Chapter Text
Early morning
You wake before the sun could even rise, a trip to the fields, sheep and cow pastures, the village pantry, and lastly to the village dock. The sea was quiet, the ocean singing a melody that almost lulls you to sleep— almost.
Across the horizon there lies a boat— patched together from steel and wood. Holes mended by cold iron and sails stitched together by cloth scraps. The people aboard are rowdy and rambunctious. A successful catch in a long while, in front of the ship was a head peeking through the water, a large scaly marine creature breaks through the water’s surface, its head larger than any man.
The Scauldron eyes you off in the distance, its interest sparks and heads straight to your position. It chirps and coos as it sees dried fish and meat in your hands waiting for it. Treats, for its guidance to your fisherman. The dragon hulks the boat towards the shore so fast it makes a large wave hitting the vikings waiting at the further part of the dock.
Its head rises above the water like a serpent, your hands find the chains binding its neck to the boat, you pet its wet scales uttering praise for its hard work while feeding it its reward. The men in the boat carry the catch and distribute it to the rest of the people waiting. You release it from the metal caging its neck, the latch clicks and unclasps. The dragon now satisfied with food takes one last look at you and dives back into the water making a splash to the nearby viking.
You cover yourself with your cape, safe from the water assault. It knows where it's going, back to the cave until its help is needed again.
“Chief. The catch was successful. I shouldn't have doubted that darn dragon to help us. How about we use some whip—”
“No whips or weapons, the dragon knows what to do, unlike you it has a brain. And not stubborn to take orders.”
The viking took offense to your comment. He sneers and tuts his head. “Right the dragon can think.. “ he laughs like it was the dumbest joke he's ever heard. He catches himself before he could fall over the rails into the water below. “Chief, it was steering us into the wrong direction away from the marked on the map. We tried poking it with a stick but it blew water on us.”
“You go where the dragon goes and that is final. It follows my order and you shall follow the dragon even if it's through a bewilderbeasts nest just to fill the needy mouths of this village.”
You take a deep breath adjusting the hold on your record book glad that it wasn't ruined by the waves made by the water serpent. The parchment shows the quantity and quality of each batch… all 8 months of records in full detail. Your free hand reaches for the pen hidden under your boot. You lick the nib and start writing.
“Cod and haddock, enough to feed the village for a few weeks' take half of the hull and deliver it to Liv and the ladies; they'll have them dried preserved, divide the rest for each house in the village. You know the usual orders.”
The men from the boat nod and carry your order… Harold on the other hand, removed the fish and saltwater drenched armor and started barking orders to the rest of his men. This is done as your cue to leave and check the rest of the food supply.
With the book still in your hand comparing last week's catch and today's new route and area seems to be good fortune for fish.. Better to give more rewards to the Scauldron for its adequate cooperation. Busying yourself whittling through the parchment with other details,
Deep in the island’s dense forest, hidden within a narrow glade, lies the ravine. A massive crack in the earth that swallows the village whole. A lone viking climbs out of the fissure, nodding to you as he adjusts the heavy coils of rope over his shoulders
You pause at the edge and look down at the familiar wooden bridges and platforms clinging to the ravine walls like scars. Cold damp air rises from the mouth of the chasm carrying the scent of moss smoke and dragon hide. You begin to descent down the aged wooden stairs carved into the rock
The path winds steeply along the ravine wall, the village slowly revealing itself below, tucked away, protected and almost invisible from above, you reach the midpoint where the town gathers most and head straight for the town pantry, pushing open the door to find Liv already hard at work cleaning the for the preservation process. Good timing
The rest of the women greet you as they cheer for the large hull. For weeks, they say they’ve been praying to the gods for blessings. Joyful that it worked. You enter the inventory room and take another book from a shelf, counting the amount of jars accurate to the record. None seem to be a failed reserve and the stocks have depleted but high enough to last the rest of the week.
“Oh chief it's fine, I always update the records like yer orders.” Liv assures you as she leans by the door. “I swear you have this habit of triple checking. Even before your father’s —” she catches herself from her train of thought.
Right— this habit. Always having the need to have complete certainty and accuracy of records. During sieges, this was important to you, keeping track of an opposing village’s strengths and weaknesses, their numbers, artillery, size, location, equipment, etc. No one bothers with the specifics when it comes to attacking; it's all brute force and large numbers that win the battle.
To you it's not. The amount of fleets and artillery are not enough to guarantee a successful takeover. This exact mindset is what made you win your fathers trust in commanding his people. He had you make plans and records— so much damn records.. But it was all worth it. Hundreds if not thousands of victories under your pen with each carefully commanded plan.
You were his daughter, his strategist. And these papers made him Drago the conqueror.
Liv shakes you from the memory as she places her hand on your shoulder. “Sorry, luv,” she says quietly, her voice low. “Didn’t mean to bring him up.”
Liv was a stable anchor in your life. She was like the mother you never had. Her hair littered with white hair, the wrinkles newly forming on her fair skin etched with battle worn scars. Her green eyes shine against the gloomy shadows of the pantry. She pulls you toward the kitchen.
“You've been working yourself tirelessly again.” she sighs again.
“I am the chief, it's what I must do” The village’s survival is up to my command. If I don't; then how will we survive the next season?
“I know sweetheart. But we are your anointed council, we know our part, you don't have to always check up on us. You're young. Don't waste yer days checking every catch and record..” She eases you as she tries to pry the book in your hand. The record doesn't falter in your grip. The smile on her face wears thin before she has to forcibly yank the records from you and place it on the shelf where it was before.“Old habits catchin up on ye.”
The village council responsible for each sector responsible for the survival of the village
Construction, fishery, agriculture, forgery or masonry, animal livestock dragon keeping (you), there are exactly 52 villagers in this large island and only a handful of children, the entire population was middle aged adults and the rest were around your age. Above it all was the chief who is responsible for keeping the village intact and alive.
304 days after your father’s death, it's almost a year by now.
Before Drago, there was no such thing as a village. Everyone on this island was part of an army — banded together to hunt dragons and destroy any village that opposed their beliefs. It was the people’s choice to make you the new chief of this broken army. The idea to start over had been yours. Was it trust… or power? You often asked yourself that. Or were they simply desperate for survival and leaning on you too much?
“I need to go Liv,”
“Duties or rest?” she presses on the word rest like she knew you'd start making another round of checking the village, tiring yourself to no end.
“... I'll rest.” the old viking smiles, accepting the admission.
Staring at the worn wood flooring, you exit the hut and begin your descent further down the ravine. The village sits at the midpoint of the great fissure, but you continue deeper, where sunlight barely reaches. Half a kilometer down, far from the noise and the responsibilities of chief, lies your isolated home — tucked at the nadir of the cavern walls
The ravine is massive, almost cavernous in scale. From this depth you can still see the wooden bridges and platforms above, and the distant shapes of vikings moving about their day.
The large wooden doors creak open as you push them. The room is fairly large, its walls covered in bookshelves and papers tacked one after another. The table is littered with pens and splattered inkwells. One massive wall is dedicated to a detailed map of the entire island and its surrounding neighbors, every rock and inlet named with intent. No detail was too small to record.
Some of the villagers even assume you've lost your mind at the amount of papers littering the entrance.. Your boot sweeps across the scattered papers on the floor. Picking up a loose paper drawn with checkboxes of yesterday’s errands all marked done and abandoned. You tuck the paper in your record book.
You head to the basement, the door hinges as you push it, loud blunt steps descend the stairs, torch after torch pass you reach the bottom floor greeted with a large navy blue-grey dragon, its eyes covered with a metal visor. A whispering death, a titanwing. you've kept a close eye on its growth ever since you had it under your control. Forcing nature into your own hands making him the apex of his species.
The basement was largely built to accompany the whispering deaths sheer size the walls padded with iron from the discarded metals. Across from it was a large trapdoor leading to the ocean serving as an escape exit just in case. Crates of weapons and scrolls littered by the bottom of the stairs.
Hearing your boots, the animal shakes its head and raises towards you. Woken from its slumber. You tentatively approach, your hands find its snout stroking the scales, gauging its temperament. It never changes, always cool and never easily startled. Years of desensitizing it made it grow accustomed to you.
Your arm reaches for the supply of food hung at a high beam; it opens its mouth. You take a piece and you throw it to its gaping open mouth, swallowing the preserved fish without complaint and garbling an appreciative howl.
You partially move the metal visor on its head revealing the barren right eye. Your other hand briskly raises to your face, to your milky white left socket, The memory of it still fresh in the back of your head—
You were young, caught between your childhood and proving your worth to your father. He stood across from you watching behind cold iron bars curious onlookers gathered behind him. It was the year young vikings were expected to prove themselves by killing a dragon.
you fought for your life in a cage with a mother dragon and her young , a bloodied knife in your hand
The mother dragon laid to rest on the cold iron-padded floor unmoving warm body.
You remember the scent of dragon blood, the sticky viscous liquid. coating your skin like molasses as you slam the knife in your hands to its eyes, nostrils and the weak scales under its jaws, all while dodging its gaping serrated rotating teeth. The youngling screams and thrashes wildly, its spikes littering its body run through you. One lands, tearing through your left eye piercing through the sockets.
You scream until your lungs give out. The spike let out a loud squelch . Fluid gushes through the socket, your body convulses twitching at the pain. You search through the bars of the cage, your eyes blurry from the sweat and tears trying to find your father.
Your eyeball can't move so you crane your neck to look at the bystanders.
‘PLEASE GET ME OUT. I did it. I– killed it. like you wanted me to! PLEASE LET ME OUT!’ your mouth doesn't move nor does it make a sound of plea. you can't cry, he's watching. Drago stands at the other side of the bars, his eyes unmoving, his mouth disapproving.
‘Weak’ your ears drown with blinding noises of the dragon muddled by the screams of the other vikings outside the cage—they think you're gonna die.
“Save your daughter drago! She's gonna bleed out!!” a man tried to reason with him. Sirvurd a patient kind soul, you wonder how he roped his way into the cold control of your father. But you know drago, he wouldn't let you out just like that. You have to finish it.
‘Help.. me’. You whined, stuck in a fetal position shielding yourself.
The man was restrained by other men. Drago doesn't flinch. He doesn't move, just looks at you like you know what to do.
‘A viking doesn't ask for help.’ you hear it in the back of your head. An echo of his voice.
Your hand clutches the side of your head cradling the injury, the knife still in your hand. The knife felt heavy, the dragon you swore was laughing at your demise as you choke on spit mixed with blood. Your hand couldn't grip the handle, the blade slipped through your hand. Your chest aches, your heart rattling through your ribs.
Adrenaline pumps through your veins, pulling the shrapnel of dragon spike from your eye, you scream at the hollow feeling inside of your face, blood sputters, fresh liquid oozing down your rosy cheeks.
You hear gasps among the crowd. Then you jump, your gait wide and uneven, you run past the mother”s corpse and dove to the youngling.
You scream hard, your vocal cords frying as you jam the spike to its right eye. The dragon whips its entire body in the cage causing more spikes to explode around it, some even flying through the gaps of the cage flying through the crowd.
“YOU’RE GOING DOWN WITH ME!!”
your throat is raw. Finally pulling the sharp spike from its eyes.. Viscous crimson pooled on the floor. Was it human or dragon? Maybe a mix of both you don't care. The dragon was still too weak to fight.. And so were you..
Your knees buckled. You collapse with it. The last thing you saw was your victim and assailant.
— (A/N: flashback done idk there's gonna be a lot more.)
“...” The whispering death nuzzles its head into your hands as the last of the fish are gone by the instant. you wonder if it hates you for what you did. This dragon should hate you, yet it stays even after all the damage you’ve caused.
Your memories drift back to the aftermath of the war… or what’s left of it. By the time you arrived the battle was already over. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, son of Stoick the Vast, had won. The Alpha was nowhere to be found, and the rest of the dragons had broken free from its control.
How could one Viking defeat your father?
But he wasn't alone; he had his so-called friends by his side, his family, his village, his dragons— he had everything. And somehow,that had been enough.
Drago survived more battles fiercer than this. You thought he would stay strong, he endures… he never loses, so why now?
Your hands grip the spikes of the whispering death as it flew above the wreckage on the water staring at the people who you've known and fought with… in the distance, you spot what remained of your father.
You drag his body towards a distant shore, while the berkian celebrates their victory and flees the scene. Survivors flock, as you stood over the corpse of a man you had dedicated your life to. The Dragons you commanded through sheer will and absolute control, ones your father let you experiment with followed, they breath through their nose opening their mouths as gasses collect and spark in their throat.
Your shoulders sag heavy with armor and grief, as you look down at the cold armored form. You spoke the prayer softly before the echoes grew deeper resonating in the cold air.
May the storm claim you, and the thunder carve your name into the sky.
May the earth remember the weight of your conquest, and the seas carry whispers of your wrath.
A shaky grimed hand covers his eyes, blankly staring at the heavens as figments of valkyries take his soul. One of the other vikings hand you the fallen mast of the ships you use it to cover his cold cadaver.
Let the beasts you broke and the kingdoms you shattered bear witness, so none forget what walked this world.
The dragons unleashed their fire. The smell of burning flesh wafting in the cold air, some vikings looked away, not daring to look at the gruesome sight, but you don't blink— you're not supposed to.
May your name be spoken not in comfort, but in warning—
rising from ash and blood, carried on wind and fire.
For a force has fallen: not gentle, not kind, but unyielding.
A warlord.
A conqueror.
A man who bent the world… or tried to.
Your voice echoed through the cold mist.
Covered in ash, what remained was his weapon, his arm and his cape. You order a viking to take his metal and hide it somewhere you wouldn't be able to see it. You grab his cape and hang it around you, then his bullhook securing it to your back. The weight of it felt heavier without him.
— why do I make so much exposition on the single chapter??
Stuck with a decision to rot or move forward. You chose the latter. The rest of them fled as they heard the news that ‘Drago, the Conqueror’ was no more but a mere memory. The vikings dwindled and led them to their own ways.. With his weapon in hand you carry his memory.
Climbing on your dragon's back, the beast whips its body through the air, past the seas and islands, the whispering death lashing its tail hard— snapping through the air. A large camp was in the distance you pause midair, it felt surreal. clarity and the ache shaking your bones kept you from disassociating. Your dragon flies forward into the camp.
People still moving, hulling artillery and ammunition continuing as if the war was still on. Unaware of the news. They see you, all their attention to their former leader’s right hand viking. You float amongst them, never on their level. Some stare at you from below on the campground, while others observe you from the high towers they guarded with their life.
“Drago is no longer with us. Hiccup has defeated him in battle, his corpse burnt and gone. you are all free to go— do what you want with your life.”
You hear some of them gasps not believing the news while some cheered for your fathers death. The world felt like a blur. Your sight focuses on your hands stained with his burnt ashes.
-
‘Now what?
What's left of you?
Drago is gone…
Should I get revenge?
…Yes
A beat. The answer comes too fast, too certain.
For killing your father. Yes— You should!’
You'll gather your people. You’ll plan. You’ll avenge drago.
Claim your legacy
strike him with his nightfury,
…
but—
But what?
What if he kills me first?
Would you lose?
The thought crosses your mind. The cape felt cooler around you.
Your father's dead; killed by hiccup— the new dragon conqueror.
No. You wouldn't, you're my daughter.
Drago was bested by hiccup and his friends. You'll stand no chance against him…
-
Your father's corpse flickers in your head. blank eyes staring at the sky. The voices of his former army ring out through your ears like blaring tinnitus
“He rests in Valhalla.” your eyes sting but no tear was shed.
the winged-serpent descends silently beneath you, flying lower. It offers no comfort, it never could. it only yelps in response. People left and right walked carrying their possessions as others prepared the rest of the remaining ships. you stand on the rotten wood flooring staring at your reflection in a fallen blade.
—
A hand rests on the dragon’s scales, the whispering death shakes its body settling into its cold cage.. One last pet before you bid it goodnight.
Time has been unreliable for you, rest comes and goes. you climb back up your hut, collapsing onto the bed staring at the wooden ceiling trailing to the papers tacked to your wall.
Organized records about the village and its resources. the current conditions of your people, the dragons under your care, the need for construction in parts of the village. all of which revolved around the careful system you've built.
But no plan to kill the man responsible for your despair.
Seasons have passed and you never did. No plan was made. No ship had sailed with weapons in crates nor vikings dared through the waters for another bloodshed. You never left the camp, and neither did many others. At some point, the camp had simply turned into a village descending from the open plain to the deeper parts of the ravine. A council was formed for order, and they named you chief— daughter of drago.
The title sat heavy as the helm that rests on your head.
Responsibilities keep you occupied in the village, managing the clan and the council to utmost efficiency. People were fed, work was done, a fragile new purpose was given. These small tasks consume your day till it is all you could do.
For once your eyelids grew heavy. the tireless nights of working catching up on you. The world turns dark and you slip into unconsciousness.