s absolutely no way he knows. There’s no way.

Right?

“You… You do?” Hiccups voice his very hesitant, tinged with a shred of confusion as the burly man in front of him nods solemnly-

-Before breaking out into another classic jovial grin. He laughs, the kind of laugh that only a man with a gut his size could execute properly. Consider Hiccup incredibly confused, as he could feel the colors still draining from his face. This was weird, right? It’s not often he sees his Dad laugh like this, normally he only hears it when the man is drinking jovially in the great hall. After a few seconds, his Dad wipes away a couple stray tears and shakes his head- and his earlier worries seem to have completely ebbed away.

“Of course, son! You must have a fear of guts! I suppose it makes sense, considering how… Er, sensitive you were as a kiddie…!”

…Huh. What an oddly reasonable observation to come from a man like Stoick The Vast. Hiccup could only blink dazed as his father continue, a now fond expression crossing his bearded face as he turns away from the young teen.

“Its alright, son- I understand… Your mother was the very same way, you know?”

“She… She was?…” Hiccups own eyes were quite wide now, and his voice softer than before. It wasn’t often that his father brought up his mother- Considering how sensitive of a subject it was. Hiccup of course, had never known Valka Haddock, considering she had been killed by dragons when he was just but a babe. He knew next to nothing about the woman, so when his father brought her up he knew he had to listen. Just for a moment he forgets about his earlier conversation points, he trained his focus solely on his father, who was facing away from him in such a way, that Hiccup knew he was getting emotional.

“Aye son. You… Remind me a lot of her, you know? Now,  I… know that I don’t talk about her very much but… Its true.”

His Dad chuckles wetly and suddenly Hiccup feels instantaneously more guilty than before for inadvertently led the conversation to something so sensitive. It was actually sort of awkward now- He still listens with bated breath though, and his father glances back towards him with shining green eyes. They still do not meet Hiccups own, but now Hiccup was glad for it. He fears that if he did , he would know Hiccup was hiding things from him.

“…You and her are so much alike…I wish you could’ve met, she would’ve adored you…”

“Oh… I’m sorry about… That…” Hiccup really was, but he was also sorry for a lot of other things. Lying… Being a coward… Being a traitor to Vikings in general, and probably a lot of other things that he can’t think of at the moment. Even so, his father was quick to clear his throat and subtly wipe both is eyes in speedy succession- Before turning to face Hiccup  with an embarrassed look behind his red mop of a beard.

“No, no, don’t be- I uh- It’s been… A day.”

“Right. Yeah. Soooo…” The two Haddock’s seem to have both lost their words and they both stand in silence for an uncomfortable birth of time- Definitly not making eye contact. Hiccup fiddled with his fingers, mulling over his next words very carefully before taking a breath to shatter the silence.

“Does… this mean I don’t have to go to dragon training then?” Hope is lacing his voice, the fragile sort that hangs by a small thread- He knew he was certainly testing the limits of the conversation- But with his father in a clearly sensitive state of mind, maybe now he could be swayed?

It couldn’t hurt to try, right?

“Of course not- your mother got over it and so will you. You’ll be fine.” Stoick’s response was quick to snip that thread of hope right at the base- and a very familiar feeling of defeat sinks deep into Hiccups own bones.

“Great…” Hiccups emotions don’t really match up with his words and he turns to face his father with pleading eyes once again, DEFINITELY testing the limits of his luck.

 “But… Are you sure you can’t just, reconsider?”

“Hiccup. The changes have already been made- You will be attending Dragon Training. I’ve made my decision.” His Dads expression has now become hardened, as if his patience was clearly being tested-

-But then again so was Hiccups, so he continued as well. Green eyes meet green, both equally stubborn as the other.

“Ok, but so have I.” Hiccup responds in his usual sassy manner, covering up the fact that the dread from before had completely overtaken him now, and was currently attempting to stir trouble in his stomach making him queasy.

“This will be good for you.” …Meanwhile, his dad pretends not to hear him at all. It was sort of irritating actually. Hiccup shakes his head in response, not willing to step down quite yet.

“I really don’t think so.”

“I’m trusting you to try anyways… Deal?”

“Wait, what deal is being made here? This is starting to feel like a very one sided-”

Hiccup didn’t get a chance to finish his piece before his Dad kneeled before him once more, hand on his shoulder and eyes boring deep into his own like daggers- Sharp pressing dagger that cut straight through his soul.

“DEAL?” The older man demanded with a stubborn as ever squint- And it finally dawns on Hiccup that he could not win this. He never held a chance… He sighs deeply and drops his gaze downward, finally letting go of his own determination and sealing his fate for good.

“…Deal.” The words he utters are like chains shackling him straight down to the gates of Hel. Dragon training. Even thinking about it sent him spiraling back to his evening in the woods, holding the head of that dead dragon for what felt like an eternity.

“Good. Train hard! I’ll be back… Probably.”

Eyes still downcast, Hiccup doesn’t see his father going good-naturedly, nor as the man made his way to the hugely built door- (Meant to accommodate for an average Vikings size)- But the young teen could sense him leave anyways and almost instinctively responded back with a very faint sounding voice.

“Yeah and I’ll be here too… Maybe.” He is unheard, but that truly was the least of his worries.

 Briefly, in the solitude of the chieftains home, the boy feels a chill whistle through him- Despite the fact that the Viking home was particularly well heated at the moment and all the doors and windows were shut without risk of a draft.

He shivers a bit, before sighing once more and slinking upstairs to his room, properly defeated in every way he could possibly fathom.

Chapter Text

That night, as Hiccup lay in his various furs and bedsheets, slumber would not yet come easily to him- Seeing how his mind had become his greatest betrayer, and was continuing to force him to reflect upon the plights of the past.

The haunting gaze of a dragons final moments- Fearful and in pain as it cried…

The conversation with his father as he gave Hiccup the news- Dragon Training. Younger him would be over the moon…

The eyes, green like the forests and green like the most glamorous of gems. Staring straight into his as a gesture of defiance- It didn’t want to die. Viridian eyes that matched his own-

Greyed out eyes and foaming lips as it warbled its last bloody breaths.

He hadn’t even known dragons could purr like that- He hadn’t known dragons could cry. Come to think about it- He learned a lot of things about dragons that he hadn’t known before… However short lived it had been…

Was this normal? Was it normal for him to feel this way? Surely not- He doubted anyone would do what he had done this night. The way he felt was almost overwhelming, a feeling so heavy that it weighed down on his chest and made it hard to breathe.

Would it always be this way, with every kill? He had dragon training in the morning, surely he’d be bound to get used to it? To “Get over it” like his Dad had so kindly told him to do?

He doubted it. It was like there was a gouge in his soul where his childlike hopes had once been stored- Now all that sat there was grief. That’s what it was, and he almost laughed at that-

Grieving. He was now grieving over a dragon.

Of all the impossible things.

This wasn’t a normal thing to feel, was it? A normal Viking would cheer, be proud of the death and the honor it bestowed them… Possibly whine a little bit over the fact that a tree had done most of the work for them. He could almost envision what would’ve happened had a different Viking been in his shoes- Say, his muttonhead cousin SNOTLOUT for instance.

For one, he certainly would’ve brought a weapon far larger than Hiccups own fishing knife. Something more wieldy, like a sword or a mace. Second, he wouldn’t have stopped to gawk over the dragon itself, he would’ve killed it immediately. It would’ve been a bit messy too, as if to prove that he did the final blows.

His cousin- ever the egotist- Would’ve gone parading door-to-door throughout the town, bragging to anyone who came near of the incredible feat- Bringing a whole group of Vikings to visit its final resting place. They would all work together to yank its corpse from off the tree, uncaring of what bones may break or how much blood it may spray. Might even relish in it, actually.

Snotlout, had he been in Hiccups shoes, would have admired the Night Fury’s dark as night scales, but only as he wears them- For he likely would’ve skinned the beast as a trophy. And the only times his grimy fat fingernails would graze the scales, would be when he drapes it carelessly over on a bedside post- To be forgotten as a soulless beast who was now rid of them for eternity.

The whole scenario just makes Hiccup feel grimy and quite possibly, physically ill.

The worst part was, he didn’t even really know why he felt this way. The dragon never did anything for him, and if anything, it WAS one of the dragons that would attack the village during raids. He’s sure that the creature was not innocent in any shape or form, and yet…

…And yet it haunts him, nevertheless.

Because it was alive and now it was dead. Because like any living creature with a soul, it feared death. And it felt pain. It cried out of fear and it purred out of pleasure and it did not want to die. To think- All things that Hiccup had inflicted upon the creature in a desperate attempt to be popular.

How selfish was that?

Groaning with tired frustration, as well as a menagerie of other feelings that he couldn’t quite name all at once, Hiccup turns fitfully in his bed as he attempts to force his mind to shut off for the night. He’s not very successful of course, seeing that his red rimmed eyes remained wide open and showing reflections of the stars through his glass paned window. It was a cloudless night that made the stars seem ever brighter- And his thoughts ever darker.

He wondered if the Night Fury would’ve preferred clear nights to stormy ones. A silly question, considering that it was the supposed offspring of lightning, so you would assume it would like the latter more- But yet wouldn’t a clear blackened night be better to blend into? Did they have a preference-

Would it matter either way?

What would the dragon have done had Hiccup never shot it? Tonight he meant, what would a Night Fury do when it wasn’t raiding the human village? Briefly he wondered, amidst his bad feelings.

Do dragons have an afterlife too?

He must be going mad- These aren’t things normal people thought about before sleep- Nobody ponders the quandaries of a dead dragon after killing it. Yet here he was.

As more thoughts flit to and fro in his mind, all it did was pull Hiccup deeper and deeper into his little pit of misery. No longer was his bed and furs cozy, but rather a prison. It trapped him in his thoughts, in place and unmoving. The bed was too nice and too large and he was too undeserving. With a furrowed brow, he is forced to recall how he left the dragon lying there in the woods. Alone. Growing colder and colder, as the worms burrow out of the ground to reach it.

The young Viking is struck with a reoccurring wish. For despite everything he had been raised with, everything he knew and learned growing up, and everything that his people lived for- He still wished.

He wished that the Night Fury was still alive.

A traitorous wish- But he couldn’t deny that it was his.

Not that it mattered anyways, Hiccup figured, letting out another small sigh- For what’s done is done. The dragon is dead and all he can do is move on. But this wasn’t to say he would just forget. No… 

In his mind, he had it figured out. The second he wakes, he would make his way over to the Night Fury again, just as he promised. He would bring tools of course, like an axe to cut the dragon out from its wooden prison. A spare change of clothes in case it gets… Messy. And he would bring fire starting material, in order to burn the body. He was far too small to drag it anywhere, so it would have to burn were it lay. He then planned to take the ashes and go to the tallest part of Berk, so that he may spread the ashes accordingly across the sky- Where he assumed a dragon would most prefer to be.

Maybe he would make a small memorial as well, in memory of the beast. It didn’t have to be anything too crazy, just something to remind whomever saw it that somebody died. That somebody’s life was lost, and that it would be not be forgotten.

Hiccup believed that would be the cruelest of things, to die forgotten. It was one of his biggest fears after all.

Anyways, that was the plan. He certainly would get some flack for skipping the first day of Dragon Training of course, but he didn’t want to attend that anyways and his father wouldn’t be around to scold him until much later. Hopefully, when all is done and over with, the impossible weight tugging on his soul would alleviate somewhat. It was the least he could do really…

With this in mind, the young teen turned back over in his humongous bed and gazed up at  the ceiling of his room with solemn green eyes and a grim look on his face.

He may not be a Viking, and he may never be… But…

Maybe that’s for the best. 

His eyes flutter closed, finally, and with a small sniffle he curls into his warm furs with a frown on his face- And ideations of flying Night Furys on his mind.

That being said, Hiccup had a very strange dream that night…

Chapter Text

It began with the color Green.

He’s in the forest again- A familiar sight, the lush setting having been burned into his memory like a brand.

Except it’s different now. Brighter, fuzzier. It’s far quieter too- In fact, eerily so. But he pays this no mind.

There is a dagger in his hand- That’s familiar too- A memory so vivid he can still feel the ridges of leather pressing into his palms as he squeezed its hilt. His legs move on their own accord- As he creeps down the slope where the dragon had fallen-

Yes… He recalls it. He shot it down the night before.

Once he descends the slope- He sees the beast in all its majesty- Nothing at all like he had first envisioned it being. Tangled like a fish in a net- He inspects his catch.

It’s so pretty- With dark scales that seem to absorb all the light around them- Except they don’t- And upon closer observation, he sees that there’s a sheen of blue gloss coating each of them, reminding him of nights at the docks. Fleeting moments, when the moon would reflect back on the inky waves.

The creature breathes, and its wings twitch- Restrained by the ropes wrapped around it. The creature makes no noise- But it squirms.

“I’m gonna kill you dragon. I’m gonna cut out your heart and give it to my father.”

A voice says- Familiar but not quite right. Hands raise themselves above the dragon, and it breathes. It’s alive, the creature. Inhaling and exhaling, without inhibition- Chest rising and falling just as any living beast that breathes would.

He feels something is missing here- Something he doesn’t want to see- But if he looks too hard, or tries to remember, his mind becomes blurry and something roars in his ears. So, he ignores it and presses on. He approaches with weapon extended and his heart beating harder than ever before.

“I’m a Viking.” The wrong voice says. But the dagger does not yet fall.

“I am a Viking!” The wrong voice repeats- But now it sounds less convinced.

The Night Fury breathes.

Green- It doesn’t want to die- eyes meet his own.

He takes a step back. Then halts.

“I did this…” The not right voice says- But it’s his own voice this time, he realizes. It’s an echo of what was once said- He remembers the breaks in his voice and sigh in his words.

Dread fills his veins- But he presses on nevertheless.

Everything is hazy- Too bright, too colorful. He approaches the dragon once more, this time scrambling to cut the ropes wrapped tightly around it. He knows it treason, but in this moment it is the very last thought in his mind. He frees the very alive dragon. The ropes fall unnaturally quiet- Snapping easily like soft grass.

The dragon moves.

Moves like shadows, smoothly like a tiger poised to strike. Something deep in him tells him that it’s unnatural- Not right. Fake-fake-fake-didn’t-happen- but in the moment, the furious look of an emerald eyed dragon is all he wished to see.

It doesn’t leap at him, or move any further than it did. Instead of attacking- The beast simply stands on its four legs and turns its head.

It stares.

He thinks they stay like this for quite some time- Everything becoming rather hazy as his eyes sink into those magnificent viridian orbs. He remembers every layer- And could see every emotion flashing. Defiance. Fury… Life…

Fear…

In a blink, suddenly- It’s no longer standing before him and instead, he sees the grand beast soaring upwards and far-far away from him. The scene could be that of a great painting- With the dragon being a well-put ink blot upon the canvas of a blue sky.

Its wings are like that of a bats- Extended and tearing through the air like a freshly sharpened blade. He watches the dragon as it flies- In its natural habitat- Seeming almost victorious as it does impossible tricks in the sky- Swooping, twirling, twisting and turning.

It’s beautiful, in a wild and strange way. It’s alive.

It’s gone.

Just a mere speck in the distance- He watches as it goes, delving upwards into the clouds where many other sorts of dragons await. Nightmares, Zipplebacks- Why, even more Night Fury’s come to greet the great beast in a flying horde. It doesn’t strike the same fear into him as it would have, had been an approaching raid. Instead, he imagines that he is smiling. Laughing. He’s laughing so hard, that he can’t breathe.

So hard that he can’t breathe. Laughing… He can’t breathe.

He coughs, and what comes out is foam and blood: Coating his fingers and painting them red.

But it’s not his.

It can’t breathe.

Green eyes, flashing again with a deep sense of fear and will to live-

It’s not breathing.

He’s crying now.

“No-no-no-no…”

What had once been a colorful dreamlike haze- Now sharpened into a black abyss- A dark room lit only by an unknown source of light emitting from the ground below. Worse than the darkness of night, it’s devoid of anything.

Yet it’s just enough to distinguish the standing figure of THE Night Fury- With an empty bloodless hole in its chest- And faded, lifeless green eyes.

The standing corpse stares- Unseeing and vacant.

Hiccup is paralyzed.

As if trapped in place by his very own two feet- He’s forced to gaze back in barely restrained horror. Hiccup wishes that he could cry- Scream, run, look away- But he can’t.

He can’t even blink, as the motionless beast stays stock still in its standing position. Perceiving nothing, with its dull eyes, it is a statue against the dark, inky depths of whatever Hel-scape this was.

This must be Hiccups punishment.

For what, he had no idea. Was it because he betrayed Viking-kind and refused to slay the beast with his own hand? Or perhaps this was the gods attempting to discipline him for sympathizing with the dragon- The same kind of beasts said to be unholy devils and to side with them would be treason…

‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry…’ His thoughts weep- And he still doesn’t know what for. Not really.

Or maybe, he wonders,  it’s just what he deserves- For stealing a life. For being such a Hiccup, that he isn’t just limited to being a blight among Vikings, but dragons as well.

Those hollow green eyes continue to stare- And the walking corpse of a dragon finally takes a silent step forwards, towards him. Hiccup could hear his heart beating in his ears, and without his own consent his gaze is drawn downwards to the dragons chest- Where-

Where the bloodied branch should be.

But it isn’t.

Instead, it’s a hollow hole, perfect in shape and piercing straight through the beast. Pierced in such a way, that had you attempted to peer inside, you would only see whatever had been behind the beast- In this case being a darkened abyss.

The dead-eyed dragon took two more soundless steps towards Hiccup, like a ghost of some kind or a shadow. Hiccups eyes are drawn back to the dragons own-  Which are still devoid of all life and unfocused.

He still remembers watching that spark of life leaving them-

Hiccup can barely muster a sound, let alone move. He now, more than ever, wants to wake up from whatever horrible nightmare this must be. All while, time seems to slow down as the dragon approaches closer and closer to the wide-eyed, petrified Viking.

‘Please…Please…Leave me alone…’

As it draws nearer, Hiccup is horrified beyond measure to find that the hole in its chest had begun to spill dark liquid across the floor- A dark rust colored sort of substance that could only be deduced as blood. The 15 year old boy tries not to gag at the sight, but luckily, here it seems puking is also something he is unable to do.

Splat!!!

Revolting squelching noises start to echo through the room as ropes and rocks begin to pour from the cavity in the creatures chest- The blood having turned into more-so a river and the sound was practically cacophonous as it splashed across the ground. The ropes and rocks were tied together in places- And it dawned on Hiccup that they weren’t just any ropes- But rather his ropes.

From his bola trap.

He wants to scream.

The dragon has drawn close enough that blood had begun to pool near his leather shoes- And close enough that Hiccup could hear a noise he hand before. From beyond the thunderous sound of coursing liquid splashing across the ground- He hears the sound of inhuman dragon warbles. Recognizable-

It was then he realized- This dragon was crying…

He remembers the thought when it had first crossed his mind.

He fears he may be hyperventilating- If that’s a thing you could do in nightmares- If this were some kind of dream after all.

‘It’s too vivid… It can’t be…’ His mind hisses- And his head aches deeply.

Hiccup couldn’t understand just how something so soft and mournful could be so loud in his ears- And that once he noticed, it was now all he could even comprehend- Over everything. Still sensing the dead eyes of the dragon bearing down at him and the numb coldness of blood coating his feet- It all comes crashing down over him.

Him- He’s at fault- It’s him! He’s the problem! He caused this! He did this- He killed it-

And now it’s HAUNTING HIM!

Too much- It was all just too much!

And like a puppet whose strings had been cut- Hiccup drops to the floor with a very unflattering cry- His funny voice practically cracking to pieces as he scrubs his palms over his ears to block out the noise- However ineffective it may be- And he ducks his head down with eyes clenched tightly, kneeling in a cold pool of red-

But he still sees the dragon approaching. He still hears it crying- And he can still feel its lifeless eyes in him.

Finally, he manages to find his voice and hears himself screaming, fingers tangled in his shaggy hair and eyes burning. He’s not thinking much, and is mostly fueled on whatever horrible concoction of emotions were thrumming through his veins at the moment. Terror, guilt, regret, a teeny bit of frustration- The works. All while the  phantom dragon takes another silent step forwards-

“S-stay back!”

Then another.

“Don’t get any closer!”

…And another. There’s a squelching noise as a particularly large clump of ropes escapes the dragons chest. It’s enough to launch the teen into hysterics, with his guilt ridden cries shifting abruptly into that of agony.

“Stop! Stop it! I can’t-“

Step.

“I-I said I was sorry, alright?! I’m not happy about this either, you know?!” His voice drips with a strange burst of frustration- Which fades just as quick as it comes.

It’s so close now, that Hiccup could feel the coolness of substance splattering in almost a mist across his face.  A maddening sensation that drove him to dig his fingernails further into his scalp as snot drips down his nose.

“Please… I don’t …”

Tears are hot on his face as they trail down his chin- And despite his squeezed shut eyes- He knows that the dragon is right in front of him, practically oozing the sensation of death around it. No longer shouting, the young Haddock’s breathless voice is small- Smaller than ever before.

“If…If I could undo it, I would!- I promise you that, dragon… I really would…”

Despite himself, he allows himself a derogatory laugh- As he lets his hands fall from his hair and to his sides- Then, he slumps further into the growing puddle of blood surrounding him, soaking his knees completely now.

 “…And what a sorry excuse for a Viking that makes me, huh?”

The dragon had long since halted in its approach, having stopped in front of the slumped over boy who continued to keep his head ducked low as if his hanging bangs would do anything to block the haunting dead gaze of the Night Fury. He finds himself sharply inhaling every now and then between grief-fueled sobbing fits, just to catch his breath and start again.

“I don’t even know why I feel so guilty… You were a just a stupid dragon… But I guess nobody deserves to die like that…”

The dead-eyed dragon stares.

“…And besides… even if I did… You know- Tell everyone what happened…” He pauses, as if to mull over his next words but figured against it. He had no reason to lie- Not to the creature he inadvertently killed.

“…They all would’ve just found another way to make me look stupid… Or I would’ve found another way to make a fool of myself, so… It never would’ve made any difference…”

‘I’d still be Hiccup the Useless’ was left unsaid. 

Curling up where he kneeled, with his knees to his chest and hands now wrapped around himself in a hug-like manner- Hiccup shook his head. The dead ghost of a dragon simply stayed where it was as the boy devolved into quieter tears than before.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I- I really am…”

Tucking his head into his knees to fully curl into a ball of misery- Hiccup let out another depreciating huff of laughter and sniffled horridly-

“Gods, This is so messed up…”

“Did you mean that?”

“Huh?”

Chapter Text

“Did you mean that?”  

“Huh?”  

Suddenly, Hiccup is hyper-aware of a new presence amidst the gloomy dreamscape- Which had somehow without him knowing shifted into more of a grayish landscape- With bone colored grass tickling the bottoms of his blood-soaked trousers.   

‘Some kind of field-’ His mind supplied- But he ignored it in favor of curling deeper into his self-deprecating ball of misery.  

Without even turning to face the newcomer in the dream- Yes, this was a dream, he was now vividly aware of this for some reason - He glowers a bit, noting the fact that the dead dragon standing before him was no longer pouring blood and rope from its chest. Small victories, he supposed. With a sigh, he spoke- Voice still cracking from his crying fit.  

“What was that?” He inquires, not bothering to turn and see whatever horror may await him next.  

“Did you mean that? What you said earlier?”  

“…You're going to have to narrow it down a bit more ma’am- I think I said a lot of things…”  

True to his word, the voice was distinctively a feminine one- Which would normally require a bit more tact on his part, but at this point it’s HIS nightmare- So forgive him for being a bit sour now. Though, the voice itself seemed to DEMAND a sense of respect, or attention. It was pretty scary, how heavy the voice seemed to settle in the area.  

“One moment. Turn and face me boy- I refuse to continue to this conversation with me to your backside.”   

The female voice sounded a bit firmer now- More commanding- And while Hiccup, having somewhat settled down after his whole hysterical nightmare moment, really had no choice but to obey, albeit rather bitterly.   

“Oh for crying- Fine. Whatever! What could you possibly wa-” He stands quickly to turn, with his fists tightly clenched and face screwed irritably- But whatever was to come out of his mouth next had quickly died upon his lips the very moment he turned to face the dream-crasher.  

‘W-woah…Pretty…’ Understatement of the century.  

For the being that stood before him was like no other woman he had ever seen in his life. The sort of being that men would tell grand tales about in fables- With beauty rivaling even the nicest looking girls of the village. That wasn't hormones talking- But rather blatant fact.  

A heavenly glow seemed to radiate off her, coating the woman in a majestic haze that made it hard to see her properly without squinting a bit. She was a gorgeous woman, with luxurious golden hair that seemed to roll in endless rippling waves, and she bore a face that he couldn’t even begin to describe properly. Her age was practically incomprehensible, and Hiccup had no idea if she was either as young as a babe or old as a crone.  

Even the color of her wizened eyes was indistinguishable  

Though, that wasn’t her most unique feature, for she was basically covered in what looked to be falcon feathers, coming together to form a cloak of sorts. Not to mention, gold jewelry of all shapes and sizes adorned her body like stars in the sky. One necklace in particular seemed to tug at Hiccups memory- The crest engraved on the pendant ringing several bells, but he wasn’t really in the proper headspace to think about that.  

“Well?” The heavenly woman inquired again- Leaving Hiccup at a loss on how to respond properly- Regardless of how pretty the woman was, he still had no idea what she was talking about.  

“W-well? W-well what?”  

“Did you mean what you said earlier- About… Wanting to change his fate?”  

Who? Good question- Hiccup wasn’t afraid to voice this thought.  

“Ummm- Whose- Whose fate are we talking about here? Some clarification would be nice...”  

“-Him being the dragon I mean. You know the one I’m speaking of, yes?”  

As the woman continues with her strangely wizened speech- She drifts towards Hiccup with a sort of- Inspecting look. It makes him shudder nervously, especially considering the topic of conversation. He could sense something heavy like a brick plopping into his stomach as guilt began to fester once more on the forefront of his mind.  

He ducks his head lowly and tries not to meet the gaze of the incredibly strange but gorgeous woman- Brows furrowed and shoulders slack as if carrying the physical weight of his remorse.  

“Oh… Right… That dragon…” Yeah. That dragon.  

“- See, I was simply double checking some things. It is after all- Practically unheard of for a Viking- Let alone the Chieftains SON- To mourn over the loss of a dragon's life. Vikings and dragons have been at war for YEARS after all- For someone to have regrets or better yet, shed TEARS over one of the beasts… It’s very curious, you see…”  

“Right... Right...”  

Hiccup suspects he understands this peculiar dream now.  

So that’s what this was about. Weird way to go about it- But it sure beats having to be trapped in an endless nightmare of being stared at by the dragon he wronged. This must be some kind of dreamlike method for his psyche to punish him even further- By having this pretty lady remind him of all the ways he’s a traitor to his clan.  

It's the most rational explanation he can think of, but he still has a funny feeling. After all, the conversation has yet to seem cruel...  

Yet.  

‘I’m a terrible excuse for a Viking- Just rub it in why dontcha?…’ The godly figure makes no move to acknowledge his innermost thoughts- Which were less than amused of course. Instead, she just… Looks at him in a way he can’t quite pinpoint yet.   

“…Quite vexing indeed…”  

“Yeah, just… Riveting stuff, right?” Hiccup manages to spit out disdainfully, though it has less bite than his usual sardonic remarks, mostly due to the pressing effect that the heavenly woman seems to have in the atmosphere. Though, by some miracle she finds humor in his suffering and smirks a bit- Deeply confusing the young male.  

“I assure you Hiccup Haddock- That I am not here to mock. If anything, I find your actions to be deeply intriguing.”  

“Intriguing? What’s there to be INTRIGUED about? I betrayed my tribe, alright? I can’t be a Viking- I don’t feel good about killing dragons anymore and I feel bad about the one I DID end up killing. Is that what you're looking for? Huh? It’s bad enough that I had to…” The words die on his tongue as Hiccup find himself trailing off again after yet another outburst. ‘Had to watch him die’ was left unsaid. He’s practically drooping like a soggy leaf now, electing to keep his head dipped down to avoid the pressing gaze of the lady.   

Vaguely, he acknowledged just how much closer the feather-clad woman had come- Not yet close enough to touch, but enough to feel the warmth of her strange other-worldly aura atop the crown of his ducked head.  

Is it just him, or does everything start to get a bit fuzzier the closer this woman gets to him…  

“I just… Want to understand your motive. Is it a matter of pity? Or sympathy? Or perhaps, something deeper… More profound...” The woman hums again, and Hiccup feels so incredibly small underneath her inspecting gaze.  

“So, I must ask, are you truly genuine in your regrets concerning your past action?”  

He doesn’t answer, keeping his head down and lips pursed together tightly. In all honesty, he didn’t want to talk about this- That much had to have been clear in his features. Though that didn’t stop him from thinking-  

Of course he was.  As much as it pained him to admit it- Because it went against literally everything Vikings stood for- He knew his feelings were entirely genuine. He hadn’t wanted the dragon to die and he deeply regret being the cause of that.  

He did . But he wasn’t about to say that out loud- For fear of making it seem more real than it was.  

Even so, the woman moved on as if he had responded to her anyway- As if she had gotten her answer just by looking at him. Of course, as if it would be hard. Hiccup was an open book most of the time. Though, what she says next is even more mind boggling.  

“You made a wish, young Viking. A wish that shocked even myself- And quite the hefty wish too… Do you recall what exactly it was?”  

Oh. He still makes no move to speak- Though he knows exactly the wish she’s talking about. As soon she had mentioned something, it came to the forefront of his brain almost immediately. It’s the very same one that’s been buzzing in his mind ever since he saw the spark in those big green dragon eyes fizzle out.  

The wish that he knew, deep down in his soul, would never come to be- Couldn’t be undone. But he knows, he prayed for it, desired it almost.  

He just wanted everything to be ok again.  

‘I wish... I could fix this... I wish I could've known you...’  

‘...I wish you didn't have to die because of me.’  

But he makes no move to voice it- Simply choosing to keep his nose pointed down and brows furrowed.   

Despite his lack of answer, once again, it’s as if she read his mind- The woman laughed good-naturedly as if that had been the answer she had been searching for all along. As if she knew good and well that it had been the only wish running through his mind now.  

“So, then it’s true… You truly DO feel remorse for the dead dragon… How unprecedented… How exciting- If this truly is the case, then I feel I must ask you…”  

The woman pauses, a gracious smile crossing her expression as she kneels to level her gaze to that of Hiccups hidden one. He hadn’t even realized just HOW close she had become- And found himself positively stricken with an overwhelming urge to look upwards as the woman reached a hand over to lightly graze near his cheek- Not quite touching.  

“…How far would you be willing to go in order to change the dragons' fate- To change what has been done?”  

…What?  

“What?” Voicing his thoughts almost incredulously, Hiccup found himself unable to resist the urge to flinch upwards and find himself trapped in the gaze of the stunning woman- A mere moral green meeting heavenly gold. His mind starts to grow fuzzier the longer he stays around the woman, and he’s unsure whether if it’s a good or bad thing.  

“Whaaaat do you mean by that?” He manages to inquire, much to the woman’s obvious bemusement.  

“I mean what I say. You made a WISH- The likes of which I have not had the pleasure of hearing in quite some time. I'm normally not supposed to bother with these sorts of affairs- But I can't help but intervene. So, I’ll ask again- Did you mean what you said earlier- That if you could undo what’s been done…”  

“I-I would.” Hiccup is stunned at how quickly and unwavering the words slip out from behind his teeth without his permission. He of course knows what the woman is talking about- WHO the woman is talking about and as he gazes into her multicolored eyes, he simply can’t find it in himself to lie. What reason would he have to? A strange wave of confidence pours itself over him, bringing him to even go as far as to nod firmly and hold her gaze for longer with a newfound glint in his eyes.  

For just a moment, the idea of his forbidden wish being granted seemed so very appealing. He had no reason to lie- No reason to play pretend and act as if the dragons' death didn't affect him. And if she was offering to change things then...  

Wait no- Wait what? Where in the world did THAT come from?  

There’s a beat, and he manages to gather a shred of rational in order to reflect and process just what exactly he had been insinuating. What sort of things he had been wishing for, without any sort of guilt. He should feel guilt- Wishing for things he ABSOLUTLY SHOULDN’T.  

Briefly realizing the extent of his change of values, he clamps a hand over his mouth with wide eyes- What is he SAYING? He’s a VIKING! By wishing the dragon back to life so brazenly- Just how far WOULD he be willing to go? Did this make him some kind of traitor?  

What is going on with him today?  

The woman moves to stand once more, and Hiccup shivers the loss of that heavenly aura that had unknowingly draped over himself due to the woman’s close vicinity. As she backed off, Hiccup couldn’t help but watch with a wide-eyed gaze at her golden curls rippled across the whitened grass as if submerged in water.  

“Would you?” She inquires- Almost interrogating in a way- Hiccup begins to feel himself second guessing his instinctive response, sweat practically pouring down his neck.  

“Umm… I-I dunno- I mean- Yes?”  

“Even if it costs you perhaps… A portion of your soul?”  

“I… What?” Mind stuttering to a full halt as the woman laughs openly at his puzzled and slightly stricken expression-   

“But of course. Most things come at a price dear boy- And the cost of a life is no different. If you are genuine in your desire to change the destiny of a creature you know next to nothing about- Then perhaps I should be gracious enough to allow a bit of… Leniency.”  

“Ah- Hm…” He attempted to respond, but any words he could’ve said were quickly lodged into the back of his throat. A ponderous look blossomed within his furrowed gaze.  

Was she…  

No …  

Hiccup shook his head, shook away the scandalous feeling of hope- No, certainly not- Right? She couldn’t possibly be…  

As the ethereal woman hovers above him, Hiccup can’t find it in himself to provide a proper answer to her- In all fairness- IMPOSSIBLE insinuations.  

She was offering to… MAKE HIS WISH COME TRUE???  

… And THAT wish? Of all wishes?  

Wait no- scratch everything. This was stupid- No, more than stupid- This was the most hair-brained, foolish, inane idea to have ever occurred to anyone… An idea that he was miraculously enough, contemplating. What was wrong with him? Even if this was just some kind of messed up dream, was he REALLY  so willing to sacrifice something as precious as a SOUL? Just to save an already dead dragon ?   

Such a preposterous thought! An insanely ridiculous wish to begin with, after all it goes against every single one of his Viking values to remotely side on the dragons, LET ALONE wish it back to life- Which is sort of the exact opposite of what his people do.  

‘I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...’   

...Of course, he hadn’t really been thinking of this when he had FREED the dying dragon, nor when he had the Night Fury’s head in his lap while bawling his eyes out… But that also could have a reasonable explanation- He's a sensitive sort of guy.  

Whereas, actually praying for something like this could be grounds for insanity!  

Even worse, why was he actually PONDERING the offer?  

“I… I don’t know what to say…” He manages to admit to the still hovering woman- The words spilling rather freely as a rather unsure expression paints his boyish features. The woman seems to allow him his space, keeping a fair distance away as if aware of the internal warfare sparring within the confines of his mind.  

He tried to be rational about this.   

Say that this WASN’T just a dream- That perhaps he really was currently being displayed the opportunity of a lifetime- To have a real-life WISH granted by a mysterious woman in his dreams...  

He knows what a PROPER Viking would wish for.  

Riches, land, power, mead etc. Maybe a girlfriend too- Many men are a bit lewd in that way. But that’s what a proper Viking would wish for- After all, traditional Vikings never were the sort to care for things like peace or goodwill or prosperity for all. Nice wishes that help everyone. They like fighting a bit too much to give up that sort of thing.  

Most of all, a good Viking certainly wouldn’t wish one of their greatest enemies back to life though- Not like what Hiccup was currently contemplating.  

And yet …  

Once again, he finds himself plunged into the past, with those big green eyes staring up at him with brimming fear and pain- ‘No one deserves that… Not even a dragon…’ He had once thought as much, not even a couple hours before.  

He doesn’t understand why he feels this way- Dragons are supposed to be evil heartless creatures. He’s supposed to hate them. Wish them dead. Dragons attack the village and burn down houses. Take livestock, steal away mothers…  

“An offer like this only comes ONCE in a lifetime, maybe longer, Hiccup Haddock… If your intent is true…”  

The woman pauses as Hiccup can feel himself being pulled into her presence once more- She places a finger on her chin and suddenly all the young teen could feel in the moment was the overwhelming sensation of hazy warmth. It doesn’t do much to slow his racing thoughts, but it’s enough to have him hanging onto her every word.  

“…I can grant your wish- But only if you're willing to accept the costs- And the burdens it may carry. A wish like this after all, is not without its sacrifices…”   

She reaches down to place a finger atop the crown of his head- Causing great shudders to ripple through his entire body due to the impossible sense of WEIGHT the small gesture had garnered. As if oblivious to her overwhelming authority- She laughs lightly at the sight of Hiccups wide eyed and close-lipped expression, before leveling him with yet another ethereal stare.  

“An eye for an eye, a life for a life. Seems rather poetic, now, doesn’t it?”  

‘Pretty sure that’s just the concept of trade-’   

Curse Hiccups stupid short-circuiting brain for immediately resorting to its usual sardonic defense mechanism- He thanks his lucky stars that he didn’t vocalize this thought, but it made no difference considering the woman probably had the ability to read minds or something.  

She continued anyways, pulling away from the 15-year-old teen and releasing him from her strange glowing aura.   

“So, I ask you, young Viking- To what lengths would you be willing to go to undo what has been done? Are you willing to accept the consequences of this wish? Are you willing to give whatever it takes to bring this dragon back to life?”  

Pausing a moment for dramatic effect, the feather-clad woman managed to tack on just one more thing before allowing Hiccup to come to his own conclusions.  

“Answer not with your mind, but rather your soul…”  

And wasn’t that a strange request.  

Without the haze clouding his mind, he had the opportunity to fully mull over what EXACTLY he’s been asked, what he’s been offered. He, Hiccup the village runt… With an impossible wish in mind, that he shouldn’t wish at all but for some reason he can’t find it in himself to write it off completely-   

He was trapped, nerves long frayed over the earlier nightmare in both reality and fantasy- He was truly at odds and ends between his warring thoughts- Between his heart and his mind-  

“Are you willing?” She had inquired.  

It is then that Hiccup truly THINKS .  

He thinks back to his despair, the moments in the woods as he comforted the dying beast. His recent memories flashing past in in a traumatic blaze of emotions, he knows his actions had spoken for themselves that night, with him going as far as to shed tears over the downed creature. Taboo, in all forms and shapes of the word. But despite his upbringing, he can't find it in himself to feel regret in soothing the creature.  

He thinks back to his conversation with his father, the one-sided deal that had ended with guilt eating inside his bones, warring between two worlds. He recalls even further, back to his earlier conversation with Gobber, a conversation between a shunned teen desperate for recognition and a tired old amputee. In the moment, he had felt frustrated and unseen.  

‘Stop trying to be something you're not.’ The blacksmith had said, only mere hours before Hiccups entire worldview was turned upon its head.  

‘I just want to be one of you guys…’ The admission seems far more childish now.  

He recalls even further into the past, when he was younger, smaller, and softer- Still innocent - Weeping near inconsolably as his father attempted to show him the proper way to butcher a deer. He remembers staring into those black and shiny doe eyes- It’s always the eyes, isn’t it? - Still glittering with what could only seem like tears. It had taken young Hiccup hours to wind down, and even then, the taxidermic head that hung over the mantle haunted his nightmares for years.  

Even further, he recalls so incredibly vaguely, in the deep recessives of his memory- Wide owl-like eyes staring at him with a sort of golden animalistic gaze- No less curious as his own as flames encroached all around them. Giggling, reaching a pudgy arm out as if to say hello- Then screams. A sharp sting on his chin.  

Then loss.  

He recalls a time before yesterday, when he still stubbornly yearned to prove himself as the Viking he desperately wanted to be- Prove that he COULD be of use, that he wasn’t the weakling that everyone in the village seemed to think he was. Prove that he COULD kill a dragon…   

He recalls the exhilaration as his machine struck true, HIS CREATION- The screech of a Night Fury piercing the air as a final desperate cry- A symbol of Hiccups victory…  

He doesn’t feel victorious any longer- Not now, possibly not ever.  

He thinks and he REMEMBERS. He REMEMBERS those final moments with the dragon in the woods- The weight of its head in his lap as he committed high treason by petting it. Offering the beast comfort in the face of it’s imminent demise- Sympathy for a so-called soulless creature.   

He remembered how every whine and mewl, every rasping breath and soft cry made him desperately wish that he wasn’t the cause. Desperately wishing in every star in the sky, every god who may be watching such treachery- That he could somehow fix this. That he could fix it, because if not…  

‘I’m gonna make this right…’ He can still remember just how exactly the promise rolled off his tongue and felt in his mouth- His cried out voice raw with snot and bile still echoing in his head as he gazes upwards towards the woman- No, the goddess - And for a moment, he couldn’t care less if this wasn’t real. He couldn’t find it in himself to care whether or not this was a dream- Whether he could truly fix things- Whether his wish could be granted or not.   

Because at the very least- This wish was HIS and HIS alone.  

What harm was there in hoping?  

With this in mind, he recalls one last thing- A promise he made. He was many things, and a liar was not one of them. Hiccup Haddock keeps his promises, corny as it sounds.  

After a few moments, he raises his head- When he had ducked down, he hadn’t the faintest clue - But he manages to lock eyes with the otherworldly woman, a newfound sense of determination overshadowing his sense of hesitation from before. This isn’t to say he wasn’t STILL nervous- But this was one of those special moments where someone speaks not with their words, but with their eyes.  

‘Are you willing to change this dragons’ fate, no matter the cost?’ The woman’s words echo in his mind once more- Like the incessant ringing of a bell. It’s enough to spur him on, his throat bobbing as he inhales shakily.  

His answer comes more confident now- Despite just how softly he spoke.   

“Yes, I would.” And he meant it.  

It seemed to be the right answer too, if the blooming smile pealing across the Goddess’s indistinguishable, yet wizened face had anything to say about it. Though, not that her reaction really played any sort of part in Hiccups final decision- (More like resignation honestly-) He’s already betraying most all his heavily engraved Viking beliefs in favor of wishing the goodwill of a dead dragon-  

So, the opinion of some godlike, ethereal being in his dreams was rather inconsequential in the long run.  

“I’m glad that’s the case, child.” She laughs at his innermost thoughts- Not unkindly.  

Suddenly, it’s as if everything became a whole lot brighter, the bone-colored grass glittering like shards of glass as the goddess beamed down upon him, not cruel or deriving in any way shape or form. It made him feel a bit better about his treasonous wish of truly wanting the Night Fury to live again.   

It was odd- For someone to have a positive reaction concerning such things- Without it being about ripping heads off or beating beasts to a pulp for honor or whatever.  

Wait, since when had he started to refer to the strange woman with rippling golden hair as a “Goddess?” Was that sacrilegious of him to say? After all, this strange figure of his dreams couldn't possibly be an ACTUAL goddess.  

Sure, his dreams were beginning to toe the line of too-vivid-to-be-thought-of-by-himself - or at least without the aid of some crazy outside factor… But even that was preposterous. A Goddess? What reason would the gods have to visit HIM, let alone grant his terribly treasonous wish?  

Well, perhaps Loki would- If only to make his life a bit more arduous than before.  

That being said, as his mind began to drift into different directions not correlating with gods, goddesses and the validity of his dreams- He finds himself facing the warm glow of the Godlike woman with a bit of hesitancy- More perplexed if anything.   

He couldn’t help it. Even if this WAS a dream- It’s not often his dreams are kind to him.  

“Alright... But… Why me? Why choose to grant… My wish?” And wasn’t that the question.  

Of all the people in the world to have their wish granted- Of all the valiant Vikings, suffering thralls, and innocent children sitting by their windows searching for shooting stars- Hiccup the Useless was the one being offered to have a wish granted. Even if this wasn’t some kind of strange dream concocted by the deepest recessive bits of his mind, and he truly was faced with a wish maker of sorts-  

For what grand purpose would they have to grant HIS wish?  

Inconceivable, really. Which is why he’s still sort of leaning towards the idea that this dream is all some kind of mind-ruse to get his hopes up- The fact that there where hopes AT ALL does not cease to elude him.  

“Oh, my dear boy- I told you. The whole situation is rather interesting- You included.”  

“I still don’t get it.”  

Hiccup was quick to deadpan in response before he could restrain himself, causing him to inwardly cringe a bit at his bluntness. The Goddess however made no sign of annoyance and if anything, developed a faraway look in her paradoxical eyes, sighing in that wise sort of way. The sort of way old folks do when they’re reflecting on terrible things in the past- Unspoken things that they have no business telling young but curious 5-year-old chieftain sons.  

“Truth be told, people do not often make wishes with others best interests in mind. There are those who wish for more than they can give, and most certainly more than they deserve. Humans are selfish in that sense. It’s not often that someone makes a wish as altruistic as yours- And that’s what intrigues me the most.”  

The Goddesses response gave Hiccup a bit of a pause, a tinge of red tickling across his cheeks. It wasn’t often people spoke kindly of the young Viking heir, let alone concerning his choices. Usually, responses are… Questioning at best, confused and nearly riot inducing at worst.  

Hiccup felt that fuzzy feeling again as the goddess got in REALLY close again, closer than the times before- With both their noses quite literally nearly touching. Her hair seemed to act as some kind of swirling, coiling barrier trapping him in place- Not that he really wanted to go anywhere at the moment, entirely too content to bask in the otherworldly haze that surrounded the woman.  

 For a moment, was only them. A young mortal Hiccup with wide green eyes standing slack in the overwhelming presence of the Goddess, whose glittering trinkets and jewelry seemed to shine with a mind of their own. She stares at him with those glimmering eyes- Was it just him or did everything about this woman seem to SPARKLE - And she placed a gold ringed hand upon his freckled cheek. To the mere Hiccup, the touch alone felt as if a million suns were pressing kisses upon his flesh.  

There are absolutely no doubts in his mind that this wasn’t a dream. Simply no way-   

This feeling, this BEING- She couldn’t possibly be imaginary.  

That was the scary bit.  

“You have a good heart, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. And while most find soft-heartedness to be a weakness, I think you may just find it to become your greatest strength. The kind of heart that cannot help but to stretch towards others, regardless of initial preconceptions… And THAT’S why I’m glad to share this wish with you…”  

“…So you’ll do it? You’ll bring it- Him back?” Hiccup made sure to correct himself, still a bit absorbed in the feeling of the Goddesses proximity and feeling somewhat like giddy child again- He can’t find it in himself to restrain the feeling of excitement bubbling in his chest. He is excited , that he can’t really deny- And for a moment he finds himself believing every single word that comes out of the divine woman’s mouth.  

For a moment, his rising thoughts seem to fizzle into puffs of fluffy clouds, and all that remains where whispers of his thudding heart and soul.  

Green ALIVE eyes flash in his mind.  

He can fix this.  

Visons of swooping dragons flicker within his mind's eye- Not just the Night fury, but entire swarms of dragons. Happy. Carefree.  

He can fix this?  

He doesn't think these visons are his own. He doesn't care all too much though. They seem... Good.  

Can he?  

“It will be so…” The Goddess utters, and her word is stone- Resolute, heavy and unmoving. There’s a sort of static that covers every bit of the dreamlike world- And with her command, all Hiccup could possibly feel amidst his warm haze is an overwhelming sense of RELIEF.   

It didn’t matter that he’s supposed to be a Viking- It didn’t matter that he was born and raised to HATE dragons- It didn’t matter that soon he was going to have to attend training with that specific mindset in mind. It didn’t matter that the Night Fury would certainly maul him to pieces if they ever met again- It didn’t matter that Hiccup was forever doomed to be the village pariah and would never prove himself in the way that mattered most for his people.  

It didn’t matter, it just DIDN’T- Because for once in his life, he was doing something he truly believed in. That he chose.  

He could fix this.  

He could keep his promise.  

He would get his wish.  

As visions of flying Night Fury’s danced across his imagination once more, he could feel the fuzzy haze that came from the close vicinity of the Goddess peeling away from him- It’s abrupt too, like a stale breeze whipping past him without any sort of warning. Ruffling though his clothes, he blinks a few times only to realize that the ethereal being that he had come to refer to as a Goddess had disappeared.  

“What..?” No longer enveloped by warm, ripping waves or trapped in the maternal haze that surrounded the strange wish-granting woman- He found himself finding this proper second-guessing thoughts again. Glancing around warily and wishing for the presence of the strange lady once more, he tried not to show his obvious discomfort.  

She may not be real, but at least she felt WARM in this strangely vivid dreamscape.   

Falcon feathers can still be seen drifting about from where the woman had just stood, drifting aimlessly with not place to go but down. Devoid of color- Devoid of life .  

It's a feeling almost reminiscent to when Dagur- The son of Oswald the Agreeable and heir to the Bezerker tribe- Had attempted to teach him how t swim by tossing him in the ocean. Cold and shocking to put into kinder words.  

A spike of terror could be felt piercing through his heart as he realized that without the glow of the ethereal woman- He was back where he had begun, trapped in the darkness of his previous nightmare. Amidst the whole interaction between him and the woman, he had nearly forgotten about the nightmarish shadow of the past, who he can now very vividly sense from behind him. Before he could start drowning within his hyperactive thoughts- A familiar voice boomed throughout the darkened expanse.  

“Fret not, dear Hiccup- For I await great things to come from you… And that Night Fury too… And I do wonder what sort of fate you have brought forth upon yourself…” The woman’s voice was a small comfort in the face of the abyss once more, every syllable sending a pulse of warmth straight to the very core of his chest. After a pause and Hiccups own slightly bewildered and anxiously waiting silence- She continued.  

“But for now…. It’s time for you to fulfill your portion of the deal…”  

Pardon?  

“Wait- What am I supposed to do?”   

His portion? Oh, right. She probably meant the sacrifices he was meant to have in exchange for his wish-   

But what could he possibly have to offer? His soul ? Was she genuinely being serious about that- Who was he kidding, stupid question, of course she was. “A life for a life,” as she had said so eloquently before. But how would that even work? How would he even go about doing something like that- Whatever that may be?   

Hiccup hadn’t the faintest clue.  

Great. Now he’s stuck standing around like an idiot while his head was racing with possible answers, and frustration growing as moments passed. He grits his teeth and can’t help but find his fingers creeping upwards to tangle in his shaggy brown hair- A behavior that he often enacts when feeling particularly overwhelmed or is overthinking. The Goddess tries to sooth him as she fades out, her voice growing fainter and fainter as time passed by.  

“You’ll know… You’re a bright young man, Hiccup Haddock- Unlike most, you tend to think with your head. Just… Do what you do best, and your heart will help with the rest…”  

“My heart?” Hiccup inquired softly to nobody in particular, placing a hand to his chest, instinctively to the place where his blood pumped the strongest. His heart? She couldn’t mean that literally, certainly not. So metaphorically then-  

With a contemplative brow furrowed, he turns without really thinking about it and finds his breath once more stolen away.  

‘I’m in the forest again.’ His thoughts blandly stated the rather obvious.  

True to his word, he was back in the place where it all began. Trees towering over him and overgrown, with his leather clad feet sinking into the soft earth of a freshly carved path, he could even feel the light fresh sting of a branch having slapped him in the cheek previously. Strangely vivid, more vivid than his dreams from before and possibly his own memory- It’s as if he took a stroll straight back to the fateful setting.  

Right down to the scent of pine in the air and the tickle of fur from his vest- It’s as if he were living it all again.  

‘There.’ His mind hissed, as his gaze was immediately drawn to the small cluster of boulders that made up the entrance to what would lead down- Down to where the dragon had fallen. Hiccup found himself almost instinctively scampering closer, squeezing past the rocks and down the softened slope that would lead him to where he would be.   

Odin’s ghost, he hasn’t the faintest clue what’s feeding into this sudden urgency. Maybe it’s morbid curiosity. Maybe it’s guilt. Perhaps hope even. Whatever it was, it was strong, and it compelled him to pull his eyes away from the softened dirt and peer his head around a particularly large boulder to where he KNEW he would be.  

He knew.  

With a breath and a thundering continuous drum in his ears, he sees him . For just but a few paces away, lay the creature of both his dreams and nightmares. Something in his chest flounders a bit.  

The Night Fury.  

But different again.  

He was no longer on a splintered half of a tree spike, nor tangled in rope trapping, but rather he lay coiled tightly in a sort of slumbering position. Tail covering his snout, and wings covering the top of his body like some kind of natural blanket- The Night Fury slumbers undisturbed, motionless. Dead to the world.  

Even the mention of the word ‘dead’ in his head causes unwanted shivers to crawl up his spine.  

But he can’t dwell upon that-   

“I’m supposed to be doing something…” Hiccup murmurs, now feeling especially unsure the more he inched closer to the closed off beast.  

With a new sense of purpose, he approaches the stilled form of the coiled-up dragon- The dragon tucked to tightly one might even think that he was in some kind of draconic fetal position. But the closer he got, the clearer it became that the dragon was less than just sleeping.   

Just a few breaths away from the creature, Hiccup noticed that the dragon was still. Too still. A statue- Not even breathing, like a painting frozen to time. Not only that, but the closer he got, the hazier and less defined his surroundings got. What were once extremely vivid and natural looking trees were now mere blurs of brown in his peripheral. Not that it mattered really, that wasn’t his goal. Breath stuttering and something strangely electric striking in his chest with every heartbeat thundering in his ears, he found himself looming over the large unmoving creature. Hiccup was now close enough to even touch the beast, to lay a palm across the dragons' scales.  

Extending a hand, he gently but no less purposefully found his fingers dancing upon what little amount of scales showed through the blanket of wings.  

‘Cold! Freezing cold!’  

With a startled yelp, he practically yanked his hand away from the downed beast, the sensation of frigid scales on human flesh bringing forth some particularly unwanted memories - A corpse in the forest- And the young teen is forced to take a few stumbling steps backwards.  

Cold. Dead . So, so cold…  

Empty.  

Not at all like the warmth that was currently pulsing continuously through his body- He hadn’t really noticed it earlier, but with the stark contrast between living and dead it was now startlingly obvious. Something was there, warm and familiar nestled rather cozily in the center of his chest.  

With wide eyes, Hiccup found himself once again pressing a hand to where the warmth seemed to emanate- And much to his surprise it was there .  

A constant buzzing of what could only be described as aliveness , humming continuously beneath flesh and bone and just that discovery alone was boggling. It wasn’t like a heart, steadily beating continuously like a constantly thrumming drum. It wasn’t like his lungs, which expanded with every breathe he took, reminding that he was alive. It was- This was-  

“My soul…” Hiccup was in a sort of state of shock, as anyone would be had they finally gained a realization of what their soul actually FELT like. He found himself gripping his chest tightly and stumbling forwards- Almost drunkenly- With his other hand extended towards the curled Night Fury.  

He had to check something- Mind churning with possibilities.  

Could it be that-  

He presses a firm hand on the scales of the dragon- And exhaled with a slump of his shoulders- Not so pleasant shudders begin running up and down his body the longer his hand kept contact with the cold-cold-cold scales of the Night Fury.  

After a few moments keeping his hand pressed up against the cold-cold-cold dragon- He then removed the hand in favor of pressing it up against his far warmer than normal buzzing alive chest. He inhales. Exhales. He does this a few more times, each time becoming a bit less terrified and more so puzzled.  

“It’s gone.” He finally huffs, reaching the final determining point in his little investigation.   

‘He doesn’t have one.’ His thoughts whisper, almost scandalized. A soul he means. Or if the dragon did have one- Hiccup certainly couldn’t tell. With a soft considering hum, the young Viking found himself glancing over the cold-dead dragon, before moving to sit down near its head, a hand once again reaching to stroke against its unnaturally freezing scales.   

It made sense he supposed, musing still rather morose as he ignored the incessant warnings of wrongness screaming through his heart- Soul? And continuing to press his fingernails against the silent creature's features. The dragon couldn’t very well be living without a soul, could he?  

That strange buzzy feeling in his chest began to almost inch towards the dead dragon despite his entire bodies' obvious revolsion to the proximity of the beast. The thought occurred to him. He was supposed to give his soul to the dragon, wasn’t he? Made sense… He’d already come this far, hadn’t he?  

“But…How do I do that…” He wondered, and felt another tug on his chest. How could he… Despite everything, he felt maybe he should-  

Wait.  

Wait one second.  

Was he REALLY about to give his soul away to a DRAGON?  

Really?  

A bit frustrated, he then promptly pressed himself tightly against the dragon in a sort of awkward hug before he could fully begin second guessing himself again.  

‘Yes. Yes I am.’  

If pressing his hand against the dragon was bad- Using his whole body was even worse. Freezing unnatural coldness seemed to ripple across his skin, forcing up every single goosebump he has, and he must grit his teeth to avoid shouting over the almost overwhelming cold.  

It seems futile too, as nothing seems to be happening. He just felt cold, and gross and wrong all over the place… But he would sooner admit to Astrid that he accidentally broke her mother's axe than give up now…  

“Please please please… Cmon…” He whispered almost like a prayer, eyes clenched tightly together, and his skull pressed up against the wing. Still nothing…  

Nothing... His face relaxes as he breathes, fragile hope practically oozing out his pores like some kind of sponge.  

‘Oh.’  

Until something, miraculously enough shifted. Something deep in his chest, a little something hot and sparking seemed to snap- Yanking almost aggressively in the direction of the downed Night Fury. As this continued, blistering cold seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his flesh, making him feel weak at the knees and slump further into the soulless dragon.  

Snap.  

Hiccup gasped a little at the sight of the dragon moving, just a tad, but enough to signal that he was doing SOMETHING right.  

Snap. Snap.  

It was as if some knot was being untied from his very being, but instead of gently being unraveled and unwoven- The strands of whatever kept his soul tied down were snapping, breakin- Much like the rope of the bola trap that had once been tied tightly around the Night Fury.  

Snap. Yank!  

Hiccup, with every yank and every snap could feel himself getting shakier and colder every moment. All while, the Night Fury had begun to grow warmer and warmer, twitching more and more as it sapped the life from the young 15-year-old.  

His eyes betray his weakness, brighter than ever before.  

Yank! Yank! Snap! Yank! Snap! Snap! Snap!  

He found himself laughing lightly, a bit breathlessly as his teeth began to chatter. He had begun to sink deeper into the warmth that the Night Fury practically emitted, practically putting his entire weight onto the dragon. The Night Fury kept twitching too- Wings moving and ribcage signaling that breaths were being taken. Small draconic noises began to come from the creature too.  

Snap. Yank. Yank. YANK !  

‘It’s working…’ Hiccup thought softly, feeling himself sliding right off the dragon, which had begun to groan, snorting a little with clear annoyance and shuffle a bit away in its sleep. The teen couldn’t find it in himself to care- He did it . Lying on the grassy floor, or what ONCE was grassy floor, he heaved a bit of a laugh as he shuddered deeply, far paler than he should be. The warmth that had once resonated so incredibly deeply in his chest was now at an all-time low. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care.  

It continued to yank towards the shuffling and snoring dark scaled creature. Hiccup didn’t even need to be close to the creature to feel it happening. But despite the bone shivering chills of emptiness, of his very soul attempting to leave him- Hiccup found himself with a soft close-lipped smile on his face and a deep sense of satisfaction.  

He fixed it.  

This had to have done it- Right?  

He fixed it!  

Somehow, he manages to stumble to his already numbed out feet- (He doesn’t really notice, Berk is after all quite known for its brutal winters, so the sensation is not all that unfamiliar to the boy-) And takes a few steps back. Now that he can truly see the dragon- Alive, sleeping but ALIVE- He can’t help but feel a little emotional.  

This was nice.  

He never really had a chance to fix his mistakes before. It felt good to know he could.  

Yank. Snap. Snap.  

The dragon chuffed a little where it lay- Shivering a bit but otherwise fine. Hiccup on the other hand was practically blue in the face and could sense that whatever small bit of heat that was still in his chest was only being held by just a few strings. Just a few- But he figured it was enough.  

Snap.  

Snap.  

He’s fine. He did it. He fixed it…  

He…  

“Wait...”  

There was a crunch , and for a moment there is only silence.   

Hiccups eyes widen, pupils displaying to the finest of pinpricks as he finds his hands shakily moving upwards to grasp at his chest. Something...  

There’s…  

Something there…  

He doesn’t dare look down and instead attempts to take a breath.   

But he fails . Red ooze pours from his mouth, dribbling down his mouth and chin and bubbling in the back of his throat. All he can really manage is a small grunt. That smaller than normal warmth was still burning in his chest too, and he can feel as it combines with the… Other thing.  

Fingernails drag over damp wood and before long he could feel something shifting- Not right- Not right!  

He sees the Night Fury move and that’s enough to distract him, the dragon moving, stumbling before glancing back upwards to meet his petrified gaze. There’s an empty hole where the branch had been previously in the creatures' body- But while not bloody or pouring rope - A small flickering familiar ball of light hovered rather sweetly in the empty cavern.  

His soul ... Not his soul?  

‘This isn’t what I…’ His thoughts hissed, but to no response. No heavenly voices laugh lightly, and no warmth floods his veins to fill his head with hazy happy feelings.  

No . As he meets the gaze of the alive-living-determined-confused-sad-ALIVE dragon, he can sense something splicing clean in two. The sensation, it rose impending like a knife to a butcher block- And as it rose, the more blinding the pain began to blossom.  

It was a feeling akin to how one would envision being both burned alive and split in two would be like. He could, he could feel his everything failing him. Burning, biting , sensations like nothing he could properly describe. Eerily familiar, and thoughts began to leave him.   

Agony.  

Green eyes meet living, oh so alive Viridian.  

He wanted to live.  

They stared determined, fierce- Dangerous- But oh so very alive.  

He wants to live.  

‘A life for a life’ she had said…  

‘Oh.’ It occurred to him suddenly, a sharp flash of clarity washing through him like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.  

‘I must be dying.’ And just like that, the floodgates broke open, hot tears running down his freckled cheeks in a very unattractive way, and snot pouring from his nose like a barrel of mead- Mixing with the blood and bile that would erupt from his throat in wet coughing sobs.  

A piercing shriek spiked through the air, sharper than a blade and utterly all encompassing. He’d never made a noise like that before- Though there was a first and last time for everything. He scraped rather pathetically at the intruding object- Dull fingernails only creating red irate lines across his chest as threw his head backwards into a petrified cry. He sounded almost rabid the way he was screeching his head off- As anyone would given the circumstances.  

Too much.  

He can’t breathe.  

Too much.  

IT HURTS TOO MUCH!!!  

After a few moments of wailing, gurgling, and bleary tear-filled eyes- He extends his hand out towards the black-scaled creature before him, still staring with giant life filled eyes- Scared eyes?  

All he saw was GREEN.  

He wanted to live.  

Something warm and smooth met the inside of his palm- If his lungs worked, he would’ve gasped at the sensation as he could feel something deep inside bounce and burn-  

As he stares deep into those swirling orbs of green- For a moment he thinks that something profound is exchanged.  

And then…   

Nothing…  

...And awakes with a bloodcurdling scream.

Chapter Text

...Green eyes stare deeply into his own... 

...He fixed it?... 

...His chest... It’s in his chest... 

...Fingers graze past warmer than before scales... 

...A G O N Y... 

...And awakes with a bloodcurdling scream... 

“AGHHHH-” 

A rather undignified shriek had erupted from his mouth almost the second he tore his eyes open- Wide and still slightly crusted over- He scrambles desperately to untangle himself from his various furs and coverings, the phantom feeling of fire blazing in his chest and across his skin making his bed sheets essentially unbearable. 

“AGhhh-Oof!”  

There was a bit of a struggle as he flailed in his coverings- And before long, he promptly found himself tumbling off his bed in a great bony heap. 

“Daghhhh..” Hiccup sat up with a groan, having found himself on the floor before he could really comprehend what was going on. Or rather, his head found the hardwood floor first, before fully realizing, ‘Hey- Your awake now. Good morning?’ 

Slightly dazed still from the considerably unpleasant awakening- He finds himself raising a shaky hand to rub sorely at his forehead, letting out a sharp hiss at the now blossoming pain from where his skull had greeted oh-so-tenderly the floor. 

“And... That’s gonna leave a mark...” He muttered, still rubbing the quickly developing goose-egg just beneath his side swept bangs. His eyes had clenched shut for a moment, before blinking rapidly as if to bring things back into focus- Pupils dilating wildly in the process. 

“Great... This is just what I need to start the morning... A concussion... Yippee.” 

He sways slightly as he tried his hardest to gather his bearings once more- Finally peeling himself up from off the shockingly cold floorboards of his room- He dawdles for a second before squinting testily at the stark grey light filtering in through his bedroom window. 

‘Guess an early start it is then...’ 

He attempts to blink away the combined pain and the bleariness of morning as he finally moved from his standing position- Strange visions of fluttering dragons and golden-haired goddesses dancing in his mind before fading quickly. Attempting to recall the dream was like grasping at clouds- Soft and very fleeting- But also caused waves of ache to spike in his newfound head injury.  

Green eyes dancing around his loft area- Hiccup tries to the best of his ability to retain his cognitive abilities, but something still remains to tug at his fuzzy mind strings. An odd sort of determination fuels him as he scrapes desperately to recall something from the fogginess of dreamland, feeling as if he was forgetting something incredibly vital- 

Green eyes flash- He remembers something- Something to do with wishes- 

‘What sort of dream...’  

He sobers up quickly though, once his eyes catch the shining blade of an axe, and the small basket tucked next to it, filled with the clothes and supplies he had prepared the previous night. Grim recollection completely overshadows the vague memories of his latest nightmare, and a familiar feeling of guilt floods his senses.  

‘Right. No time for dilly dallying...’ 

He sighs, before pushing himself to make his way across the bedroom. A glint of sliver flashes in the just rising sunlight- And he grasps the hilt of the ornate axe with much distain, though making no move to yank it upwards from its place on his desk. It was the axe that his father had given him the night before-  

“Well, may as well get SOME use out of this old thing...” He figured, especially since he doubted that he would be ‘chopping down dragons’ with it anytime soon- Or anything with scales really- For as long as he lived... 

Not after today at least... 

His thumb fingers the hilt of the massive axe- (Or massive by Hiccups petite standards, considering the blade nearly about as large as his own head)- And his viridian eyes dim slightly. 

A shame really- From a blacksmith's perspective, at least. 

There seemed to have been put a lot of heart in the intricate decoration engraving the old axe. It was probably a family heirloom of sorts- And in Hiccups own professional opinion, was actually sort of pretty... In a dangerous Weapon-Built-for-Severing-Heads sort of way. All things considered, it was one of the more thoughtful things that his father had gifted him over the years... 

Too bad it wouldn't be used for anything his father would approve of. It was as if he were desecrating the significance it held-  

“When you carry this axe, you carry all of us with you...” Had said the chief his father the night before- The man’s heavy words still echoing in Hiccups ears. Come to think of it, by ‘us’ he likely didn't just mean the village... 

‘Yup. Definitely a family heirloom...’ He cringes at the thought- Mildly sure that if any of his ancestors in Valhalla were to be watching him today- They'd be cursing him to Helheim and back for what he was about to do with it. 

With the guilt festering in his stomach like a pool of viscous acid, he tries not to sway at the thought of what he had resolved to do on this day. 

What he HAD to do. 

Vaguely, with a far clearer mind than earlier, he recalls bits and pieces of his peculiar nightmare from before.  

The warm glow of a woman painted in sunlight. The gusts of wind that came from batlike dragon wings. The feeling of cold blood sticking to his clothes... A piercing pain in his chest unlike any other before... 

Wild and green, viridian eyes flash in his mind, glowing hauntingly as if to remind him of his past actions... 

The bump on his head throbs achingly, and oddly enough, something fuzzy in his chest seems to burn as well. 

It's enough to snap him out of his stupor, blinking sharply again as if to dispel the already fading memories. He couldn't afford to dwell on such things- Considering the fact that he had a long, miserable day ahead of him. (Though, when didn’t he?) After casting away any remaining fuzzy thoughts of the peculiar dream, he shook his head and began towards the door, foolishly attempting to heft the large, engraved axe from up off the desk with only one arm.  

He does not succeed, as it hardly moves an inch, and his cheeks flush red a bit over his pathetic backwards stumbling. 

‘Yeesh, what is this thing made out of- Metal?’ His thoughts are incredibly helpful.  

After a few moments of careful consideration- Like it or not, the axe was vital to the deeds he hoped to accomplish on this day- Hiccup, still rather mentally drained from the night before, decides to throw all care away and takes to dragging the long-handled axe across the wooden floor. 

Theres a hefty THUNK as the shining blade sinks deep into the still relatively new floorboards of his loft, Hiccup forgoing any sort of decorum as he slid it off his desk. He knows he should be more respectable whilst handling such a quality weapon- Especially one with such significance- But if he’s being entirely honest here, keeping the chips out of the gleaming axe-blade was really the least of his worries. 

After all, the axe had to make it into the woods somehow. 

On his way out, he slings his day pack across his back with a small grunt, and his ordinarily soft green eyes harden once he makes it out the entryway of his loft. With the ornate axe dragging across the splintered floor, and thudding soul-chippingly down the stairs, a grim expression takes to his face. 

He had a long day ahead of him after all- You know, with skipping dragon training on top of facing the general distain of the public-  

Well-  

That, and- 

He had a body to take care of. 

-Timeskip- 

It had been especially early when Hiccup had woken up oh so gracefully that morning, so by the time he had reached the portion of the forest that he dreaded most- Around Ravens Point, by Thor his arms and legs were aching already- The sun had already made its way above the horizon and painted the sky a myriad of colors.  

It was as if, overnight, the entire forest had decided to awaken and become, like, 100 times brighter than normal. Or perhaps, KINDER would be the best describing word for it. Birds were singing with all sorts of feeling- And a soft morning dew peppered the now blossoming petals of various wildflowers. The air was warm, warmer than it would be normally during an ordinary Berkian morning. (Berk was not very known for their generous springtimes after all-) The bees were buzzing and Hiccup even saw a BABY BUNNY hopping across the barely trodden path- A very intact INFANT BUNNY! Without even a care in the world! The nerve. 

For some odd reason- Despite the circumstance, the forest seemed to be a lot more... Welcoming than normal. Pleasant almost. 

He suspects the gods had seen it fit to spite him. 

‘Figures. The day after the worst day of my life-’ 

It was a BEAUTIFUL day, at least from an objective standpoint. It was such a nice day, that even the woods themselves seemed to sing. It was, of course, a stark contrast to the way Hiccup was feeling at the moment. 

Sticky mostly, as his usual warm furs did nothing to counteract the unorthodox heat of the day. 

‘-And the world acts as if nothing happened... Story of my life...’ 

Marching through the bright and lively greenery- Gloom seemed to practically drip off the young teen alongside his sweat, an extreme juxtaposition to the happy-go-lucky world surrounding him. It was almost funny, in a way, as he walked onwards with the sort of expression one would make as if something truly horrifying was awaiting them.  

Like a lamb to slaughter. 

He shivers a bit at the thought. 

It was a real shame. By the looks of it, it was building up to be an incredibly lovely day, at least by Berk standards. Too bad Hiccup wouldn't be enjoying it in the slightest.  

In fact, throughout his trek through the woods- He was more-so on edge really- If the jumpiness had anything to do with it. For some reason, a deep sense of unease had fueled his veins and made him far… Flinchier than usual... 

...Perhaps his strange dream had something do with his apparent paranoia? 

Nah, he’s just being dramatic probably. 

“What are you looking at?” He mutters rather bitterly, after getting startled for the 50th time by something as innocuous a bird flying from tree to tree. It was actually starting to irritate him; How happy the world seemed to be instead of him. 

He didn't ASK to feel this way- He didn’t wake up this morning WANTING to feel an overwhelming sense of grief for a dragon HE shot down.  

Call him childish for thinking as much, but he felt it was sorely unfair. 

Taking a moment to kick at a nearby stone, his sour mood is no less depleting as his foot misses its mark and skids past the rock instead of punting it way. He nearly trips over himself too, and the gritting of his teeth made for a similar sound to the slippery stone. 

He didn't ask for this. He didn't want this- He wished he’d never shot down that confounded Fury in the first place, maybe then he could've enjoyed this peculiarly nice morning. Maybe then he wouldn't've been dragging this Thor-forsaken axe for hours through the woods just to go dispose of the dragon's dead body. Out of what? Pity? Guilt?...  

Remorse? 

He had no clue- But it sure wasn't a great feeling to wake up to, that was for sure. 

Thunk! 

Hiccup scowls a bit as the stupid heirloom axe gets itself caught upon yet another exposed tree root- Triggering yet another wave of frustrated despair over his current situation- His mind still juggling with the If Only's concerning the blasted dragon... 

Speaking of the dragon... 

If he was being honest, Hiccup was absolutely dreading what he may find the once he rediscovers the dragon's corpse. It was the sort of fear that sunk deep into your bones- You're already expecting something imminently terrible- But despite that knowledge, you can't help but fear what may be found. 

Had it already started to decompose? Would it be torn to shreds? Had the worms already gotten to it?  

Hiccup feared that he whatever he may find out in that clearing- he may not be able to handle it for a second time. Why, he could hardly handle the invading thoughts as it is!  

Visions of gruesome possibilities flit through his mind like some kind of morbid gallery. Grisly images of the dragon's corpse in various circumstances were haunting him from behind his eyes- And he couldn't shake the visions away for the life of him.  

He imagined the Night Fury, still pinned by the tree branch and still oozing reddish-brown sludge, those empty eyes now long melted out of its skull. In his mind, the smell is unbearable. Scaly flesh drips off the beasts broken body- And parts were taken out of its corpse likely by scavengers in the night. The torn inner flesh that Hiccup could see in his mind's eye was unlike any sort of gore he had seen before- Its muscles and organs muddled black with rot and slime. Maggots and worms wiggle from between the torn bits of the downed beast, and with his imagination running wild now, he sees the dragon turning its head upwards to sky in order to whistle... 

...Not a normal sort of whistle, but the kind of whistle that was associated with the Night Fury - The noise it would make before shooting a blast of fire and destroying something during the raids. Tears dribble down its rotting snout and that horrid whistling only grows louder and louder than before- 

Then. The rotting beast began to SPEAK. 

“Why? Why Hiccup? Why?” 

“I don't know! I’m sorry- I'm sorry-” The imaginary Hiccup weeps back- 

He imagines a different scene, one with the corpse of the dragon in better condition than the previous thought- Only this time its coated in moss and leaves. Untouched by carnivorous nighttime creatures. But still dead. Then, as imaginary Hiccup approaches the pinned beast, he lifts the dreaded axe blade as if to chop the creature to pieces. It would make sense, seeing that the dragon is far too large to transport or burn in one piece. Thats what the axe was for anyways... 

The blade comes down, and the dragon SCREAMS. It hadn't been dead at all- having been sleeping all along- 

But the imaginary axe blade keeps on chopping. Blood, crimson red, splashes onto Hiccups trousers and tunic as he keeps on plunging the chipped weapon deeper and deeper into the wailing creature's flesh. It cries and it screeches, and perhaps he does too-  but even as Hiccups own measly muscles burn, he doesn't stop- He won't stop- STOP- 

The visions shift again, and this time he comes upon the creature's corpse to find it just as he left it. Foam still dripping out of its slightly agape mouth alongside blood- It's body still just a bit flattened from all the oxygen leaving in in one go. And it’s eyes, that was the most haunting part- It’s eyes still pale green and dulled over like pickled greens, and its scaled belly still slightly turned upwards at that awkward angle it had died in... Somehow this version was the worst of them all.  

Because it’s a memory. 

It’s reality. 

And now, stomping aimlessly through the wooded area and plagued by thoughts of rotting corpses- Hiccup wanted nothing more than to throw up all over again. Luckily, he managed to skip breakfast today for fear of this exact scenario, so even if he WANTED to puke, he’d have nothing to lose except the bile within his stomach. 

Thwap! 

“Gah! Doh- Come on!” Hiccup exclaims in a bout of frustration and startling pain. 

Hissing, he finds himself quickly dropping his father's axe in favor of rubbing the now once again throbbing bump on his forehead- Before turning a fierce glare towards the latest irritant.  He hadn't exactly been looking where he was walking, (A wee bit... Distracted, he was-) and it was just his luck that he happened to have ran straight into a tree-limb... Coincidentally thwapping right where his earlier head-bump had been. 

Just when he had forgotten about the stupid floor induced injury... 

The throbbing seemed to match with the pulse of Hiccups own heartbeat- And oddly enough, despite the aching soreness- It helped to ground him once more to reality and made for a wonderful distraction from the terrible thoughts running rampant in his mind. 

“Ugh.... Today is not my day... Week... Month- Whatever!”  

...However, it did nothing to if not further aggravate his already surly mood. Moodily, the young teen continues onward through the wooded thicket, now with a firm hand scrubbing across the enflamed mark on his forehead. He groans irritably- 

And then, something around him shifts. Or perhaps not shifts, but rather… Changes. 

“Wait a second…” A soft murmur escapes his lips and he stops breathing. 

He pauses, the weight shifting on his foot as he froze midstep. The dragging axe tugging sightly on his shoulder as it catches on another root- And the day pack slung to his back stays plastered to his sweat sodden vest like a second skin. 

It strikes him. 

A deep-seated sense of illness that was not dissimilar to how one would feel on a particularly turbulent ocean voyage. It was a very minor shift in earth, but it was enough to have his heart dropping straight down to his toes- And enough to tempt the goosebumps into rippling across his skin. Warily, he scans his gaze around the lush tree grove around him, and the boulders that lined the rural pathway. 

Familiar. 

He had walked this path before. Come to think of it- Even the stupid irritating tiny tree-twig from earlier was recognizable... 

It was like those moments as a child, when you had long fallen asleep upon your parents shoulder, and they make that VERY SPECIFIC TURN- That, despite sleeping, you realize that home is close by. 

Familiar. 

...But different somehow. 

He was getting closer. That much was clear. 

For a moment, his breath stifling in his chest, and Hiccup goes no further- Frozen as it comes crashing down upon him, the unnerving dread of it all. 

‘You have to face it eventually...’ He tells himself, gangly limbs suddenly becoming far wobblier than before- And the ornate axe he had dragged all this way having now become heavier than an anchor to sea. His hands began to shake, but his grip on the weapons wooded handle tightens exponentially, to the point of whitening his knuckles. 

Why can't he move? 

Why can't he breathe? 

He finds himself trembling, and had he a mirror, he would notice the lack of color painting his freckled features. Something was wrong with him- It kept him rooted, and immobile... But... He didn’t have time for this. He had to move. He had to breathe, had to… 

Had to… 

Oh.  

He realizes this belatedly- As it finally dawns on him. He's scared. 

Terrified really- Though it's no surprise, considering how much of a coward he was by default. But this... Short glimpses haunt him from the depths of his conscience- Visions of the night before, and it's almost abysmally clear that he has no interest in approaching the dead dragon... Not again. But he must... To make this right- He must... 

He grips his ancestors' axe ever tighter and bites his lip anxiously. 

‘Quit being such a coward... And face it head on anyways!’ Funny. For a moment, that voice in his head sounded almost like his father. 

Gazing outwards a few moments with pupils the size of pinpricks and his shoulders trembling far too close to his ears- Hiccup managed to snap himself out of his fear fueled stupor and forced himself to swallow down a gulp of air. He shook his head wildly as if to rattle his mind back on track. 

“Right... I have to do this... Face it head on... I can do that, pshYEAH, no problem...” He mutters under his breath, mostly to nobody in particular except himself. A small look of determination crosses his features- It's only half genuine and hides his far stronger feelings of morbid anticipation. 

‘The dragons not gonna get any deader after all...’ And he certainly owed the beast at least THIS much, didn't he? This was a commitment that he had to see through, no matter how grim it may be. 

Unease sinks deep into his paper-like bones, as he finally urges his boots to leave the ground, absently raising his free hand to wipe away the sheen of sweat above his brow that had developed- Long before his little terror fueled episode mind you- He WAS after all, hiking through the woods while wearing hot fur in the middle of a very very nice day. 

The unbearable heat of it all did nothing of course to combat the dreadful chills wracking his body as he continued onwards- Shivering for entirely non-temperature related reasons. He trudges over boulders and softened dirt, knowing in the pit of his stomach that he was now treading footsteps the same shape as his own- Footprints that he himself had made twice before, but feeling ages apart in terms of maturity. 

Following the path of a ghost- To the grave of a dragon.  

Funny, how quickly it all changes. 

“What the...” 

Theres a gap in the trees that momentarily blinds him to the scene unfolding before him- Stepping into a memory, he senses that something is terribly amiss here. 

Tripping over his own feet and sliding down the dip in the ground- He finds himself stumbling, but not for the reasons he assumed he would, especially as the sunspots faded from his eyes and left his vision clear. 

Once again, he finds himself frozen. 

Literally. He can’t move- For fear of dissipating this strange hallucination he must’ve found himself in. 

‘What...’  His initial dread is quickly replaced by utter bafflement. 

For the record, Hiccup had expected many things for when he finally found himself back in the presence of the dead Night Fury.  

He had predicted a great number of terrible things. He suspected a putrid and unbearable stench, or bone munching worms, or a bloody, torn apart corpse revealing peeled muscle and soulless glazed over dragon eyes. 

Well, to be fair, there WAS a stench, but it had only seemed to come from the still festering puddle of vomit that he had spewed the night before. 

And there certainly WAS blood, the left-over streaks painting the ground from when the creature had thrashed about, amidst its final dying spasms. 

And maybe perhaps there WERE worms squirming around nearby, considering that the whole place seemed to be thrumming with a strange overabundance of flowers and ground foliage. 

Why, even the old ropes of his bola-launcher where still there- Still bloodied and draped half hazard across the ground in shreds. Although, if he squinted, Hiccup would see that moss had already begun growing from within the weaving of the ropes, and the blood had long turned a rusty brown... 

True to his imaginings, the whole place still had all the signs that something terrible had occurred the night before, various footprints still painting the soft earth and even his small hunting knife was there- With him having left it there amidst his grief. Yes, it was clear that SOMETHING had happened there, in this small clearing in the woods... However… 

However... 

...There was just this ONE itty-bitty-dragon-sized thing missing. 

Yes, you heard that correctly the first time. 

For it was the most peculiar, baffling, mind boggling thing about the whole scene- The singular impossibility that Hiccup never would’ve expected as he had made his way through the forest to this very dreaded spot... Was the distinct lack of the dead dragon ANYWHERE. 

“What in the name of...” 

He cuts himself off in favor of staring open mouthed at the scene before him. For where the dragon had once lay belly up and pierced up against a split tree- Now seemed to be instead a lush bed of wildflowers, painting the silhouette of where the dragon had once lain. It was wildly overgrown too, with ivy crawling across the ground and weaving themselves intricately alongside the remnants of Hiccups moss-laden bola ropes. 

“…Odin..” Hiccup manages to squeak out, his lungs feeling awfully tight in the moment. 

And to make matters more confusing- it wasn't as if some sort of creature had carried the body off in the night or something. No no, whatever happened here had been far too CLEAN. For what once had been an irreversibly split in half tree- With it previously having been crushed to woody bits by the dragons' original impact- Now in its place stood a tall and aged Pine. Untouched and dappled with moss and tiny flowers, it was as if it had sewn itself together overnight, entirely whole. The scene was that of a spot the difference- The previously split apart tree, that had once skewered a dragon straight through the middle, had now healed entirely. 

 Heck, by some miracle, it even seemed healthier than most of the other trees in the forest! 

Nothing was adding up. 

Everything was there, the ropes from his bola, the small pool of vomit from Hiccups keeling over the night before- (Again, it was REALLY starting to smell too-) The streaks of blood swiping across the dirt ground from the dragons messed up tail... It was all there... And yet- 

YET- 

It was as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. 

It didn't make sense. 

It couldn't make sense. 

Poor Hiccup was rendered almost completely speechless, trembling fingers finally giving out as he drops the heavy axe with an unceremonious thud. He then forgoes his day pack to the softness of the earth, stumbling forwards as if yanked by a chain. Sheer incomprehension could be seen showing quite clearly in his features. 

This was simply impossible. 

“I must be going insane...” The statement was spoken in almost a hushed whisper, with Hiccup staring blankly where the dragon was SUPPOSED to be. He can't help but gesture downwards with his free hand, and his dominant hand finds itself weaving fingers through his hair strands, his confusion quickly fusing together with his already frayed frustration. 

Amidst his conflicting and confused thoughts- His mind wanders, if only for a moment. 

Flickers of wavy golden hair and glowing draconic green eyes flash across his memory- Just thinking about it makes the bump on his head tinge with a sharp flash of pain- Forcing him to shake away such vague thoughts. 

“Am I going crazy? I feel like I'm going crazy- None of this is making any sense... I... I couldn’t have imagined it all- Right? I-I mean- I was desperate but I'm not THAT desperate...” 

Having finally found his voice, it begins rising with hysteria, as the boy finds himself pacing across the forest ground, bypassing the tall grey stones and inadvertently getting closer to where the body had once lain. His initial anxiousness in approaching the spot had begun to fade or rather shift more into a desperate need to comprehend the sheer impossibility of it all.  

“Was it... Was last night- Did any of it happen???” 

He fears he may be going mad- After all, trees don't just right themselves overnight and corpses don't just... Walk away. Facing the scene before him, he can't help but doubt his own mind.  

“This doesn't make sense- It was just here!” 

Had a dragon really died here?  

Where those blazing green eyes that haunt his memory simply figments built off his own imaginings? 

Was all this grief unfounded? 

Yet again, his head and heart throb with another sharp burst of fire- And those confounding images of warm hands and blazing eyes flicker unbidden across his vision, all while he hisses in pain. 

He was tempted to think so. 

Perhaps he had imagined the whole scenario in his desperation to find the beast? Perhaps he never shot down a Night Fury, and somehow, he convinced himself otherwise? It was an entirely plausible explanation- no, no too real, too vivid, too horrifying- But the thought of accepting it as his reality left a horrible sickly feeling in his stomach.  

Voices echo in his mind, but he can't pinpoint what exactly the words mean. As if speaking in a foreign tongue, they roll almost melodically through his ears. He hears dragon wails in the distance too... It's so hard to focus... 

Then again, it was either that- Or something terribly strange was afoot here.  

Something...  

Possibly supernatural. 

Now, keep in mind that Hiccup was not a wholly religious guy- Sure, he prays on occasion and gives offerings to the gods on certain holidays- and he certainly BELIEVES there may be higher beings from up above- If only to laugh down upon him at his misfortunes- But until now, he’s never really had any sort of interaction with said things. (No matter what his younger selves had claimed, he had never actually seen a troll in all his hunting- However hard he tried.) You could consider him almost a skeptic... 

But... 

But, trees don't just- Stitch themselves back together overnight! Dragon corpses don't just vanish into nothing- And the blood does not lie either. 

“No.” A soft voice almost growls out- And, well, waddeya know? That was his voice, wasn’t it? 

He recalls the feeling of warm scales turning cold from beneath his fingers, the vibrations in its every rattling breath... A defiant look in its strangely emotional eyes... 

“No. No way.” 

He imagined nothing. He knows it- Deep down in his very being, perhaps even on his very soul-That his memories were real. Something had HAPPENED here... His memories were true... 

All of them. 

Warbling dragon cries echo in his ears and as if tugged by an invisible puppet string, Hiccup finds himself approaching the once felled tree, a peculiar feeling of morbid curiosity urging him forwards. He makes sure to take great care in stepping over the small wildflowers peppering the silhouette of where the Night Fury had once been- Call him paranoid, but something deep in his gut was telling him that stepping upon the flowering weeds would just be disrespectful. Who was he to argue with his gut?  

Even though it had always seemed to lead him wrong before…  

His fingers graze across the stitched together trees’ bark coated face. Tracing circles along the ridges of the great monster of an evergreen, he could practically feel the life of the pine humming beneath the pads of his fingers. For a few stolen moments, he simply stares at the tree, the paradoxical tree that- by all means- should NOT be in one piece. Not after being felled so incredibly violently… His green eyes flickering with a something akin to pondering- Hiccup suddenly is snapped from his innermost musing by a warm splatter of... SOMETHING, dribbling from above and landing in a few droplets onto his cheek. 

At first he assumes it’s leftover morning dew, or perhaps bird poop of some sort- Which would just be rubbing dirt on the wound, wouldn’t it? Har har har, the gods are hilarious, very funny- But when he places his fingers to wipe the substance away, he knows it’s too wet to be anything of the sort, and when he pulls is two digits away, they return to the front of his eyes dripping crimson. 

Crimson red. 

Blood red. 

He is not crazy. 

His eyes then cast upwards, the cogs within his mind working at hyper speed but not working hard enough to fully understand what he had truly walked into. 

Well- Maybe not THAT kind of crazy. 

Above him, he spots it about as easily as a fish saw a hook in the sea. A tree branch, high above and still very attached to its mother tree, dripping with a red substance he could only deduce as blood… Dragons blood, if his hypothesis was accurate.  

It was the very same gnarled shape that was still haunting the darkest annals of his mind- Still stained a visceral red hue as it slowly and sluggishly dribbled the stolen fluids from off the tips of its needles. Much like its reddened bark, the image of the seemingly innocuous branch was still stained deep in Hiccups memory. He recognized this one- For it was the very branch that had once pierced an entire dragon clean through the center. (The sort of image that never really leaves you...) Though, much like everything else broken within the confines of this small bouldered clearing, it had somehow yet miraculously sewn itself back together- Back in place as if nothing had happened at all. 

… Perhaps, he was simply just about as crazy as a boy returning to take care of a dead dragon. 

The blood does not lie… 

The blood does not lie, something happened here, and Hiccup was not crazy- Those are facts. 

But if that was the case, if something truly had occurred, then… 

Then… 

“Where is it now?” Excellent question Hiccup, that’s the millionth time you’ve asked that question in a span of 2 days, however, this time the context is a tad bit different. 

“I can’t believe this… How do you lose a dead dragon? It’s dead!?”  

Or is it?  

‘If the trees are healed and nothing ate it then…’ 

No. 

He stopped those particular thoughts before they could fester too much in his mind. 

Hiccup wouldn’t dare hope, after all. 

After a few moments of fuming over his crummy luck and overall lack of understanding concerning this whole crazy scenario- He leans back against the stupid-blasted-what’s-going-on tree and sank straight down into a sitting position. After a few moments of gazing upwards at that confounded-wretched-disgusting tree branch stained with red blood- The young teen takes to placing his face in his upturned hands. He grinds the heels of his palms into his eye sockets furiously and tries to take a few breaths in order to clear his mind… 

Which was still hard to do, considering just how confused and helpless feeling he was at the moment. 

“What’s going on… I don’t understand why this is happening to me… Why…” 

He lets out a frustrated yell and lifts his hands from his face in order to pound at the grass below him. (Like a petulant child, mind you-) 

“Why!!!” The trees only seem to rustle in response. 

He groans again and makes to stand once more- Only to find himself gazing downwards curiously to where his curled fist had landed in his little outburst. It was such a harmless little thing. 

For just below his clenched palms, lie a small, crumpled flower- A Snowdrop flower to be specific. He doesn’t really know why the existence of the simple flower gave him such a pause, there were so many flowers surrounding him after all, so there was no reason for THIS flower to gain much more than a mere glance... But upon noticing it, he just... Couldn’t get its image out of his mind.  

Oddly enough, he feels something tug in his chest- As if some sort of clenching fist had decided to reach into his insides and just ever so gently shake things a little bit. He doesn’t really know how to feel about the sensation actually- And with all the shock and hubbub of his bizarre situation, he actually really doesn’t pay it much mind… 

Hes too focused on that pretty little flower- Ruined and crumpled by his own hand. 

Just like every other thing in his life it seems... It's starting to feel like he just destroys everything he touches... 

He then sees another Snowdrop flower, not too far from the first and he feels the strange allure once again. It tugs him gently towards the delicate flower- And amidst that fuzzy feeling moment, who is he to oppose? Gently, he leans forward to lightly graze a hand over the soft petals of the small plant- Only to find his eyes drawn to yet another flower of the same sort… Then another… And then another… To which he notices yet another not so far away… 

With soft white petals drooping down like wings- The little flowers almost remind him of the itty-bitty fairies from his old storybooks... 

Odd, what a weird growth formation too, it almost seems like they were planted like this in purpose- 

Before he even realizes what he’s doing, the young teen realizes that he’s following a bizarre trail of flowers deeper into the forest- And it’s only when his head- (His goose-egg from before thrums with yet another bout of wailing pain-) rams straight into a nearby boulder, which snaps him back to his own senses.  

“Oghhh… Can’t get a break today… What the- Oh.” Briefly, Hiccup ponders the implications of squeezing between the two strangely set boulders lain before him, and whether or not he should cut his losses and back off while he still had half a mind to do so. Reflecting back, he was already acting pretty strangely. He DID just witness multiple things that made absolutely NO SENSE and then decided to follow a trail of flowers after having a big fat outburst while pondering his own sanity… 

He wasn’t sure.  

Funny. Hes been unsure of a LOT of things lately, hasn't he? 

Placing the flat of his hand up against the two mossy covered stones- Which sort of made some sort of natural entrance to somewhere- He couldn’t help but have the most peculiar of feelings. It was the oddest thing. It nagged at him from deep inside his very soul, and itched at him in a way he had yet to feel quite yet… 

“I must be going coming down with something or something…” Mutters the boy, who glances back behind his shoulder before giving in to that odd tugging feeling in his chest, and weaseling his way between the two slabs of stone, revealing more Snowdrops flowing down an olden path. Clearly an animal made walkway, though the dirt beneath his feet was barely disturbed. 

Doing all this, following the flowers and that odd feeling he had- It certainly wouldn’t be the strangest of things that came out of the day so far, that was for sure. 

And maybe he was just distracting himself from the more pressing question which was, well, ‘where had that dragon gone?’ Or ‘What sort of supernatural forces were at play here? With the tree and flower stuff?’ But this urge wasn’t something he could just… Shake away. He didn’t quite know how to explain it but… 

Well he simply… 

Hand to his chest, he briefly imagines something hot and burbling there. But that would be preposterous… 

He just... 

He just had a feeling. 

Hiccup gasps as he finally takes in the sort of place that he had now found himself stepping within. If he had thought the woods were oddly lively seeming, then THIS place was downright MAGICAL in comparison. A stunning sort of… Crater almost, a cove perhaps? Hidden away from the eyes of man, it was a place that Hiccup figured that if all else fails, would make for a MARVELOUS place to escape from the world. There was a decently sized pond as well as a sandy shore, and a few trees cropping around the water line.  

Sure, beats looking for the corpse of a dead dragon he supposed… 

Opting to continue following the lightly swaying trail of Snowdrop flowers- They had already taken him this far after all- Hiccup follows them deeper and deeper into the crater/cove, the still rust colored bloodstained boots of his trodding new paths upon the softened dirt. For a moment, the beauty of the place allows him to forget- Just for a moment- The terrible haunting memories of that dead Night Fury, and the reason he had come all this way into the forest in the first place… 

Right…  

Right… 

He shouldn’t be dawdling around, should he? No… No no, of course not. He should be out and looking for the dragons' body- Avenging it just as he promised… No matter how strange the circumstances have become… 

*Snap* 

With a gasp, Hiccup whips his head to the sound, and in his haste of doing so- He accidentally steps upon an especially wilted Snowdrop flower. It was the last of its trail- A strange coincidence, perhaps not.  

It could be said, that in a world like his, in a situation like his- There ARE no accidents… But Hiccup doesn’t notice what has occurred beneath his feet, as he continues to twist his head around rapidly, eyes scraping past rocks as he desperately tries to pinpoint where the cracking sound had come from. 

“Hello?” Hiccup calls out, a wee bit on edge as he shudders wildly to himself- And he couldn’t help that odd feeling in his chest from rising once again. It rises alongside his anxiety as he calls out once more, the cracks in his teenage voice rather apparent. 

“S-Show yourself!”  

*Crack- Snap* 

A strange-familiar-warbling noise could be heard from not so far away, the noise of a creature of some sort no doubt. 

‘Stupid stupid- Oh, why did I have to leave that Thor-forsaken axe behind-’  

Whatever sort of thing the culprit of the sounds was- Hiccup could still tell by the heaviness of its feet that it was large, and certainly not human. It is in these moments, that he oh so dearly wishes that he had some kind of weapon to his name- Not that he would be able to wield it properly of course, but it would be a comfort knowing he had SOMETHING to his name, nonetheless. Even so, a wave of despair drapes itself over him all at once, combining rather toxically with the ALREADY heavy weight of guilt that he had been carrying all morning and all night 

He could hear the jeering now. 

‘Poor defenseless Hiccup, killed by a wolf or a bear or a wild moose or something…’ The voice oddly sounds similar to his cousin SNOTLOUT. 

‘I heard he was looking for a dragon of some kind- What was it- A Night Fury?’ 

‘Really? What was he planning to do with it- Fight it?’ Sounds like one of the twins, he wasn’t sure which, to be honest he’s always sort of associated them both as just one being instead of two. Not that they made it easy to discern anyways. 

‘No, it was already dead apparently, but HICCUP wanted to give it a proper send-off instead of being a REAL VIKING about it.’ 

‘What a weirdo.’ 

‘Serves him right…’ 

‘Well, at least he’s not around to screw things up anymore!’ 

‘I’ll say…’ 

‘Three cheers for the wolf or bear or wild moose or something! Here here!’ 

‘Here here!!!’ 

Hiccup shakes his head and casts away the thoughts- Now was not the time to fall into a depressive spiral. He could do that later... Maybe. There was… Something there in the cove/crater with him- And he couldn’t see it. 

“Aghhh… Where are you...” He’s already spun in a circle at least 3 times, but alas his pitiful human eyes give way to no such looming beast. It’s only when he- On a whim mostly- Casts his eyes downwards to look for something as a defense- Does he find himself standing right in the paw-print of a medium sized creature… And it’s no wolf paw- The claw size and shape make this abundantly clear. 

 “...A dragon.” His voice rasps out breathlessly. 

Before he could fully comprehend what he was seeing, poor Hiccup lets out a sharp cry as something swoops from above him, having leaped off from a particularly large boulder nearby- Which he really should’ve checked honestly- Ducking down to protect his head and neck he covers both with his arms and clenches his eyes shut tight. He very nearly curls into the fetal position right then and there but only manages to bend his knees a bit. 

It's BEHIND him. 

His heart pounds in his chest so hard he fears it may burst right out of his chest. 

‘Oh gods oh gods oh no-’ 

For a few good moments he stands there, not bothering to open his eyes for fear of gazing into the maw of certain doom. All while, the strange feeling buzzing in his chest practically burns from within him, and he could sense whatever it was that had leaped down from its lookout above was now easing its way closer and closer to him.  

This feeling that strangles his lungs and yanks at his organs only twist his stomach in knots- He believes it to be a sign of his impending doom. 

A wave of hopelessness fills his heart, and after a few moments of the mystery dragon creeping closer, he reaches a decision. 

‘Ok.’ 

He allows his arms to drop completely to his sides, limper than ever, and turns around swiftly, tears beginning to burble in his still red tinged eyes. He tries to steady his breaths too, but it's as if he’s breathing out of a small pinhole. Hes never felt smaller. 

Ironic wasn’t it? He figured it was- He killed a dragon and now in turn- A dragon would kill him.  

Vaguely, he wondered what kind it was. A Monstrous Nightmare? A Gronkle? Or something he’d never seen before. He didn't really want to look, still too afraid to pry his eyes open. 

The worst part of all this was, that he was depressed enough at the moment to accept his ill-begotten fate wholeheartedly. He hadn’t really realized it before, but the death of that Night Fury had been affecting him even worse than he had been expecting. Which was odd, because Hiccup didn’t even really KNOW the dragon, or stole the killing blow himself. As a Viking, he had no reason to be going this far over a dragon he had inadvertently yet on-purpose killed. As a Hiccup however…  

...Besides, realistically, it wasn’t as if he could escape at this point- Being the way he was, he was in no position to run, strike, or in general… Survive the altercation. 

Any second now... 

He peels his eyes open, to gaze defiantly at the beast before him. 

“Just make it-” He freezes. 

The word ‘fast’ is left unsaid as any sort of speech he might’ve had, never even made it past his lips- What he was seeing in that moment being so incredibly striking- That he simply couldn’t look away. 

He doesn’t move. 

Now he really really can’t. Or at least he doesn’t dare to- not now- Not when that crawling feeling that had been curling its way up his spine FINALLY had an explanation. Finally, he had at least one question answered, out of the millions more that had now sprouted upwards from the depths of his mind. 

Perhaps for the second time that day, he was rendered completely and utterly confused. 

‘I don’t believe this…’ But he must. 

‘It can’t be.’ But it is. 

Because there, only a breath width away from his own face-  

Stared a pair of very alive and very familiar, stunning viridian green eyes, floating upon an ever-so-threatening backdrop of dark scaled draconic beauty. 

‘Oh dear.’ His mind supplies, face to face with a very incredibly alive Night Fury, of which had been haunting his very being up until this exact dreadful moment.

Audibly, Hiccup gulps quite loudly, his eyes never leaving the others. Both at a stalemate, as two souls stand to meet for the second time in a span of 48 hours. And in those slow passing seconds- All that matters are those blazing green eyes, wild and flickering with life, and a chest that rises and falls.

He can't help but stare. 

And the dragon stares back.

Oh dear indeed.