Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

What remained of Hiccup's left foot was a lost cause.

His ankle and about half of his lower leg weren't much better.

Gothi saved as much of the leg as she could, but...

It was a blessing and a curse that he slept through it. It spared him the pain, but it also made it so they couldn't question him on how he'd gotten hurt.

What was Hiccup -- who could barely lift an axe or hammer, let alone wield one -- doing out in the middle of the night wearing armor? And without even a dagger? Considering his injuries and the battleground Astrid and Snotlout had found him at the center of, he’d managed to tick off at least two rogue dragons, probably more. How, though?

As soon as Gothi said there was nothing more to do than wait for Hiccup to wake, Stoick began an investigation. He tried to track where Hiccup and the dragons had come from with help from a few of the hunters, Astrid, the Ingerman boy, and Hoark the Haggard, but they couldn't find a trail to follow. Even the tracks from the nadder's escape only went a short way before it must have taken to the air. After dismissing the hunters, his group tried to check his room for clues, but there was nothing there.

Almost literally.

The trunk at the foot of his bed only held clothes, a spare blanket, and a few old journals filled with his failed designs from back when he was still trying to hunt dragons. His desk had a candle and some drawing supplies on it, but no paper or newer journals. The only other things in the room were the ink drawings, sketches, and shield paintings of dragons that hung on all the walls. There weren't even any tools or metal scraps anywhere, though Stoick remembered tripping over things like that many times over the years.

The investigators' next stop was the forge, but that was a dead end as well. His storage space only held a small amount of the same drawing supplies as his room along with a few pinned-up drawings of engravings Hiccup had been commissioned to do on weapons. Gobber had been surprised to see how empty it was since he said Hiccup used to keep a lot more drawing supplies in there and had covered the wall over his desk with his designs. Although, he also said he hadn't been in the room since Hiccup's decision to stop experimenting over a year earlier.

It seemed Hiccup really had stuck to his decision when it came to fighting dragons, though that made the attack all the more confusing since (though he hadn't brought it up to the others) Stoick had wondered if he'd gotten caught while trying to prove himself once more.

Unfortunately, there was little else they could do to search for answers. Hiccup didn't have friends to ask and the only place he frequented when not home was the forge. Even the Great Hall barely saw him, and usually only during festivals or when other tribes came to visit since Hiccup took his meals while working or at home as far as anyone could tell.

Astrid had tried to say it was weird that Hiccup was so... hidden, but Stoick had waved her off. His son had always been quiet and distant. Only his hiccups had kept him in the eyes of the village, and those had stopped alongside his attempts to fight dragons. She hadn't looked entirely convinced, but she'd dropped it when he'd called off the investigation.

There were no clues, so the only thing they could do was wait until Hiccup woke up to ask him.

Instead, Stoick focused his attention on Hiccup. At least, as much of it as he could spare. He still had an entire island to watch over and his duties as chief, but he made sure to visit Hiccup at least once a day while he was with Gothi. Once she allowed him to be brought home, Stoick spent a little time at his bedside each night he was on the island. He also assigned a rotation of guards to stay with Hiccup when he wasn't home, just in case. The rotation included warriors who were both trusted and proven, like Astrid.

He knew they were annoyed with the job, but he'd been very careful about who watched over Hiccup.

Despite what some people thought, he was well aware of the whispers that had only been gaining strength as years passed regarding Hiccup's position as heir. He didn't think anyone would let Hiccup get hurt on purpose just to push Stoick to pick a new heir, but he wasn't going to risk it either by assigning someone like his brother-in-law or nephew to his watch.

He also couldn't bring himself to choose a weaker warrior whose time could more easily be spared. Every time he considered it, he remembered his sweet Valka. They had left Hiccup alone for one night and...

If she had been just a little slower to reach him, Stoick wouldn't have his son.

If she had been more prepared to kill a dragon, Stoick might still have his wife.

“I know something's going on with you and I'm going to figure out what,” Astrid muttered to the unconscious boy she was sitting next to. She shot him a glare before refocusing on her axe. She ran the whetstone down the blade one last time, then set the weapon aside to pull out her dagger and start on it.

There wasn't much else she could do from within the chief's house but weapon maintenance and housekeeping.

She still didn't like being trapped next to Hiccup, but she understood why Stoick was worried. While attacks from other Vikings were rare considering they weren't currently fighting with anyone (aside from the usual disagreements), they were still possible. The reports they'd received about increased Outcast sightings a few days earlier only reinforced that. Then there were the dragons. There hadn't been a raid since a little over a week before Hiccup was attacked, but it seemed the amount of rogues spotted had increased dramatically in response. A few had even been spotted in the skies above Berk. Stoick had returned from the Thing two weeks earlier with news that the other tribes had also noticed a sudden drop in raids and increasing rogue sightings. Thankfully, aside from Hiccup's dragons, none had been seen approaching Berk's village. Other tribes weren't as lucky from the sound of it.

All that said, the one good thing Astrid had found about Hiccup’s watch duty was the amount of free time she had to think about what the runt had been getting up to. She didn't like how Hiccup had gone from constantly being a nuisance to barely even existing in the village. No one just goes as quiet as he did. Especially him.

She'd continued the investigation behind the chief's back after he called an end to it, but even a month later she hadn't turned anything up.

She'd tried looking around the forest since she occasionally spotted him wandering around while practicing with her axe. Unfortunately, all that came of that was finding a pit crater near Raven's point that was just large enough for a small pond and a few trees. She'd thought that it might have been Hiccup's hiding spot, but all she'd found inside were a few cracked and faded dragon scales scattered around as well as an old, weathered shield half-blocking the easiest path to the bottom. If Hiccup had once used the crater, he hadn't been back in some time.

She'd also looked around Hiccup's room while trapped with him. She did manage to find two hidden spots carved into the beams of wood making up the floor and ceiling and tucked behind small doors under his bed and in the rafters, but she couldn't tell if anything was in them. The compartments were long and thin so she couldn't feel the ends when she reached in. Really, they looked more like animal burrows with doors than typical hidey holes anyways.

She even swore she heard something moving in one once, but nothing had been there when she checked and there were no other signs a pest had made it into the house. She'd wondered if maybe Hiccup had a pet, but there were no other signs of an animal in the house.

Frustrated, she slammed the blade of her dagger into his nightstand with a growl.

Hiccup twitched.

She stared at him, wondering if this was just another sign that he'd be waking soon or if...

A beat passed and she started to relax.

He twitched again, then his head rolled to the side and he growled something she couldn't make out.

She was immediately on her feet and at his side. She grabbed his shoulder and he tried to swat it away, huffing and whistling strangely. Ignoring that, she shook him gently. “Hiccup, wake up.”

He froze, then his eyes slowly pealed open. "Astrid? You... You're in my house. Why are you in my house? Uh... Does my dad know you're in here?”

“Considering he's the one that assigned me to you, then I would hope so.”

“Assigned?” He slowly sat up, his hand coming to his head as he looked around. “Since when do I need a bodyguard?”

“Since you got attacked by a dragon and didn't wake for over a month.”

“Attacked by a dragon,” he said slowly as if he didn't believe her. He shifted like he was going to stand up, then froze. Before she could stop him, he pulled back the blanket.

“It tore off a good chunk,” she said as he stared down at his leg. “Burned the rest. Gothi said you got lucky the burns cauterized it or else you would have bled out before you reached her. Even then, she had to cut off more to prevent an infection. Do you remember what happened?”

Hiccup stared down at it for a little longer, then shook his head. “No. Where did you find me?”

She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “On the main island, just over Farmer's Bridge.”

There was a pause, then he nodded. “Makes sense. Last thing I remember I was going out to draw. I must have bumped into a dragon on the way back.”

“We found you in the middle of the night.”

He met her gaze, eyes hard and blank. “Guess I must have dozed off out there.”

“Sure.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Shouldn't you be telling someone I'm awake?”

“Right,” she said through her teeth. She grabbed her weapons and headed for the stairs. She paused at the door to give him a look. “Stay there.”

“It’s not like I have a choice,” he snorted and pulled the blanket back over his lap.

She rolled her eyes and left, ignoring the sharp whistles that sounded behind her.

“How are you feeling?” Stoick asked after Gothi had finished examining Hiccup and left. He looked over his son, who was lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

“Oh, I'm perfect. Didn't need that leg anyways.”

“Hiccup.” He ran a hand down his face. “Astrid said you think you accidentally fell asleep in the forest when you were out drawing and got attacked while trying to walk back in the dark.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Don't actually remember.”

Astrid had said that too, but she hadn't seemed convinced. “And you're sure you were just out there to draw?”

“What else would I be doing?”

“If you're reconsidering your decision not to fight dragons, then ...”

“I'm not.” Hiccup put his arm over his eyes. “I wasn't out there fighting dragons. I was just sketching some flowers for Brunhilde’s new hammer.”

“And these?” Stoick gestured to the dragon artwork around the room.

Hiccup looked for a second before replacing his arm. “I need to do something during the raids.”

“The armor we found you in?”

Stoick thought he might have tensed, but he was relaxed again too fast to be sure. “It was just a precaution. Trust me, I don't plan on killing any dragons anytime soon. This,” he gestured to his missing leg, “was a one-time thing.”

“Good,” Stoick said after watching him for a moment.

“Yep. So, how long until I get a peg leg and everything can go back to normal?”

“Starkard is working on one, but... things aren't going to go back to normal. There's going to be some changes.”

Hiccup frowned and looked up at him. “Changes?”

“For one, no more wandering off onto the main island unsupervised.”

Hiccup jerked up. “What?”

“You can't be going out there alone anymore. It’s too dangerous.”

“I told you it was a one-time -”

“The rogue dragons are too unpredictable and there’s only been more sightings since your attack.”

“Has anyone else been hurt?”

“No, but -”

“And is everyone banned from leaving the village alone?”

“Hiccup,” Stoick warned, stepping closer to the bed and meeting Hiccup’s glare with his own.

“I don’t need a babysitter!”

“You cannot defend yourself from a dragon,” he reminded Hiccup, trying to keep his voice gentle despite his frustration. “If one attacks you again, someone needs to be there to protect you.”

”I can take care of myself!”

“No, you can’t!” he snapped before lowering his voice again. Arguing with Hiccup had never worked. He needed to be firm, like he had been that day he’d finally convinced Hiccup to stay inside during raids. “Which is another thing we need to talk about. Dragon training -”

“No!” Hiccup snarled and Stoick was briefly thrown off balance.

Between the rasp in his voice and the way his lips pulled back like he was baring his teeth, Stoick felt like he was facing off against a fearsome dragon instead of his tiny son. The strange feeling passed in less than a second, but it still made his heartbeat jump a little.

He quickly shook it off and continued, “It's not a dragon training year, but I still want you to take a few classes with Gobber or Hoark.”

“I thought the whole point was to keep me away from dragons,” Hiccup said before adding under his breath, “not that you have any dragons to train on.”

He was right, unfortunately. Stoick was hesitant to use the cages in the training arena until someone figured out how their training stock had escaped the year before so they hadn't spared any dragons since. Not that they would have had captured dragons to spare anyways. Every time they managed to bring down a dragon with bolas or nets, either that damned night fury would blast the ropes away or (more often) another dragon or two would swoop down to steal their catch in a rare showing of the beasts working together.

Clenching his fists, he shoved that frustration aside in favor of the one in front of him. “You won’t be learning how to fight a dragon. You just need to know what to expect when a dragon attacks and how to get away while someone else fights it.”

“Then I’ll read through the Book of Dragons again. I don’t need training and I definitely don’t need a babysitter. Just give me a prosthetic so you can go back to pretending I don’t exist.”

Stoick’s shoulders fell. He didn’t… pretend Hiccup didn’t exist. He was just busy. And his son was always running off to do who knows what. There wasn’t really a good time for them to just be together, especially since Hiccup didn’t eat with everyone else. Even if there was a good time, they didn’t have anything in common. Hiccup couldn’t fight, whether it be against dragons or humans. He always got distracted while hunting and they didn’t have anything to talk about while fishing anymore as Hiccup had heard all his stories plenty of times. He was quite good with the nonviolent parts of being chief, but he’d breezed through those lessons long ago and wasn’t yet old enough to start taking an active part.

He loved Hiccup, but he was just so different. Stoick never knew what to do with him.

He just knew he needed to keep him safe.

“This isn’t up for discussion.”

“You can’t -”

“I can. It’s already been decided.” When Hiccup opened his mouth to continue arguing, he added, “Unless you can give me a good reason for not needing training or a guard?”

“It’s a waste of time. For me and for whoever has to watch me.”

“Your safety is not a waste of time!”

Hiccup laid back down. “I. Am. Fine.”

“Enough. Continue arguing and I’ll make the guard a constant thing instead.”

His only response was to put his arm back over his face.

Stoick nodded and turned to leave.

“I’m not going to let someone follow me around everywhere.”

The words barely reached Stoick as he shut the door and he sighed. “It’s not like you’ll have a choice.”

“Hey, Dad.”

Stoick froze in the doorway to his house, surprise quickly fading to anger as he stared at his son. “Hiccup! Where have you been!?”

“I needed some air,” he said, not looking away from the chicken he was roasting. “I left a note.”

“I searched the entire village! It's been hours!”

“The air's a lot nicer in the woods.”

“I told you yesterday -”

“And I disagreed.”

“Hiccup!”

“Dad.”

“Go to your room. I'll bring up dinner when its ready.”

“Fine.”

Stoick watched Hiccup carefully maneuver his crutches to climb up the stairs without offering to help. If he could stumble across the rough forest floor with crutches, he could climb the stairs. “And Hiccup, a guard will be over in the morning to watch you. Full time.”

Hiccup growled something that didn't actually sound like words.

“That boy!”

Astrid turned to see a furious Phlegma the Fierce stomping down the road. “Let me guess, Hiccup?”

“I'm telling Starkard to work on something else for awhile. That boy causes enough trouble with just the one leg.”

“Try the forge. That's where Ack found him when he escaped earlier.”

“Thanks.”

“I still don't understand how he found his crutches and got them back without me noticing,” Astrid huffed, glaring into the fire the teens were sitting around.

“Guess he's just really sneaky,” Tuffnutt said.

“Or someone's helping him,” Ruffnutt added.

“Who would help Useless?” Snotlout chuckled. “I don't know why the chief doesn't just let him loose? If he wants to get himself killed, then let him.”

A part of Astrid wanted to agree, the other part wanted another shot at watching Hiccup so she could figure out how he kept getting away.

“Don't let the chief hear you say that,” Fishlegs said, looking around nervously like he expected Stoick to step out from behind a tree at any second.

“I'm right and everyone knows it,” Snotlout said, though his voice was noticeably quieter this time.

Chapter Text

“You!” Astrid snarled as she stomped into the forge.

“Me,” Hiccup snarled back jokingly, not turning to her.

“This is the fifth time!”

“Ninth, actually, but the sixth time I've been caught. Congrats, considering you're not even supposed to be watching me. How'd you know I wasn't just Gobber?”

“He went to bed two hours ago after drinking Spitelout under the table. How did you get out of your house?”

Hiccup shrugged and leaned down so she couldn't see him over the table he'd been working at. “I walked out. Dad's a heavy sleeper as long as a horn isn't being blown.”

“I'm going to throw your crutches into a fire.”

“Go ahead.” He straightened, then stood up.

Wide-eyed, she watched as he took a few shaky steps with one hand on the table before more confidently walking around the table.

“What is that?” she asked, staring at the metal contraption acting as a prosthetic. It shifted slightly with his weight as he walked, making his stride look a little more natural than she was used to seeing from the typical peg leg.

“My new foot. Starkard was taking a little too long for my taste.”

So Phlegma had convinced her brother not to finish his leg then. “You built that?”

“Yep. It wasn't hard to modify another design of mine a little to make it work for me.”

“I thought you weren't creating stuff anymore,” she said with a frown as she remembered all the trouble his creations had caused.

Hiccup shrugged and put out the candles he'd been using.

She continued to question him as she escorted him home, but he ignored her until they reached the door. Then he'd thanked her with a too-wide grin and shut the door in her face.

“Why are you even up this late?” Astrid huffed as she sat down next to Hiccup. “You’re never stuck with night watch.”

“Yup, one of the benefits of being labeled Useless: no one trusts you to do anything,” he joked, most of his focus on whatever he was doing to his leg. “And I usually stay up pretty late and nap during the day.”

She watched him replace the spring with another that didn't look all that different to her, but she assumed was different enough for the swap. “You didn’t just fall asleep out there. You were just coming back at your usual time when you got attacked.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You realize how dangerous that is, right?”

“So my dad keeps saying. And yet this is the first time in over a year that I’ve ever had a problem.”

“The amount of rogues flying around is getting worse.”

“So my dad keeps saying.” He sighed and put his tools away.

She tried to help him put his leg back on, but he twisted away to do it himself. “Why are you so against letting us help you? The chief just wants to keep you safe.”

“I don’t need him to keep me safe, and don’t act like any of you actually care. You’re just doing what my dad tells you to do.”

Guilt made a nest in her stomach as Snotlout’s words from a few nights earlier echoed in her ears. She tried to shove it down as she said, “I’m not here for that. If I was just following the chief’s orders, I’d have dragged you back home already. Besides, tonight is my night off.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

She leaned towards him and poked his chest. “I want to know what's going on. You're acting weird. Well, weirder than how you normally act.”

“And since when do you know how I normally act,” he scoffed, pushing away from her to put his tools away and start putting out the candles. “When was the last time you even looked at me for longer than it takes to drop your weapons off?”

“Exactly! You went from being as big a nuisance as the twins, if not worse, to barely even existing! And no one even noticed until now! That’s not normal!”

“Do you want me to go back to almost blowing up the village every other week?” His voice didn't quite have the joking air to it his words were implying.

“I want to know what you’re hiding!”

His eyes met hers over the last candle, the green warm in the light despite how cold and sharp his gaze was. “I’m not hiding anything. I just want to be left alone.”

There wasn’t a hint of a lie in his voice, and yet, “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want.” He blew out the candle.

“Why am I out here again?” Snotlout shouted through the trees.

“Hiccup’s missing. And he’s not just at the forge this time,” Astrid yelled back.

“Wait, we’re looking for him? Why should I care that he snuck off again?”

“Because if you don’t help me figure out where he’s hiding, then I’m telling Stoick about how you dropped an entire basket of fish off the docks last week while trying to show off.”

“Hiccup! Hiccup! Here boy!” he immediately started calling and she rolled her eyes.

She’d hoped that bringing the others to cover more ground would help her find the place Hiccup hid while out in the forest, but all the noise they were making would probably send him running long before they found him.

A scream sounded to her right and she sighed before heading towards Fishlegs. “You alright?”

“F-fine,” he said, poking his head out of the bush he was hiding in as the others joined her.

“What happened?”

“Did your shadow scare you aga-” Snotlout cut off with a yelp as he fell on his face.

“Oops!” Ruffnut chuckled.

“What happened?” Astrid repeated, helping Fishlegs out of the bush.

“I don't know! I was just walking along, taking notes on the flora and fauna... typical guy stuff. And something weird jumped out of the bushes. It was like a... flaming squirrel.”

The four stared at him.

“Or a chipmunk. Or some other flammable rodent,” he muttered, embarrassment making him curl into himself.

“Cool!” The twins knocked their heads together and started looking around.

“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Astrid asked.

“Yeah, whoever heard of a -”

A chittering fireball shot past Snotlout.

“FLAMING SQUIRREL!”

The five chased after it and cornered it under a pile of rocks.

”Doesn't look like a flaming squirrel to me,” Tuffnut said, cocking his head.

“It’s just a dragon,” Ruffnut agreed and the two wandered off with a groaned, “Lame!”

“I've never seen anything like it,” Fishlegs said as he and Astrid leaned down to get a better look.

The bright orange dragon was about the same size as a terror, but was shaped more like a cross between a nightmare and a timberjack with the addition of needle-like teeth and crescent-shaped horns. It hissed and chittered at them as it pressed further into the small cave the rocks formed.

“I don’t remember seeing it in the dragon manual,” Astrid agreed.

“I think we may have discovered a new species!”

“Who cares, let’s just kill it,” Snotlout huffed, raising his hammer.

“Wait! We should bring it back and study it!” Fishlegs said, grabbing the weapon.

“Seriously?”

“We don’t know anything about it! What if more show up?”

“We’ll smash them too.”

“Astrid!”

She looked between the two, then nodded to Fishlegs. “We’ll bring it back for the chief to see. Ruff, Tuff, you got some rope?”

“Always!”

“Watch its claws. They’re really long and sharp for a dragon its size.”

Stoick hummed, staring down at the beast in the small cage at the center of the training arena.

The cage was meant to be for transporting smaller dragons that were captured to the training arena since they were more likely to slip free of the nets and bolas. Astrid and Fishlegs had suggested using it to hold their new species since the arena’s cages couldn’t be trusted and the smaller cage would allow them to ensure the dragon didn’t escape by keeping the cage with them.

“We’re thinking it’s a Stoker Dragon,” Fishlegs explained to Hoark. “Look at the strange burn mark it left when we let it out earlier to measure its wingspan. It flew around in circles like a typhoon.”

“And came flying back like a boomerang,” Astrid added. “Fishlegs suggested we call it a typhoomerang.”

“You’re sure this isn’t a dragon we’ve faced before?” Stoick asked Gobber.

Gobber shook his head as he flipped through the Book of Dragons. “I'll double-check Bork's notes, but there’s nothing in here that looks like it.”

“So all the rogues are bringing new dragons out of hiding,” Stoick said, straightening. “We’ll need to be more cautious. This is good to know. Good job, kids.”

“Now all that’s left is to record what you all have discovered and decide who gets to kill the beast,” Gobber said, holding out the book.

“Fishlegs found it. It should be his kill,” Astrid suggested diplomatically as the boy in question took the manual with a blush.

“Hey! I got my arm torn up while tying up its legs!” Snotlout shouted, pulling up his sleeve to show off the bandages. “I should get to kill it!”

“What about when it bit our noses!?” Tuffnut said, gesturing between himself and his sister.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have stuck your faces up against the cage,” Astrid snorted.

“What about a contest?” Hoark suggested. “Whoever wins gets to slay the dragon. It’d give the rest of the village something to cheer over.”

“I mean, you might as well just let me kill it now, then,” Snotlout said with a laugh as he flexed.

Astrid smacked his helmet with the flat of her axe. “Don't be too sure.”

“I'll consider it,” Stoick said. “For now, just keep an eye on it.”

“We're going to need a drawing for the book,” Fishlegs said as Astrid watched him write into the Book of Dragons. “I haven't drawn in a while so I'm not sure I could do it justice.”

“What about Hiccup?” Astrid suggested when she spotted a certain someone shuffling out of the forest near where they were sitting. “He did some of those drawings in his room, remember?”

“Oh, right! Yeah, those were good. Do you think the chief would agree, though?”

“It'd keep Hiccup in one place.”

“Good point. You should still be the one to ask, though,” he said, hunching over the book. “Just in case.”

She rolled her eyes and went to intercept Hiccup before he could disappear inside his house. As she got closer, she frowned at how exhausted he looked. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said without looking at her. “Everything's just a little hectic out there right now so I need a quiet place to sleep.”

“What do you mean hectic?” How could the village at the busiest time of day be quieter than the main island? The chief's house was a little isolated, but not that isolated.

“I'm guessing no one's been in the forest lately,” he snorted, opening the back door of his house.

“Not since yesterday afternoon when we went looking for you and found the typhoomerang.” Hiccup had already been back home when she went to tell Stoick about the dragon, so she'd just requested the chief's presence the next morning and left them to their arguing. “Why? What's going on with the main island?”

“Typhoomerang?” Hiccup asked instead of answering, finally turning to look at her around the half-open door.

“A new dragon species we've discovered. I was actually coming to ask if you'd draw it for the Book of Dragons. Fishlegs is adding it in for future record before the chief decides who gets to kill it.”

Something flickered across his eyes and Astrid realized he was tenser than she'd ever seen him.

She felt a little -- Worried? Surprised? -- off as she realized he must have been more affected by his attack than he was trying to let on.

“And my dad agreed to let me get close enough to the dragon to draw it?” he asked, his grip on the door tightening.

“I haven't asked yet. I figured I'd ask you first. If you say no there's no point trying to convince him. Not that it should be hard. The thing is the size of a terror and the others have got it locked up tight in a cage at the twins' house. You wouldn't be in any danger, don't worry.”

“That's not what I'm worried about,” Hiccup sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I'll go look at the dragon later. I'm going to bed.”

“Have a good nap,” she said, leaving as he closed the door.

After she'd met up with Fishlegs, she realized he'd never told her about what was wrong. She considered going back to ask, but he'd looked so tired... It could probably wait. He would have said something if the village was in danger.

Astrid frowned when she came into the Great Hall for dinner to see Snotlout stuffing his face. She stomped to him and yanked on one of the horns on his helmet. “What are you doing here?”

“Eating?” he said through a mouthful of food, then he swallowed and gave her a flirty smile. “Care to join me?”

“You're supposed to be watching the dragon!”

“It's fine. The twins are watching it.”

She stared him down.

“What?”

She shook her head and left.

“What!?”

She ran for the twins' house, hoping those two hadn't caused too much trouble while unsupervised. As it came into view, she spotted a figure stepping out from behind the house with a bundle in their arms. She thought it was one of the twins at first, but the figure was too small and wasn't wearing one of the twins' four-horned helmets. In fact, they weren't wearing a helmet at all and they had a slight limp, which meant they could only be one person.

She almost called out to Hiccup, but swallowed down the shout when she noticed how suspiciously he was moving. He stuck to the shadows, moved fast yet quietly, and his head was constantly looking around to be sure no one saw him.

She quickly ducked behind some barrels when he looked her way, then followed after him.

“Where are you going?” she whispered as they made it over Madman's Gully and turned into the forest.

The world grew quiet around them, which made it easier for her to pick up the chittering coming from ahead of her. Hiccup shushed the bundle in his arms before growling something she couldn't hear. What she had heard was plenty, though. That chittering was very familiar.

“What are you doing!?” she shouted, giving up on all pretenses of sneaking

Hiccup made a snarling sound, spinning around and clutching the bundle -- the dragon -- closer. His eyes widened when he spotted her and he turned back around to continue, walking faster than before. “Astrid. Hey! Hi, Astrid. Hi, Astrid. Hi, Astrid.”

“What are you doing?” she repeated.

“Just, you know, out for a walk. Don't you, uh, have better things to be doing than dragging me back home? It's not even your job right now,” Hiccup threw jokingly over his shoulder, speeding up a little more.

“Why do you have that dragon?” she snapped, matching his pace.

“Dragon? What dragon?”

“The dragon you currently have wrapped in-Is that your armor? How did you get that back?” She thought the chief had given the scraps to the cobblers.

“I didn't. I remade whatever I didn't have extras of. Did you think I was just sitting around when I got away from you guys?”

“I-Don't try to distract me! Why are you stealing the dragon?”

“I'm n-”

The dragon gave a loud squawk and used Hiccup's distraction to get its head free. It tried to bite him, but he stopped it with a growl and a hand on its snout. It growled back and a few sparks came from the corners of its mouth, though Hiccup looked worriedly unbothered.

“Hiccup,” she said, voice soft as she slowly grabbed her axe off her back. “Give me the dragon. Carefully. It might be small, but it's still really dangerous.”

Hiccup's eyes were locked onto her axe. “Yeah, see, about that...”

Then he was running.

She raced after him, but he was fast and knew the forest better than her. Even with his leg giving him trouble, she was only just keeping up with him as they rushed through the trees. Then he stumbled when his metal foot got hooked on a root and she was able to get close enough to tackle him. They rolled down a hill, wrestling for the dragon. She was stronger, but she was working against both Hiccup and the beast. The stupid dragon must have decided only she looked good enough to eat as she barely avoided getting bit multiple times while Hiccup went completely unbothered.

They reached the bottom of the hill with her on top and the dragon between them. She pinned its snout to his chest with one hand and slammed his shoulder into the ground with the other.

“Would you just stop -” she cut off, staring at the charred earth underneath him. She looked up and her eyes widened at the massive burn mark that covered the clearing they'd fallen into. A burn mark she'd seen before, though not anywhere near that big. “What? How? That...”

“That,” Hiccup said, tugging at the arm holding him, “is what would have happened to the village if the pyre-twister fledgling was still in the village when his mother found him.”

“The what?”

“The baby...” He frowned gesturing at the dragon. “Baby typhoon-fang?”

“Typhoomerang,” she corrected, then her eyes widened. “Did you say baby?”

A roar sounded through the trees and the little dragon chirped and wiggled.

She jumped to her feet and tried to raise her axe, but Hiccup stepped in front of her and grabbed the handle.

“You won't win,” he said, voice quiet.

She opened her mouth to argue, then froze as the trees parted in front of her.

The mother typhoomerang looked like her child, but with a longer neck and blood-red scales in place of orange.

It was also nearly as tall as a timberjack with a nightmare’s build.

Astrid was braver than most Vikings, but she wasn't stupid. A dragon that big... and the firepower needed for that burn mark...

“We need to get back to the village for help,” she said, backing up slowly.

Instead of following her, Hiccup grabbed the baby and started unwrapping it.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, watching the mother as it spotted its baby and started prowling forward with sparks in its mouth.

“Giving him back before she decides to torch the island in revenge.”

Chapter Text

Astrid's hands tightened around the handle of her axe as she watched the very angry, very big dragon approach them.

And Hiccup was holding its baby just ahead of her.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving him back before she decides to torch the island in revenge,” he said, stepping back in a crouch once the baby was free of the leather armor Hiccup had wrapped it in. “Well, any more than she has already.”

Astrid's eyes briefly dropped back down to the burn mark. “Are you telling me this is why you didn't want to nap in the forest earlier? Why didn't you say anything? We could have all been killed.”

“Well, I didn't realize she was mad because you stole her baby,” he said, voice calm and gentle as he kept his eyes locked with those of the mother. He tucked the armor under his arm as he slowly approached Astrid. “I thought he'd just wandered off and she'd calm down once she found him.”

“How did you even know she was mad because her baby was missing?”

“The overturned and scorched nest was a big hint.”

Their conversation cut off as the baby, which had been looking between them and its mother, gave a small chirp and hopped towards Hiccup.

He clicked his tongue and made a shooing motion at it, though he strangely did it with balled fists.

It stopped and cocked its head, then turned to its mother and started hopping that way instead. The mother was still growling, though the sparks around its mouth disappeared as its baby neared. It turned to nuzzle it and lowered its wing. Two more babies, one blue-green and the other yellow, hopped down to greet their sibling before all three climbed back aboard the wing.

As they reached the middle of its back, the mother gave Hiccup one last look and growl before raising its wings.

He jumped at Astrid, pulling her to the ground and behind a rock.

“Hey! Get off you -”

Sparks fell from the mother's mouth, down her back, and across the grass beneath it as it took to the air. It spun around in tight circles before slingshotting off away from the island, causing the fire burning the ground to spread out in a wave.

Astrid flinched at the heat from the fires that rolled past them, just missing their hiding spot. She raised her head and stared at the smoke rising from the new, clearing-wide burn mark. It was barely offset from the first and covered the spot she'd been standing in seconds before. “That could have been us.”

“You're welcome.” Hiccup stood up and dusted himself off before offering her a hand.

She slapped it away and stood up, glaring at him. “What was that?”

“You're welcome?”

“No, that!” She grabbed his arm and pointed at the scorched earth. “What was that?”

“I kept us from getting burned alive.”

“We wouldn't have almost gotten burned alive if you hadn't dragged us out here!”

“Sure we would have. It just would have been when Mama tracked her baby to the village instead. And you followed me, remember? I didn't make you come out here. I didn't even want you to come,” he said, trying to tug his arm out of her grip.

She didn't let go, though. Instead, she grabbed his other arm so she could shake him. “Why in Thor's name did you bring the baby out here?”

“I told you -”

She shoved him to the ground. “Okay, so you knew there was a mother dragon out here going crazy and you wanted to stop it. Why not just tell everyone so we could track it down and kill it? Why risk your life bringing the baby back?”

“Because this way no one died,” Hiccup muttered, still face down on the ground.

“We're Vikings. To die while killing a dragon is to die with honor,” she said, crossing her arms. “We're not all as scared as you. Besides, it was one dragon and we're an entire village.”

“Three.”

“What?”

He lifted his head. “It was three dragons.”

She rolled her eyes. “One dragon and a couple of babies against an entire village. We would have been fine.”

Hiccup didn't respond for a moment, then he rolled to his feet. “Yeah, you're right. The village would have been fine.”

She frowned at the weird tone in his voice. “Of course I'm right.”

“So I guess we should just get back so you can tell my dad what I did.”

She should tell, but...

She remembered how firmly he had stared down the mother dragon. How he'd set his hand on the baby's snout without any fear that his hand would get bitten or burned off the way his foot had.

He had blown them all off every time they'd worried about dragons, then faced down a massive, furious dragon without even blinking.

Hiccup the Useless had done that despite having no dragon training.

“What have you been doing out here?”

Hiccup shrugged and started walking back towards the village. “Drawing.”

“Drawing dragons?” she asked, moving to walk at his side.

“Sometimes.”

“You've been watching them, studying them. That's how you knew about the typhoomerang missing its baby and why you don't want us following you around. It's why you don't want training and how you knew exactly where to duck to avoid the fire.”

Hiccup ran his fingers through his hair. “Something like that. I just... Don't tell my dad. I still don't want to fight dragons.”

“Then why study them?”

He met her eyes. “It's because I don't want to fight them. I learned as much as I could so I could avoid that.”

For the first time since he woke up, she felt like she was getting the truth from him. It wasn't the full truth. There was still something she was missing, but it was a peak. A peak that showed her something about him she couldn't explain. A quiet strength she'd never expected from him.

“Okay, I won't tell.”

“Thank you.”

Later, she wouldn't be able to explain why she'd done it. Maybe it was that unexpected strength, maybe it was the fragile ferocity in his eyes as he looked at her, maybe it was the leftover rush from almost getting burned to ash, maybe it was the fact he'd just saved her life. It might have been some combination of the four or something else entirely.

All she knew was that she hooked her axe onto her back, then yanked him over to kiss his cheek.

“I-What?” he blinked at her, hand coming up to his cheek.

“That was for saving me,” she said.

“You -”

Then she punched him in the gut hard enough to send him to the ground. "And that's for everything else.”

He groaned nonsense into the grass as she walked off.

Hiccup scratched under Sharpshot's chin as he stared out at the night sky through his window.

“[It's been four days and she still hasn't told Dad about what happened with Skyfire and her fledgling,]” he mused. “[She just let the egg-mates take the blame for losing him since they didn't notice me rescuing him. I'm starting to think she meant it when she said she wouldn't tell. Maybe that means she'll stop paying so much attention to what I'm doing.]”

“[Maybe,]” the terror purred and blinked sleepily up at him.

“[Although, maybe I've somehow managed to get her attention another way,]” he joked humorlessly as his hand came up to the cheek she'd kissed. “[It's funny how fast things have changed. A year ago, I would have praised the gods for the chance to have her looking at me as a possible heart-mate. Now though...]”

“Hiccup!”

Sharpshot's head jerked up, then he disappeared into the burrow under Hiccup’s bed.

After making sure the burrow door was shut, Hiccup went over to his bedroom door and opened it. “Still here.”

“Good,” Stoick said. “Dinner's -”

“Stoick!” came a familiar voice, paired with loud knocks.

Hiccup rolled his eyes as his dad sighed and went to the front door.

Mildew was scowling on the other side.

“Awfully late for a visit,” Stoick said. “Can't this wait until morning?”

Hiccup walked down the stairs just far enough that he could sit down and watch Mildew bluster about on the doorstep, curious to see what the old grump was complaining about now.

“No, this can't wait! This island's infested and no one is doing anything!”

“We've talked about this -”

“I've seen them!” Mildew cut over Stoick, knocking his staff against the door. “I've been telling you for months and nothing’s been done about them!”

“It's likely just the clouds playing tricks on your eyes. None of the hunters have reported any signs that even a single rogue has made its home on the island, let alone an infestation of them.”

“They're up near Highest Point!”

“We put traps up there after the first time you complained. Nothing's set them off.”

Knowing it wouldn't be seen, Hiccup let his lips pull up to a smile. It'd been fun figuring out how to disarm the traps while making it seem like they hadn't been tampered with.

“Trust me,” Stoick said, setting his hand on Mildew's shoulder, “I'd love nothing more than a dragon hunt right now, but I can't be leading men off into the woods without solid proof there's something out there to be killed.”

“And my word's not good enough?” the old man huffed. “There's at least two of them up there every other morning, and they're never the same!”

“Which means they're probably just passing over.” Stoick ran a hand down his face. When Mildew tried to argue, he added, “Until you can give us an exact location, I can't do anything. Not unless a dragon attacks the village.”

“And one will, mark my words!”

Hiccup snorted, which unfortunately gained him Mildew's attention.

“You best be careful, boy. Running around like you do. You won't be as lucky the next time those dragons out there find you.”

“We can discuss this more later,” Stoick said, apparently only just remembering that Hiccup was overhearing everything. “Good night, Mildew.”

“It was a joy as always,” Hiccup called as his dad shut the door.

Stoick turned to Hiccup and crossed his arms. “He's not entirely wrong. You do need to be more careful. There might not be an infestation, but -”

“Dad, I really don't want to argue right now.”

His dad rubbed his forehead, then nodded. “Fine.”

“So dinner?”

“Right, but first,” His dad pulled off his boots and held them out. “It's Boot Night! They need to be aired out.”

Hiccup's nose scrunched up as he took the boots. “Ugh! I think it's going to take more than air!”

He put the boots outside, then sat down for dinner. Once it was over, he went back to working at his desk with Sharpshot until he heard his dad's snores through the floorboards. Boy and terror quietly slipped out of the house and into the small woods behind it, heading for the small path up to the village's peak.

They'd barely made it into the trees, though, before they heard something else moving in the night. They ducked behind a bush and watched Mildew walk along, a bundle in his arms.

Signalling for Sharpshot to stay hidden, Hiccup stepped out and asked, “What are you doing out so late?”

Mildew jumped and spun around to look at him. “You! That is none of your business, especially considering you shouldn't be out at all.”

“You going to go wake up my dad and tell on me?” Hiccup asked, crossing his arms and leaning against a tree.

Mildew snorted. “No. Go on and run off into the dark. Maybe we'll get lucky and the dragons will finally come finish you off. Then we'll get both a hunt and a new heir. A proper one this time, instead of some disobedient little runt.”

“[And maybe Zotha will show mercy on us by dragging your cliff into the abyss,]” Hiccup whistled, rolling his eyes. He turned away from the old man and left, calling over his shoulder, “Wow, never heard that one before.”

“A dragon didn't take the boots.”

Astrid looked up from her axe-sharpening with a frown. “What?”

“It wasn't a dragon,” Hiccup said, joining her on her porch. “In case you're interested. No dragons came near the village last night.”

“Did you see the footprints?”

He shrugged and sat down next to her. “No, but I don't need to. I was out last night. I would have noticed a dragon as big as a zippleback moving around. And Mildew definitely would have sounded the alarm.”

“Mildew?”

“He was wandering around last night too.”

“What was he doing all the way down at the village so late?” she wondered as she continued dragging the whetstone down the blade of her axe.

“No idea. When I asked he just said it wasn't my business before going off about how I should do the village a favor and get eaten or something. I didn't stick around after that.”

“He said what?” She knew the village talked, and she knew Snotlout and the twins sometimes couldn't keep their mouths shut around Hiccup, but she didn't think any of the adults would talk to him like that. “You should tell your dad.”

Hiccup just rolled his eyes. “It's nothing I haven't heard before,” he said, which only annoyed her more. “I don't need my dad to stand up for me. Especially against Mildew. He's all bark.”

“They shouldn't -”

“Telling my dad isn't going to stop them. It's just going to make them think they're right.” He stood up and stretched with a yawn.

“Out late?”

“Yeah. Got woken up by all the complaining so I figured I'd come let you know it was probably a prank and your hunt is pointless while I wait for things to quiet down enough for me to be able to get back to bed.”

“Thanks,” she said as he slipped behind a building.

“Was that Hiccup?” Fishlegs asked as he took Hiccup's seat.

“Yeah. He was out last night and says there weren't any large dragons near the village. He thinks it was just a prank.”

“Well, it does sound like something the twins would do, but those footprints were definitely from a zippleback. You can tell by the half-moon-shaped arches. They don't usually pay that much attention to details so how could they have faked it?”

“No idea.”

“He probably just missed the dragon. It was quiet enough that the night watch didn't spot it.”

She hummed in agreement, but something told her Hiccup was right.

“Someone's framing the dragons!”

Fishlegs screamed and Astrid jumped at the low growl that cut through the silence atop the watch tower. They both spun around, weapons raised, before they spotted the boy joining them on the platform and registered the words that the growl had formed.

“Gods, Hiccup, don't sneak up on us like that!” she snapped as they both lowered their weapons, Fishlegs clutching his chest. “We thought you were a dragon.”

A smirk slid onto his face, but was buried under his scowl just as fast as it appeared. “Someone's framing the dragons.”

“What do you mean?” Fishlegs asked.

“The damage in the great hall? A dragon didn't do that.”

“The claw marks were obviously from a monstrous nightmare. The spacing of the talons is dead on.”

“But why would a dragon go in the Great Hall just to use it as a scratching post? None of the food was even touched.”

“It's a dragon. It was just rampaging,” Astrid said and Hiccup shook his head.

“They were so mad they ignored food, and yet no one heard a thing? Not to mention that nightmares catch fire when they're angry, but nothing was so much as singed in the hall. And I still say it wasn't a zippleback the other night. I looked at the footprints on my way home and they were no deeper than mine. I can lie down in actual zippleback footprints.”

“How do you -” Fishlegs started to ask, but Astrid cut over him.

“Why would someone frame the dragons, though? Who would frame the dragons? The twins don't play the long game like this.”

Before anything else could be said, an explosion sounded through the village. Firelight and smoke rose from the direction of the armory.

“Dragon?” Fishlegs yelped, grabbing the warning horn.

“No,” Hiccup hissed and jumped off the platform.

“Blow it and keep watch. I'll get him.”

Astrid followed Hiccup through the village until they reached the blazing armory. Not seeing a dragon to deal with, they quickly joined the growing crowd in grabbing water buckets to put out the fire. Everyone worked hard, but there was still little left of the building when the final embers went out.

Astrid went to the chief's side to help him look over the damage and spotted Hiccup standing in the shadows nearby, taking it all in while trying to go unnoticed now that things were calming down.

“Every one of our weapons... gone!” Stoick said, shaking his head.

“Prudence! My poor darling,” Gobber bemoaned, picking up a heat-warped sword. “I'm so sorry. You should've had a long, blood-letting life.”

“She didn't have to die, Gobber,” Mildew said, stepping forward. “Those dragons have left us utterly defenseless.”

“It wasn't a dragon,” Hiccup said, coming up to his dad. “There's something else going on.”

“What are you doing out?” the chief sighed.

“He was with the watch during the explosion,” Astrid said. “We were talking about the attacks.”

“Someone's sabotaging Berk while trying to make it look like it was dragons.”

“Hiccup,” the chief tried to cut in, but Hiccup kept going.

“There haven't been any dragons near the village. It's a trick.”

“Sure, listen to your boy, Stoick,” Mildew said. He came up to Hiccup's side and the boy stepped back, lips pulled back in a snarl. “After all, he's been skulking about in the night, and we all know how good he is with dragons.”

Hiccup bristled when the old man gave a pointed look at his leg and Astrid grabbed his shoulder. He shrugged her off, though, and stepped up to the old man. “Like you haven't been out every night too. Maybe you're the one sabotaging the village.”

“Hiccup,” Astrid said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back.

“Dad said he wouldn't order a hunt unless a dragon showed up in the village, now dragons are attacking every night out of nowhere. Seems pretty lucky for you, huh?”

“Just because some of us can see the warning signs of a dragon attack doesn't mean you can go around throwing accusations,” Mildew said.

“You don’t -”

“Enough. Hiccup.” Stoick grabbed his son's other arm. “Go. Home.”

Hiccup yanked his arms away and stomped off, hissing and growling under his breath.

Chapter Text

"Zippleback feet and nightmare claws?”

“Yep.”

“Did you tell your dad?”

The look Hiccup gave Astrid had her punching him in the arm.

“Ow! Hey, careful!” he said, almost dropping the sword he was working on.

“Don't give me that look.”

“Sorry, but you can't be serious. My dad doesn't even listen to me on the best days. He wouldn’t take my side over an elder’s even if I waved the evidence right in his face.”

She pushed his hand away when he waved it demonstratively in her face. “Which you can't, because according to you, Mildew tossed the feet and claws in the ocean. How did you even catch him with them without him seeing you?”

He shrugged as he turned to dunk the sword in water. “I got the high ground.”

“His house is on a mountain.”

“It's not at the top of the mountain.”

She shook her head.

“And I could find the feet if I could get away. I just know it's not going to help.”

“I don't mean to be Norbert the Negative, but the ocean is really, really vast,” Fishlegs pointed out from where he was sharpening his sword. “Your chances at finding those dragon feet are as good as Snotlout and Astrid -”

“Don't go there.”

“Going nowhere,” he squeaked, ducking his head to avoid the glare Astrid was sending him.

“Look, Fishlegs is right,” she said, returning to Hiccup. “Even if Mildew did throw them in the ocean, they're not just gonna wash up on shore.”

He just shrugged and dried the sword.

“How's it going?” the chief asked as he stomped into the forge.

“Gobber's searching through the wreckage for any salvageable weapons or metal and so far we've each managed an axe and I'm almost finished with this sword. So between that and the weapons that people had on them...”

“We've got almost nothing,” Stoick huffed and started pacing. “Can't you do that any faster? Until you restock our weapons, we're completely defenseless.”

Hiccup hummed and Astrid noticed he’d paused, staring contemplatively into the hearth.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He focused back on the sword, saying to his father, “We're going as fast as we can.”

“That we are. I'm just glad your boy hasn't vanished on me,” Gobbed said as he hobbled into the forge, nudging Hiccup's head as he passed him on his way to the hearth. “This would be a bad time to get attacked.”

“I know, Gobber,” Hiccup said.

“Not that there's ever a good time, but this would be particularly bad.”

“I know, Gobber.”

“Especially by Alvin. The Treacherous. Our oldest and most feared enemy. Who'd kill us all to take Berk for his own.”

“We've got it, Gobber!” Stoick snapped, his voice almost covering Hiccup's hissed, “Alvin.”

Astrid sent him a look, but he either ignored her or didn't notice.

She couldn't voice her question, though, as the chief took that moment to come over and squeeze Hiccup's shoulder. “I'm glad you're keeping focused.”

“Guess you should go thank Mildew then.”

“Hiccup,” Stoick groaned. “You can't just accuse a man of high treason without proof.”

“Hiccup said he saw Mildew with zippleback feet and nightmare claws.”

Everyone turned to Fishlegs and he quickly went back to his sword.

“Is this true?” Stoick asked, turning to his son.

“Would you believe me if I said it was?”

“I'd need to have a look at them first.”

“Well, I also saw him toss them in the ocean so that's going to be a problem.”

“Hiccup.” Stoick shook his head and turned to Gobber.

Hiccup gave Astrid a pointed look and got back to work.

Astrid was heading towards the great hall to grab an early dinner before night watch when someone grabbed her arm and tugged her behind a house.

She twisted their arm and slammed them to the ground.

“Ow! Why would you do that!?” Hiccup coughed out.

“That's for scaring me right now.” She kicked his side. Gentler than she would have Snotlout or Tuffnut, but still hard. “And that's for scaring me the other night.”

“What? Is it always going to be this way?” he groaned, getting to his feet.

“Keep it up and it will.”

He shook his head. “Right, whatever. Look, I need you to come with me.”

“What? Where? Shouldn’t you be at the forge making more weapons?”

“We don't have time for that. Something's come up and I need you to see. No one will listen to me, but they'll listen to you. Just let me show you.” He held out his hand and she stared at it for a moment. “Please, Astrid.”

She met his eyes and took his hand. “Lead the way.”

Astrid watched the adults argue about what to do for a moment, then turned to Hiccup. “How did you know? There's no way you saw that ship from the forge.”

“Saw them while I was taking a quick break for air and water,” Hiccup said distractedly, eyeing the door.

She wanted to keep questioning him, but at that moment Stoick called out, “Mulch! You and Bucket gather the elders and the children. Get them to Thor's Beach. They'll be safe in the caves there.”

“We can help fight!” Astrid argued, stepping forward. “We've been trained as warriors.”

“She may have been trained, but I was born a warrior,” Snotlout said, coming up behind her and smacking his chest.

“Take this. It was Alvin's.” Stoick held out a hatchet. Snotlout reached out for it, but the chief set it in Astrid's hands. “But go with the others. You can help protect them.”

She frowned, but nodded and went to join Bucket and Mulch. She looked over at where Hiccup had been, but he was gone. She assumed she just couldn't see him in the crowd, but as they walked to the beach, she realized he wasn't with them.

“Did you see where Hiccup went?” she whispered to Fishlegs.

“Hiccup's not with us?” he whispered back, looking around. “Oh! Oh no! Stoick's going to kill him, then us.”

“Did he seriously sneak off now of all times?” Snotlout snorted, though even he looked a little worried.

“Should we go look for him?” Fishlegs asked.

She shook her head. “We wouldn't even know where to start and we need to help protect everyone here. He should be fine. He probably knows the forest better than even the hunters.”

The boys didn't look entirely convinced.

She didn't feel entirely convinced.

As they made it to the cliffs, she stared out at the waves and sent up a silent prayer that he'd be okay.

Well, Hiccup was sure to be doing better than them, at least.

“For those of you who haven't figured it out, I am the one and only Alvin the Treacherous. And let me be clear, that name was earned.”

“Alvin? How did he earn that?”

“Your leader has abandoned ya,” Alvin continued, either not hearing or ignoring Tuffnut. “But Stoick doesn't concern me. I'm not here for him. I want the Dragon Conqueror.”

Whispers of “Dragon Conqueror?” littered the crowd as everyone looked around at each other.

“Tell me who the Dragon Conqueror is and you can all go free.”

“The Dragon Conqueror? Come on! I'll show Alvin who's a conqueror.”

Before she could stop him, Snotlout stole Alvin's hatchet from her and shot around the group. He came at the Outcast's chief from behind, but faltered when he turned at the last second.

Snotlout dropped into a bow and held the weapon out. “For you, sir.”

“Well, you'd better check your trousers, son. I think you've soiled yourself,” Alvin chuckled and took the weapon. “Will you look at that! My old hatchet! I was wondering when I'd get this back. Now someone better answer my question! Where's the Dragon Conqueror?”

“Never heard of him,” Snotlout squeaked as he shuffled away.

“Don't lie to me, boy!”

“I'm not! I'm not! I don't know who you're talking about!”

“I'm talking about the man who killed the red death out on the island beyond Helheim's Gate.”

“An island beyond Helheim's Gate?”

“Red death?”

“The Outcasts found the Nest?”

“Is that why the raids stopped?”

“SILENCE!” Alvin shouted and the crowd's whispers cut off. “I know the Dragon Conqueror is from Berk. He left this near the beast.”

An outcast held up a burned scrap of leather that had Berk's crest on it.

“I found it next to a dragon carcass the size of a mountain,” Alvin announced, looking over the crowd. “Now, who does it belong to?”

There was silence as everyone looked at each other.

“WELL!?”

“It must have come from a trade,” Mulch said, stepping in front of a group of young kids. “Or it was stolen. No Hooligan has ever made it past Helheim's Gate and lived to tell the tale.”

Alvin stared at him for a moment, humming. “Well, just to be sure, let's kill -”

Astrid threw her axe at his head.

Unfortunately, he caught it in midair.

“Now this one has some spunk.”

An outcast grabbed her and dragged her onto the rock Alvin was using as a stage.

“Trying to kill Alvin the Treacherous? Ooh-hoo! You're not as smart as you look. Tell me, who's your Dragon Conqueror, eh?” He grabbed her braid and yanked her head back, leveling her blade at her neck. “Tell me!”

“Leave her alone!”

Alvin froze, then shoved her away and spun around.

A small figure stepped out of the shadows of the cliffs, almost seeming to appear out of thin air.

Astrid's eyes widened as she took in the familiar armor. She backed up to Snotlout. “Is that?”

“What is Useless doing?” he whispered back, shaking his head.

To everyone's surprise, even the Outcasts', Alvin laughed and held out his arms. “Ah, Tailfin, my old friend.”

“Friend?”

“Tailfin?”

“Alvin,” Hiccup hissed, spinning the silver sword he was carrying in his left hand. “Last time I saw you, you were being squeezed by a monstrous-strangulator.”

Alvin's grin grew feral. “Yes, fighting that kraken was quite the challenge you left me with. I'll be sure to return the favor soon.”

Hiccup raised his blade. “Why wait? Afraid I'll beat you in front of your men this time.”

Alvin's grip on the axe tightened. “I don't remember you defeating me.”

“That's probably because you were busy being crushed in a sea dragon's tentacles while I was making off with the gold.”

“What is going on?” Snotlout whispered and Astrid shook her head.

“I'll take your leg for that, boy,” Alvin snapped, then pointedly looked down. “The other leg, I mean. Guess you didn't make it back unscathed after all.”

“Actually, a nadder did this. I got out of our fight without a scratch, in case you were wondering how much of a danger you weren't. And I've only gotten better with a sword since while it seems you're still relying on your opponents being unarmed.”

Astrid didn't think Alvin's scowl could have gotten more bloodthirsty, but Hiccup's last comment proved her wrong.

“Hiccup, what are you talking about?”

She slammed her elbow into Snotlout's gut, but it was too late.

“Hiccup?” Alvin glanced back at Snotlout and his eyes widened. He turned back to Hiccup and laughed. “You? You're Stoick's little embarrassment?”

The boy's left hand tightened around his sword, then his right came up to pull down his hood.

“Well, well, this explains what you're doing on Berk,” Alvin laughed. “So, Hiccup, it appears your luck is holding out. I'm in a merciful mood. Tell me who the Dragon Conqueror is and I'll make your death quick.”

Hiccup narrowed his eyes at the Outcasts that moved to circle him. He pulled the silver shield off his back and braced for a fight. “Come on, Alvin. You saw the armory in the village. Why would we still be under dragon attack if the Dragon Conqueror lived here? Wouldn't he shoot down all the normal dragons like he did the giant one?”

Alvin narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, raising Astrid's axe.

A high-pitched whistle sounded and a blast of purple fire knocked Alvin back.

Shouts of “Night fury!” and “Get down!” rang out as a horde of dragons descended on the beach.

“A raid? Now?” Snotlout shouted as he and Astrid jumped off the makeshift stage.

“We need to get everyone to the cave,” she said.

Thankfully, it seemed the dragons were more focused on the weapon-waving, fleeing Outcasts than the unarmed Hooligans, but there was no telling how long that would last. The two started herding everyone else into the cave with help from the twins, Fishlegs, Bucket, and Mulch. They had to knock a few Outcasts away from their hiding spot, but it wasn't too hard since they were more focused on outrunning the dragons they hadn’t come prepared to face.

Almost all of the Hooligans were in the cave when Astrid spotted her axe lying abandoned on the sand. She ran for it and grabbed it in a roll, only to come back to her feet in front of a growling devilish dervish. It bit down on the blade before she could swing it and raised its razor-sharp tail to cut her down.

Then Hiccup was in front of her, smacking the beast's snout with the flat of his blade and blocking its tail with his shield.

The dervish let go of the axe and flinched back with a whine and a bared throat before racing off after an Outcast.

“Are you okay?” Hiccup asked, turning to her.

“Me? You!”

He glanced to the side before he shook his head. “The cave.”

She ground her teeth, but ran for the cave with him. She made sure everyone had made it in, grabbing Hiccup's arm when he started to drift out of arm's reach, then took guard at the entrance of the cave.

For whatever reason, the dragons continued to chase after the Outcasts as they fled the beach instead of going for the easy prey in the cave so it soon grew quiet outside.

Once she was sure all the dangers had left, she pinned Hiccup to the cave wall. “What was that? Why did you run off? How do you know Alvin?”

“Well your third question kind of answered the second,” he muttered. “Why would I stick around and risk Alvin spotting me?”

“Hiccup!”

“Right, yeah, okay, I'll explain. Can you let me go first, though?”

She did, but she kept herself between him and the cave's exit. “Talk.”

Hiccup put his shield on his back and ran his fingers through his hair. “I met Alvin around six months ago, except I didn't know who he was at the time.”

“Alvin was on Berk?” Fishlegs gasped and Hiccup shook his head.

“It wasn't here. I was on the Isle of the Skullions.”

“What were you doing there?” Astrid asked. “How did you even get there?”

“Borrowed a small boat.”

“On your own? That would have taken you nearly a day just to get there. How did no one notice you were missing?”

“It's amazing how long you can be gone without anyone noticing when no one actually cares about where you are,” Hiccup laughed halfheartedly and stared out into the night.

Astrid looked away, her eyes meeting Fishlegs to see he looked similarly awkward.

“Yeah, whatever. Why were you meeting up with Alvin the Treacherous on the Isle of the Skullions?” Snotlout snapped.

“I wasn't meeting him there,” Hiccup growled. “I told you. I had no idea who he was. We just bumped into each other because we were looking for the same thing. Or at least I think we were.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Treasure.”

“Treasure!?” the twins said, shoving their way over to Hiccup's side.

“What treasure?” Tuffnut asked as his sister said, “Whose treasure?”

“My namesake's. Or one of them anyways. The Lost Treasure of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock II.”

“There was a Hiccup II?” Fishlegs wondered. “I mean, it makes sense. How else could you be the third, but I've never heard of there being a second or even a first.”

“You wouldn't have,” Hiccup said as his hand drifted to his shield.

“Who cares about any of that?” Snotlout said, shoving Tuffnut aside to get in Hiccup's face. He backed off slightly when Hiccup raised his sword, but continued with, “Where's the treasure? You said you got the gold!”

“KIDS!”

Hiccup flinched and tensed like he was about to bolt.

Glaring him down, Astrid leaned her axe against her shoulder and put her free hand on her hip. She took a half-step out of the cave and called out to the chief without taking her eyes off the boy.

“We heard the dragons. Is everyone alright?” Stoick asked as he and the other adults came into view.

“Oh we're fine, but apparently Hiccup's been having secret meetups with Alvin the Treacherous.”

Hiccup flinched again and gave Snotlout the same look the dervish had given her earlier.

Stoick turned to his son, who wouldn't meet his gaze. “Let's take this back to the village.”

The defense horde gathered on sea stacks as the invaders sailed away in their boats.

“[Why aren't we following them?]” Hookfang growled, scowling at the fleeing humans.

“[The kings only said to chase them off the island. We're to return to the Rookery as soon as the sea dwellers confirm they're out of our waters,]” Stormfly reminded him.

“[Can't we fry them? Just a little?]” Speeddemon purred, scraping his razor-sharp tail against the stack they were on to sharpen it.

“[Don't even think about it!]” she squawked and raising her spines sternly. “[You already attacked one of Tailfin's humans. Do you really want to risk the kings' annoyance further by disobeying orders?]”

The dragonet's head drooped as he huffed in agreement.

Alvin glared at Berk as it slowly vanished into the mist, the dragons that had chased his men off vanishing with it to avoid their catapults.

“Do you think they were lying about the Dragon Conqueror?” Savage asked, coming to his side.

“... No, Mulch wasn't lying when he said no Hooligan has ever made it to the dragons' island.”

“Then that was a waste,” Savage huffed and turned to help one of the men.

“Not a complete waste.”

Savage paused. “Oh! Well, I guess you did finally learn where that brat Tailfin disappeared to, and his real name on top of it.”

“That's not the only thing we learned. We also found out that boy knows something about the Dragon Conqueror.”

“We did?”

Alvin looked at him with a smirk. “He knew the red death had been shot down, but we haven’t said anything to anyone about the crossbow bolts we found in the beast’s eyes. The boy’s clever, but even he couldn’t have guessed that it was shot down on his own when everyone else is saying the Dragon Conqueror blew it up.”

“You think he has information on who the Dragon Conqueror is?”

“I think he knows exactly who he is.” Alvin laughed and turned to his men. “We get that boy, and we get the Dragon Conqueror!”

Chapter Text

“[Treasure!? You found treasure!?]” Toothless purred, trying to get a better look at the paper.

“[I found a treasure map. One that's never been solved in a hundred years and has led to the deaths of many,]” Hiccup chuckled, letting the dragon see the paper.

“[The deaths of many humans. I bet you could solve it!]” Stormfly said, hopping from side to side. “[You're so smart!]”

“[You're just saying that because you want to play with the shiny treasure,]” Toothless snorted.

“[Are you saying Tailfin isn't smart?]” she chirped back, spreading her wings and raising her tail.

“[I'm saying he's still human and he's not allowed to die so we're not doing it.]”

“[We would never let him die,]” she squawked and came over to nudge Hiccup. “[Come on, you two have been wanting to get out off the island now that the storm’s over. Let's go!]”

Hiccup bit his lip. “[Well, Dad is gone for the next couple days.]”

The proud-thorn cheered and the wind-walker groaned.

The crowd that gathered in the Great Hall was made up of most of the village. The elders had mostly gone home, Gothi and Mildew being the exceptions. Likewise, most of the children had been seen off by a parent or two, the older teens only just managing to argue their way into staying. Aside from that, the only ones missing were those who left for watch.

Everyone wanted to see Stoick question Hiccup.

The chief hadn't wanted an audience, and he doubted Hiccup did either, but he knew there'd be riots if he didn't let the others hear for themselves.

There was a chance there'd still be riots even with the others listening in. He'd heard quite a few whispers calling Hiccup a traitor as they made their way home from Thor's Beach.

Stoick took a seat at the head of the hall and Hiccup fidgeted in front of him. He was wearing armor similar to the kind he'd been found in after his attack while the sword and shield he'd carried were at Stoick's feet, despite Gobber's attempts to take them instead.

They were strange with both made from a silver-colored, lightweight metal that Gobber didn't recognize. The sword was an old shortsword with the word Endeavor on the cross-guard and a terrible terror engraved down the blade. The shield looked almost new and had a pair of green dragon eyes painted on it.

Once everyone was settled, Stoick ordered, “Start from the beginning.”

Hiccup nodded. “Around six months ago, I was searching for something in here when I accidentally bumped into the portrait of Hamish I and Hamish II. A map fell out and after studying it, I realized it led the way to the treasure of Hamish I.”

“I've heard about this!” Fishlegs interrupted, excited. “The first Hamish was our richest and most revered leader. His son, Hamish II, buried him with his treasure and left a map. They say that the clues are so complicated that only a brilliant mind can decipher them.”

“Aye,” Gobber agreed. “Men lost their limbs, their lives, and their minds trying to find that treasure. Stoick and I even went after it. It lured us high into the mountains in a blinding snowstorm. We fought like badgers over the meaning of the clues. We were lucky to make it back with our lives -- and our friendship -- intact.”

“Hold up, I thought you said you were looking for Hiccup II's treasure,” Snotlout said and Stoick frowned.

How did he know about Hiccup II?

“I'm getting to that,” Hiccup said. “After I realized what the map led to, I kind of... talked myself into going to look for it.”

Stoick scowled and leaned forward. “You never should have done that. It's too dangerous, especially for you. The treasure isn't even on Berk. How did you get away without anyone realizing?”

Hiccup shrugged, looking away. “You and Gobber were gone and no one else used to pay attention to me. I just had to take a small boat no one was using.”

“You said you went to the Isle of the Skullions,” Astrid said.

“Yeah. I figured out the first clue referenced that island and the beach in the Hamishes' portrait. I set off that night so that I'd get there early in the morning when the skullions were still sleeping. Once there, I started looking for the solutions to the next clues and found a piece of a key that was needed to get to the treasure."

“And when does Alvin come into this?” Stoick asked.

Hiccup's face fell and he looked away. “I was getting tired after finding the key piece so I found a cave nearby to nap in. I should have been more careful, but I didn't think there were any other people on the island.”

“What about the skullions?”

“I didn't bring metal with me and covered myself with berry juice to keep them from smelling me,” Hiccup waved it off, glancing at Astrid for some reason. “I never had to deal with them.”

“That was a big risk,” Stoick said, glancing between the two teens.

“The real risk was dealing with Alvin. He found my campsite, but I didn't recognize him since he wasn't wearing any armor or weapons. He told me his name was Alphonse, a Peaceable farmer who got lost in a storm, and he just wanted some directions to get on his way home. I was stupid enough to believe him.” Hiccup ran his fingers through his hair with a scowl. “Thankfully he didn’t recognize me either and I was at least smart enough to also give a fake name.”

“Tailfin. That's what he called you,” Astrid said and he nodded. “I'm guessing he didn't just ask for directions and leave.”

“I wish. I went with him back to his ship so I could point him in the direction of somewhere he could resupply, but while he was checking something on his ship, I realized the next clue was leading me to the north side of the island, not the south like I'd originally thought. I made the mistake of telling Alvin that.”

“Why didn't he kill you as soon as you gave it away?” she asked.

“Because by finding that piece to the key, Hiccup got further in one afternoon than anyone else has ever gotten in years of searching,” Stoick said, knowing exactly what Alvin would have been thinking in that situation.

“Certainly further than we got,” Gobber muttered, though there was pride for the boy in his voice.

Stoick was sure he'd have been feeling the same, if he wasn't so angry about how much danger his son had been in.

“He was using me,” Hiccup agreed, glaring at the ground. Then he snorted. “And I fell right for it, even despite a certain little voice in my head telling me how much of a bad idea it was.”

There was something more to Hiccup's words, but before Stoick could comment on it, the story continued.

“He offered to sail me to where I needed to go to get the next key piece as thanks for pointing the way and I accepted his help because it was the safest option. Which meant I couldn't say no and leave when he decided to take the ship around the island looking for the next clue after we’d gotten the piece.”

“You could have been killed,” Stoick said and Hiccup laughed.

“Trust me, Alvin tried. He probably would have done it too, but he'd underestimated me just as much as I'd underestimated him. I caught on faster so I came out on top.”

“Hold on, when you said you beat Alvin in a fight, were you serious?” Astrid cut in. “I thought you were just lying to get under his skin.”

“No. No way he was able to beat Alvin the Treacherous in a fight,” Snotlout snapped.

Hiccup shrugged. “I mean, he never landed a blow on me and I wasn't the one who got crushed by a water dragon so I'd say that's a win.”

Whispers broke out across the hall, most agreeing with Snotlout's shouts that Hiccup was lying, but some of those who'd gone with the kids to the beach because of illness said that Alvin hadn't denied it when Hiccup claimed something similar.

Meanwhile, Fishlegs' eyes had widened and he stepped forward. “That's right! You said you encountered a kraken! That's incredible! They're so rare! Could it really blend in with anything?”

“I don't know about anything, but they can do rocks and algae. We didn't know she was there until Alvin accidentally stepped on one of her tentacles and woke her up.”

“Did it actually look like an octopus or are they just similar?”

“Just similar.”

“How long were its tentacles in relation to its body?”

“I didn't get close enough to measure her, but I'd say her head was probably only an eighth of her body length. She actually only had four tentacles, though. The other four were tails in disguise.”

“Wow! How did you tell the difference between its tails and its tentacles then?”

Stoick ran his hand down his face.

“Her -”

“Quiet!”

Everyone fell silent, except Fishlegs.

“Hold on, where did you find it? I thought they could only be found on the ocean floor in deep water.”

Hiccup glanced at his father, but answered, “We found her in an underwater cave. She seemed comfortable there so I think that's actually what they like better.”

“Huh, do you think -”

“Fishlegs.”

The boy flinched under the chief's glare and shuffled back behind the twins. “Right, sorry.”

“What were you doing in an underwater cave?” Stoick asked.

“It's where we needed to use the three pieces of the key.”

“Three, I thought you only had two,” Tuffnut said, turning to his sister. “Am I missing something?”

“Always,” she said, slapping his back.

“The next clue pointed to a small cliffside tunnel that was just below water level at low tide. I headed in without Alphonse, assuming he'd sail off now that he had his heading. Then he'd come stomping out of the water in all his Outcast glory to congratulate me for solving the next puzzle and threaten me into finishing up the search for him.”

The arms of Stoick's chair creaked as his hands tightened around them.

“He had men outside the cave and I was basically unarmed against an armored man at least three times my size so the best I could do was go along with it until I saw an opening. The next puzzle gave us the final piece of the key and we used it to open a path underground. That's where we found Hamish I's grave. As soon as Alvin was busy with the treasure, I tried to run. He spotted me, of course, but I guess he was in a good mood because he offered to take me in as an Outcast instead of just killing me.”

“What did you say?” Astrid asked as Stoick scowled.

Hiccup shrugged. “Like I said, I fed him to a kraken.”

The twins started snickering, but Stoick wasn't amused.

“Hiccup.”

“Alvin cornered me so we fought using swords from the treasure. He grabbed a fancy steel sword of Hamish I's and I got Endeavor.” He gestured to the sword at Stoick's feet. “It was Hamish II's, made from a special metal he'd obtained during the travels he did before Hamish I passed and he stepped up as chief.”

“It looks nice, but it's too light to hold up in battle,” Gobber said skeptically.

“His shield took a direct blow from a devilish dervish and didn't even scratch,” Astrid argued, staring at Hiccup, and Gobber's eyes widened.

“That's...”

“Yeah. It's stronger and lighter than anything I've worked with before,” Hiccup said. “Luckily Hamish included a little with the treasure for me to play around with.”

“What happened with the fight?” Stoick cut in as Gobber went to ask more questions.

“Yeah, tell us how exactly you won?” Snotlout snorted.

“I'm not saying it was an easy fight,” Hiccup said, crossing his arms. “I got lucky. Alvin was just toying with me at first. By the time he started to get serious, it was too late. He put too much force into a blow and stumbled right onto the dragon. She paralyzed him and began crushing him, so I took that as my cue to grab the treasure chest and bail.”

“What happened to the treasure?” Ruffnutt asked.

“I couldn't carry all of it, especially since I had to sneak past the Outcasts, so I took what I could carry and got rid of the rest to make sure Alvin would only make it out with the sword.”

“Sure, whatever, but where's the treasure now?” Tuffnut insisted.

“Part of it was put in the treasury to help the village; part of it I traded to Johann; and the rest is at the bottom of the sea somewhere near the southern half of Crossed Bones Islet.”

Stoick frowned when he remembered some months back when the numbers hadn't added up while checking the treasury. Since there was no sign of a thief -- there'd been more money than expected, not less -- looking into it hadn't been a priority. He'd put off investigating over and over in favor of more urgent matters until it had all but been forgotten. “So you just came home and pretended it didn’t happen? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Who would have listened?” Astrid answered for Hiccup.

A moment passed as whispers filled the air, and then Mildew stepped forward.

“Well, that was quite the story your boy told. Although I seem to have missed the reason why we should believe a word out of his mouth.” He turned to Hiccup, who was rolling his eyes. “He’s never done a useful thing in his life and now we’re expected to believe that he’s gone on an adventure, found treasure, and survived a fight against Alvin the Treacherous all on his own.”

“At least some of it had to be true,” Astrid pointed out, crossing her arms. “How else do you explain Alvin knowing him and reacting that way?”

“I think we've all figured that out. That boy has betrayed us to the Outcasts to wreak destruction on our fair village.”

“That's rich coming from you,” Hiccup muttered, earning nasty looks from Mildew and a few others.

“Enough,” Stoick barked. He glared pointedly at Hiccup, then around the hall. “I don't want to hear any baseless accusations from anyone. Is that clear?”

Hiccup just looked away from him.

“Come now, Chief,” Kevlar said, stepping forward. “I know he's your boy, but, well, he's Hiccup. The tale is pretty unbelievable. How can we be sure he isn't just lying to hide something?”

Stoick turned to Hiccup as he tried to think of a response to that. Honestly, he wasn't sure if he entirely believed Hiccup's tale, even if he didn't think for a second that his son would betray them.

The boy in question caught his gaze and rolled his eyes. He walked forward, doing a mocking impression of Stoick's voice. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Hiccup.”

He slipped his prosthetic under the edge of his shield and flipped it into his hand. He pressed something on the back of the shield and pulled a scroll out of a hidden compartment.

“What's that?”

“It's a reminder of what a Hiccup can really do,” he said softly, rubbing his thumb over the twine that held it closed. He held it out to Stoick, head high. “It's a copy of the shield painting I found with the treasure. It was Hamish II's first, more accurate, coming-of-age shield painting. From when he was still known as Hiccup II.”

Stoick's hand froze around the scroll before he quickly unrolled it. As Hiccup said, the page depicted Stoick's grandfather and great-grandfather. Hamish I looked just like he did in the Great Hall's portrait, just softer. Hamish II, though, looked vastly different. His face was more pointed, his hair was wilder, and his whole body was stick thin, not yet having built up the hard-earned sailor's muscles Stoick vaguely remembered his grandfather carrying before he'd passed when Stoick was six.

Few knew Hiccup II had existed. Fewer knew Hiccup II had been Hamish I's son. Fewer still knew Hamish II had been Hiccup II and not just his bigger brother.

Gothi appeared at Stoick's side and he easily handed the page over. She looked it over carefully, then rolled it back up. She handed it to Hiccup -- looking him over carefully as well -- before pouring some sand on the floor and writing in it.

Gobber stepped forward to translate. “She says the picture is accurate, and could only have been found with Hamish I's treasure. It is her judgment that Hiccup is telling the truth.”

“Great, so can I go?” Hiccup asked, putting the scroll back in his shield.

Stoick pinched the bridge of his nose at the uproar that began.

“How did you actually get past the skullions?”

Hiccup turned to see Astrid waiting for him behind his house. “I said I -”

“I know what you said, but I also saw you with the typhoomerangs. I know your plan was better than just using berries to hide your scent and leaving yourself unarmed.”

They stared each other down for a moment, two, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal whistle.

“This.”

“That?”

“Yep.”

“Skullions are deaf. Why would that stop them?”

His lips pulled up into a smirk before he gave the whistle three soft blows.

It didn't make a sound.

She crossed her arms. “Explain.”

“Skullions aren't deaf. It's just that they can only hear sounds that are so high only animals can hear them. Coincidentally, certain predatory dragons -- dragons that hunt other dragons -- also make noises like that. So when a skullion can hear something, they bolt as fast as possible. I designed this to make extremely high-pitched sounds.”

“So when you blew that, they went running.” She looked him over as he pocketed the whistle. “Alvin wasn't the only one who underestimated you. We all did. We still do.”

He turned to leave.

“Thank you. For revealing yourself to save me.”

He nodded and ducked into the woods.

“[What did she want this time?]” Snoopcurl squeaked, peeking out from his vest.

“[To know how I scared off the shiver-tooths. She didn't buy the story I told the others.]”

“[She's getting too close.]”

“[I know,]” he sighed, looking down at the eye-spy. “[This isn't good.]”

Chapter Text

One of Stoick's hands was covering his eyes and the other was holding an ice block to his forehead when Gobber sat beside him.

Problems just kept piling up. The rogue dragons, their lack of weapons, and Hiccup running off had been bad enough, but now he also had to deal with the aftermath of the Outcasts' attack and the newly revealed connection between Alvin and Hiccup.

He still couldn't believe his son (his little Hiccup) had gone on such a dangerous adventure, let alone that he’d come out unscathed. He was furious (at Hiccup for running off and himself for not being there) and guilty (How had he not noticed Hiccup was missing?) and terrified (Hiccup, who couldn't protect himself from anything, now had the attention of Alvin of all people).

Except Hiccup could protect himself, apparently. He'd fought Alvin to a standstill and came out the victor in the end, even if he'd had help from a dragon.

He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

Not that he’d let anyone else know that. All but Mildew had stopped arguing against Hiccup's story after Gothi had declared her support would not be swayed, but Stoick knew the old man wasn't the only one who still doubted Hiccup's allegiances. He couldn't afford to let any of them think he was also doubting his son, especially since he didn't.

Not in that way, at least.

“What am I going to do with that boy?” he sighed, looking up at his friend. “He's going to get himself killed running off like he is, getting attacked by dragons and Outcasts.”

“This reminds me of a conversation we had over a year ago. If I remember right, you didn't listen to me then,” Gobber said, nudging his arm with his tankard prosthetic.

“Dragon training isn’t the solution. He won’t go to the lessons. I can’t even get him to sit still long enough for the basic lessons I ordered him to take with you or Hoark. He spends all his time either napping, working, or hiding from everyone in the village."

Gobber hummed as he took a drink. “Astrid seems to be able to talk to him.”

Stoick considered that. Hiccup did tend to stick around longer when she was with him, and he'd even been with her watch the night the armory had been destroyed. And the looks they'd shared during Hiccup's story... “Aye, that’s true. The Ingerman boy, too, maybe. I've spotted them talking a few times.”

“There you go then. Give the job to them. Astrid's likely to be one of our best warriors given a few more years’ experience and Fishlegs knows more about dragons than most.”

“She still can't make him stay put, though.”

“Then put them somewhere he won't be able to run from.”

Stoick narrowed his eyes at his friend. “What are you suggesting?”

Gobber drained the last of his mead. “I heard you and Spitelout discussing sending a scouting party to the Nest to investigate Alvin's claims. Put those three on the crew. Hiccup can't hide if he's on a ship out at sea.”

“No!” Stoick said, standing up and dropping the ice block. “It's too dangerous!”

“More dangerous than going alone to the Isle of the Skullions and facing down Alvin?”

“Hey, Astrid,” Hiccup greeted as she leaned through the forge's window.

"Hiccup.” She held up her axe. “Do you have time to sharpen this before you run off to hide?”

He nodded and took it. As he brought it to the grindstone, he said, “I'm not running off today. Gobber locked me in here and is going to walk me home after we finish up.”

“I'm surprised you're still here, then.”

“I think Dad asked him to make sure I make it home because he has plans for my birthday.”

She blinked.

It was his birthday?

“Right, that makes sense,” she said, idly wondering if other tribes celebrated the birthdays of their future chiefs.

The Hooligans celebrated Stoick’s birthday every year with a big feast in the Great Hall, yet she hadn’t even known what day Hiccup had been born. She knew Hiccup wouldn’t like being stuffed into the Great Hall with the whole of Berk, but surely they should do something for him, right?

She focused back on the world around her when Hiccup presented her axe to her. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

A small bit of guilt nagged at her as she left, which was likely how she found herself pacing behind the chief’s house later that night. She wasn’t entirely sure she should be there, but she buried the feeling down when she spotted Hiccup climbing out of his window.

“What's wrong?” she asked as he met her near the treeline.

“Why do you think something's wrong?” He continued into the woods without looking at her.

“You're leaving earlier than usual and you came out the window instead of sneaking past your dad.” She followed after him. “Did something happen at your party?”

“It wasn't much of a party,” he snorted. “Just dinner alone with Dad. And it was going fine -- great even, better than the last few years -- then he started going on about how,” his voice deepened into an impersonation of the chief's voice, “'You're sixteen now, son. It's time you took a more active role in the village.'”

She nodded, taking that to mean the chief had told him they were going with the search party when it left the following week. “But that's good, right? He’s trusting you with more responsibility.”

He shook his head. “He doesn't trust me with anything. He's just trying to find new ways to keep me from running off.”

“That's... probably true.” They walked in silence for a few moments before she grabbed his arm to stop him. “Hold on.”

“I'm not really up for hide and seek tonight,” he joked, his smile strained.

“Neither am I. I need to get to night watch soon.” She held out the package she'd tucked into her belt. “I just wanted to give you this. Happy birthday.”

It'd been hard to decide what to get him. The only interests of his that she knew of were blacksmithing, drawing, and dragons. She knew almost nothing about blacksmithing and even less about drawing, which left only dragons.

She'd considered giving him a trophy, but gifting any of her old ones felt insincere and she didn't have time to track down a dragon to kill for a new one. She turned to the stone and woodcarvers instead, but everything they had at the time showed the dragons being killed or maimed. None of Hiccup's artwork depicted a dragon being harmed and Hiccup had made it clear he didn't want to be involved with fighting dragons. She'd almost given up when she'd spotted a small item Fainting Freda was selling while passing the seamstress's table.

Hiccup's eyes widened when he unwrapped the plush skrill.

“I know it's supposed to be a children's toy, but I thought it'd fit better with your drawings and stuff than a statuette of Fáfnir's death,” she said, her voice not giving away any of her uncertainty.

“No, it... it's great,” Hiccup said, looking up at her with a small smile as he held the toy to his chest. “Thanks, Astrid. She's adorable.”

Leave it to Hiccup to get all soft over a plush toy, she thought, rolling her eyes and gently slapping his arm. “You're welcome. Have a good night doing whatever it is you do out there.”

“Have fun on watch,” Hiccup shot back, rubbing his arm.

“I won't,” she joked. “It's been too quiet.”

It was Hiccup's turn to roll his eyes. “Right, because it's only fun if you get a scar out of it.”

She laughed and slapped his arm again before heading back to the village.

Yawning, Hiccup ran his fingers through his hair and pushed open the door to his house. He frowned when he saw his dad sitting by the fire, having thought the man would already be gone for the day. At least he'd cleaned up before heading home. He did not need his dad wondering why he was covered in sea salt and dragon blood.

He'd been up all night dealing with the wave-roarer that had been stealing fish from both the village's nets and the flock's. Thankfully it turned out Tornado wasn't aggressive, he just needed the extra fish for his injured heart-mate. They were able to relocate the two down to a lair in one of the Rookery's sea caves pretty quickly, but it had taken hours for him to carefully patch up the holes in Whirlwing's wings in a way that would still allow him to fly once they healed.

“Hey, Dad,” Hiccup said, resisting the urge to rub his eyes. “I, uh, thought you'd be down at the docks already. The scouting party is leaving soon, right?”

“It is. Grab something to eat and then we'll head down.”

“We?” Hiccup shuffled over to the larder to get some bread and cheese.

“You're coming with me to see the ships off.”

“Why?”

“I told you I wanted you to be more involved with the village.”

Hiccup sighed, but decided he was too tired to argue. He'd just go watch the ships leave then come back and sleep.

Hiccup was surprised to see Astrid and Fishlegs carrying bags onto a ship when he arrived with his dad. The trips to the Nest were supposed to be for seasoned warriors, not sixteen-year-olds only a year out from training.

Once his dad was distracted talking to Hoark (the two blocking his way home with their massive bodies), Hiccup walked down to sate his curiosity.

However, before he could ask them how they were chosen for the scouting party, Astrid turned to look him over. “I’m surprised he got you to come.”

“I didn't feel like arguing, but I'm sneaking off if he tries to make me go to the forge after this. I'm exhausted.”

Astrid and Fishlegs shared a look.

“You don't know?” he asked.

Hiccup frowned, then Gobber's hook plucked him up by the back of his vest and dropped him next to Fishlegs. “Stoick thought it'd be better to surprise him?”

“What?” Hiccup said as a sack landed in front of him. “Wait, hold on.”

Astrid grabbed him when he tried to climb back off the ship. “The chief said he wants you to come with us to investigate the Nest.”

“I'm good,” he coughed out around the phantom smoke in his lungs. “On second thought, the armory really could use more -”

“Hiccup.”

“I'm not going to the Nest,” Hiccup said, glaring up at his dad as the man walked up.

“This isn't up for discussion. You refused to train with Gobber and Hoark so you're going to train with Astrid and Fishlegs instead.”

“But -”

“You'll need these.” Stoick dropped Endeavor and Hiccup's shield next to the sack.

“I don't want to go to the Nest.”

“You should have thought of that before sneaking off all the time.”

“Rephrase: Dad, I can't go to the Nest.” He could taste the ash on his tongue.

“You'll be fine. Your ship will stay back in the case of an attack and the others will cover you if it comes to it. Just stay behind them and you'll be fine.”

“No, I'm really very extra sure that I won't.”

“I told you it's not up for discussion. You need to...” his dad's voice faded away as a jagged tail fell towards them and a jolting pain sent the world spinning into darkness.

“[TAILFIN!]”

“DEAL!?” his dad demanded with a scowl that said it wasn't the first time he'd asked.

Hiccup's mouth tasted like ash and he was exhausted. A part of him wanted to book it up the docks and into the forest. A bigger part of him wanted to jump off the ship and just sink through the peaceful water until one of the sea dwellers spotted him.

More than anything, he needed to be curled up in Toothless's wings right then.

That wasn't an option, though.

If he went for the docks, the crowds would stop him before he could even make it halfway up the cliffs. If he went into the sea, someone was sure to dive in to rescue him.

Toothless would have to wait.

“Deal,” Hiccup snarled, scooping up the sack and his gear before marching over to curl up against the stempost.

“Good,” his dad called, seemingly unbothered by his fury. “Train hard. I'll see you when you get back.”

“[Shouldn't have stopped Tornado from stealing the village's fish. A few weeks of rationed food would do you all good,]” Hiccup hissed, digging through the sack. It held the set of armor that had been confiscated after Alvin attacked, some clothes, a bedroll, a small bag of jerky, and a small jar of honey-covered dried fruit.

The latter two make him pause for a moment, taking him back to when he was little and his dad always snuck the sweets and extra food into his bag as a treat when they went on their fishing trips. Then Hiccup had gotten too old to need constant supervision and the trips petered out until it felt like he'd had to fight for his dad's attention.

Anger reigniting, he shoved the sweets to the bottom of the bag and dug into the bag of jerky. His nose scrunched up when he pulled out a piece of dried eel amongst the salmon, trout, and cod. He'd never been fond of the taste of eel so he’d been more than happy to swear off eating them to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally smell like them around his flock-mates. Or, even worse, accidentally poison one of them.

“Wait, what's Useless doing on the ship?”

Hiccup looked up to see Snotlout staring at him before Spitelout dragged him off. Hiccup tossed the eel at the back of his cousin's head before ducking his head and sorting through his armor.

“Who threw that!?”

If anyone was upset Hiccup didn't help prepare the ship, they kept it to themselves. He stayed in his spot until the ships were ten minutes out to sea, then he slipped on his gloves and used their small claws to climb up the mast. Ignoring Hoark's and Astrid's yelling, he tucked himself between the mast and yard to finally sleep.

When he returned to the deck sometime around midafternoon, Astrid greeted him with a punch and a “Nice of you to join us.”

“Was that necessary?” he huffed, rubbing his arm.

“Maybe next time you won't sleep while the rest of us are working.”

“I'd feel bad, except the rest of you weren't forced to leave by your dad.”

“No, just your dad,” Fishlegs muttered from where he was manning the steering oar. He ducked his head when the two turned to him so they focused back on each other.

“If it makes you feel better, I can be on night watch,” Hiccup offered.

“Oh, you will be,” Hoark called from where he, Yngvildr, and Agatha were standing near the bow.

“Yessir,” Hiccup said, voice sarcastically serious.

The adults shook their heads while Astrid rolled her eyes.

“Why did you climb up there anyways?” she asked.

“So you couldn't bother me while I was sleeping.”

“You could have fallen and hurt yourself.”

“I was fine. I sleep like that all the time in the forest.” It was actually his preferred way of sleeping when he and Toothless napped outside. He usually didn't have a bedroll on him since they preferred to fly light and it kept him close to Toothless, who slept hanging from his tail.

He'd have preferred to sleep in Toothless's wings, but doing it while Toothless was hanging had proven to be a bad idea the one time they'd tried it.

Meatlug had caught him in time, thankfully.

“You're insane,” Astrid said before pulling her axe from her back. "But now that you're up, let's get started.”

“How about we don't?” Hiccup said, even as she dragged him towards his things.

While he hadn't been lying when he told Alvin he'd gotten better, he was used to sparring with the tails of his hack-at flock-mates, not axe-wielding Vikings. He wasn't sure how the two would compare and was a little afraid to find out. He'd only been as confident with Alvin because he knew he was just buying time for the defense horde to get in position.

“No running away this time,” she said, shoving him forward.

“[Daughter of Tiamat~Zothra,]” he growled. He ignored his shield and sword in favor of digging out his armor, despite the looks he got from the supervising adults.

He didn't care what the Viking Way was. If they were practicing with live weapons, he was wearing protection.

Astrid was staring at his face mask when he finished up and turned to her. Caught, she explained, “I didn't notice the other night, but you added that scarf to your armor to cover your mouth.”

“[No!]” Hiccup gasped, barely aware of the smoke and ash filling his mouth as he urged Toothless to fly faster. “[NO!]”

“I made some changes,” he grunted, falling into the ready stance his dad had tried to teach him years earlier.

“Your stance isn’t bad, you seem to be compensating for your prosthetic okay.” Astrid took her own battle stance. “Come at me and we'll see what we need to work on.”

This is going to hurt, he thought.

Hiccup stared up at the moon, wondering which gods exactly he had to blame for his pitiful existence. He bet it was one of the human gods. Dragons tended to like him easily enough so their gods probably did too.

His bet was Loki. His life sure felt like one big prank.

“Don't fall asleep. You're on night watch, remember,” Astrid yawned as she walked past him to lay down on the bench she'd claimed as a bed.

“I wouldn't be able to sleep even if I tried. My everything hurts too much,” he groaned.

“Get used to it. We've got at least a week until we reach the Nest.”

“The gods hate me.”

She snorted, then rolled over to sleep.

Hiccup continued to watch the stars as he kept an ear out for trouble and quietly sang flock-songs to himself. It was around midnight when he grudgingly pushed himself to his feet to keep the ship from drifting off course.

He took a quick look at the other ships, then sat down on the railing near the steering oar and began a song about hunting sharks. He smiled when a few voices joined in from below the ship. “[Knew the dragon gods had my back.]”

He held out his arms and slid off the railing towards the sea, though he never hit the water.

“Astrid! You have to see this!”

“I swear, whatever dragon you spotted better be about to kill us,” she muttered, pushing Fishlegs away by his face.

“It's not a dragon,” he said as she sat up and stretched.

“Then what is it?” She rubbed her eyes before turning to see what he was pointing at. She was shocked to see fog-covered sea stacks rising from the water ahead of them. “Is that...?”

“Helheim's Gate.”

Chapter Text

“Is that...?”

“Helheim's Gate, aye,” Hoark said with a frown.

“How did we get here so fast?” Astrid asked, getting up. “I thought it usually takes a week to get here.”

“It does.”

“We hit a strong current last night.”

She looked up to see Hiccup sitting on the yard, leaning lazily against the mast with his hood and mask down. “What?”

“All the others who were on night watch are saying the same,” Agatha said as she hopped back onto their ship from a nearby one. “They say it grabbed all the ships and dragged them forward like Njörðr himself had reached up to give us a hand. A few had thought it was dragons at first, but calmed down when nothing came of it.”

”What did Hallr say he wants us to do?” Hoark asked.

“He's not happy we aren't all going in fresh, but he's more worried about sitting out in the open until the night watch can rest up. They'll have to go without for now. We're staying towards the middle and back since the kids are here.”

Hoark nodded and told the others to prepare for battle before looking up at Hiccup. “Get down here. I want you to stay by Astrid in case something happens.”

The smallest teen looked ready to argue, but must have thought better of it. He put on his mask and hood to climb down. After grabbing his sword and shield from the base of the mast, he joined Astrid at the railing to keep watch.

“The fog isn't as thick as usual,” Yngvildr said, looking around. “You can actually see the sun.”

“That'll make not getting turned around easier,” Agatha said. “Think that red death was causing the fog?”

“Maybe. If it even existed.”

The ships navigated the sea stacks without any trouble, from fog or dragons.

When the ships exited the stacks, they found themselves floating before a tall volcanic island.

“Thor have mercy,” Hoark breathed.

Astrid looked over the island, then turned to check on everyone. She frowned when she saw Hiccup wasn't staring up at the island like everyone else, but down at the sea below the ship. The skin on his neck looked pale and, when she looked at his hands, she saw they were holding tight to the railing. It was strange to see him so... Scared?

The word felt wrong as she was just starting to think nothing scared him, despite his reputation, but she wasn't sure how else to describe him. It reminded her of how pale and distant he'd looked for a few moments there back at the docks when his dad had made it clear he couldn't get out of going with them.

She set her hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

He released a shaky breath, leaning into her hand for just a second before pulling away. “Fine. What exactly are we doing here again? I didn't bother to pay attention before since I didn't know I'd be going.”

“We're splitting up to search for signs of the beast Alvin described. Half are going to shore and the other half are going to circle the island,” Hoark explained for her. He came over to give Hiccup a pointed look. “We'll be going ashore, but don't even think of running off.”

“Wasn't planning on it,” Hiccup muttered, still staring down at the sea.

After beaching the ships of those going ashore and anchoring those that weren't, they set up a small camp, had a quick meal, and then split up with groups being sent either inland or along the coasts. Their group was sent to search the western coast since it appeared smaller with only a thin rocky beach that pressed up against the volcanic cliffs.

That was supposed to mean there'd be fewer places for the dragons to hide, but they'd underestimated how many lava tubes were speckled about. Thankfully, all was quiet.

Maybe even too quiet, Astrid thought as she split her attention between keeping a careful eye on the caves and making sure Hiccup didn't have any problems with his prosthetic on the loose, wet stones.

“No wonder there's been so many rogues around,” Fishlegs said, mirroring her thoughts. “This place seems completely abandoned.”

“What could have sent all the dragons running from their home?” Astrid reached out for Hiccup when it looked like he was about to fall, but he pushed her hand away and kept going.

“By Thor!” The groups' eyes snapped to Hoark at the front of the group. The man was just staring ahead of him in shock. Astrid quickly ran to catch up to him with Fishlegs, Yngvildr, and Agatha right beside her. They came around a cliff and spotted what had the man spooked.

The bones of a massive dragon littered the beach.

“The red death,” Agatha said.

“I thought Alvin was exaggerating its size.” Yngvildr put her hand over her chest.

A choke sounded behind the group, but only Astrid turned to look. Hiccup was turned away, half-hidden behind a rock with his hand against where his mask covered his mouth. As the others went to look at the beast, she headed back to check on him. “Are you alright?”

Hiccup nodded, dropping his hand. “Fine.”

He didn't sound fine, but he kept pace with her as they went to join the others.

His eyes were rooted to the ground.

“It looks like it had a heavily armored skull and tail,” Fishlegs was saying when they reached him. “Probably made for bashing and crushing. And with how small its eyes were compared to its large nostrils, I'd bet it relied on hearing and smell. Though, it looks like it might have had six eyes, not just two, so maybe that compensated for the size? It'd at least eliminate the chances for a blind spot. Woah, look at the spines that survived. The blood-red color all over must have been chilling. Man, I wish I'd thought to bring something to make notes with.”

Still not looking up, Hiccup reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of charcoal and a leather wrap containing loose scraps of paper.

“Oh, thanks!” Fishlegs immediately started making notes so Astrid turned to Hoark.

“Any idea what took it down?”

“The crater says it fell, but it looks like something burned it straight down to the bone considering the charring on all of them,” he grunted kicking one of the bones. “I've never heard of a dragon that wasn't fireproof.”

“Even tidal dragons are pretty fire-resistant,” Fishlegs distractedly agreed.

“Found something,” Agatha said as she and Yngvildr brought over singed crossbow bolts. “Found these at the edge of the crater.”

“It looks like something's coating the tips,” Yngvildr said, looking closer at the ones in her hands.

“Is that a good idea?” Hiccup asked as she brought her thumb to one of the tips and she shot him a glare.

Then she flinched when a splintered edge gave her a small cut. She brought her hand up to check it, but it stopped halfway up. Her eyes widened. “My arm! It won't move!”

She dropped the bolts to tug on the arm, but no matter what she did, it stayed in the same position.

“They must have been poisoned,” Hoark said and Agatha immediately dropped her bolts.

“My arm isn't going to be stuck like this, right?” Yngvildr asked.

Hoark and Agatha shared a look and he said, “We'll bring the bolts to Gothi. Hopefully, she knows what the poison is. Until then, Ragna has some herb knowledge. Hiccup, bring her and the bolts back to the ship. Fishlegs, go signal the others.”

Fishlegs' shoulders drooped and he looked up at the dragon bones wistfully before giving Hiccup his things back and leaving to find a good spot to blow the signal horn.

As Hiccup used his gloves to gather the bolts, Yngvildr huffed, “I don't need to be walked back like a child. Especially not by a child.”

“We don't know what other effects the poison might have. Hiccup can keep an eye out until Ragna gets to you since he's not needed for anything else.”

Astrid was actually curious about what his thoughts on the dragon bones were, but she knew she couldn't talk Hoark into letting him stay without compromising the trust Hiccup had put in her.

Instead, she helped Agatha and Hoark investigate as the two left, then picked Fishlegs' brain when he returned. Unfortunately, there wasn't much they could learn from a months-old body.

“The size suggests tidal class, but nothing else does. The wings seem too big for boulder, but it's got the bulk of one. The chunks of basalt stuck to its spines suggest it spent a lot of time at the center of the volcano. That could be more evidence for boulder, but it could also point towards stoker since they love staying hot. Except it was killed by being burned so... Ugh! Without seeing it move or breathe fire, it's really hard to say!”

Fishlegs kicked a rock and it clinked off something metallic. The two went over to find a metal flute half-buried under the rocks and dirt.

“You think the Dragon Conqueror dropped it?” Fishlegs asked. “I mean, he had to of, right? A dragon wouldn't have stolen it.”

Astrid didn't answer as she picked it up.

“Woah, careful! Did you forget about what happened to Yngvildr already?”

She looked it over, an idea coming to her.

“Astrid?”

She put the mouthpiece up to her lips and blew, using the little bit of musical knowledge her mother managed to force on her. She tried to play a scale, and the low notes turned out much higher than they should have been. She continued as the notes went higher and higher until she couldn't even hear what she was playing.

“Huh, guess it's broken,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess it is.” She turned the flute over in her hands, then stuck it in her belt. “Let's keep looking.”

After it was agreed that nothing more could be learned on the island, Hallr declared they'd stay the night before heading for home in the morning.

Astrid went looking for Hiccup long after dinner, when all but them and the night watch had gone to bed. She found him at the very eastern edge of the camp, sitting on a rock just out of reach of the torchlight.

She sat next to him and followed his gaze to see a pair of monstrous nightmares staring down at them from a high cliff.

They bared their teeth as soon as she spotted them and ducked away.

“Guess the dragons haven't all fled,” she noted.

“Yeah, guess so.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before she set the flute in his lap.

“What's this?” he asked, voice not quite managing the casual tone he was aiming for.

“Your flute?”

His face was hidden by his mask and hood, but that didn't hide how stiff his shoulders were as he cocked his head. “My flute? I didn't bring a -”

“You left it behind, just like you forgot those poisoned bolts.”

“I didn't -”

“That flute works just like the whistle you showed me. The one you said you designed.”

He twisted the flute in his hands. “I guess someone else had the same idea.”

“You also knew about the poison before Yngvildr cut herself and tried to warn her.”

“I didn't -”

“And you've been acting weird about this place.”

“You mean weirder,” Hiccup joked and she stole the flute away from him to smack his arm with it.

“That crest Alvin found? You left it here.”

“I didn't,” he continued to deny as he rubbed his arm, but he also accepted the flute when she gave it back to him.

“The only thing I can't figure out is when.” She glared up at the stars as she thought it through. “You'd never have survived before the beast was slain, but the last raid was only a week before your attack. You wouldn't have been able to come here after since we've been watching you too close so it had to be before that. If Fishlegs is right that the raids stopped for a while because the red death died, then the only way you could have been here after it died and had time to get back to Berk before someone noticed is...” she trailed off and he slid off the rock. “You saw it, didn't you? You saw the Dragon Conqueror kill that thing.”

“No, I didn't.”

“You... have you been training with him. Is that how you know so much about dragons?”

He shook his head and tried to leave.

She grabbed his arm. “That has to be it. Because the only other option is that you...”

His eyes met hers, then he pulled his arm away and slipped back into camp.

“Uh, maybe you should go a little easier on him,” Fishlegs suggested.

Astrid slammed her axe into Hiccup's shield before kicking his knee to drop him to the ground.

If he could face down a monstrosity like the red death, he could take a little beating.

She smacked the butt of her axe against his shoulder. “Get back up.”

Especially since he'd spent the three days they'd been at sea refusing to talk to her about anything other than training and they weren't alone enough for her to push it. Not unless she wanted the entire village to know what she did before she could even get her answers.

The moment he was on his feet, she swept them out from under him. “Get up.”

He growled under his breath and she made note of another strange thing about him.

He often growled and hissed under his breath, but his words usually didn't sound like words at all.

“I said get up.” She kicked his side.

“Berk's coming into view,” Fishlegs said.

“Thank Njörðr,” Hiccup groaned.

“Truly,” Yngvildr sighed, rubbing her wrist. She'd fully regained use of her arm overnight, but still insisted Gothi needed to look at it just to be sure.

Gobber met them at the docks and Astrid tossed him a line. As he tied it down, he said, “Surprised to see you all back so soon. Did a storm turn you back?”

“The exact opposite,” Hoark called from where he and Fishlegs were raising the sail. “The sea was good to us. We made it to Helheim's Gate by the first morning.”

“Where's Useless?” Snotlout asked, clearly still in a mood as he walked up to Gobber's side.

Astrid spun around to see the ship's crew had dropped from six to five without anyone noticing. Her eyes went to where Hiccup's bag had been, only to see it was missing too. She spun back towards the docks, but Hiccup was nowhere to be seen that way either. She slammed her hand against the railing, snarling, “That son of a half-troll, rat-eating, munge-bucket!”

“How does he do that?” Fishlegs asked.

“I don't know.” But she was going to find out.

“Hey, Dad,” Hiccup said as ran up to Stoick. “Is it almost time for the painting?”

“It is.” The chief glanced back the way Hiccup had come and, sure enough, Astrid was trying to set his boy on fire with her gaze.

Gobber's plan to trap Hiccup with the scouting party had had unexpected results.

The favorable currents had cut short the training he could have gotten, but Astrid was at least able to confirm he had enough of an understanding of swordplay that he wouldn't die immediately in a fight and could probably hold out long enough for help to reach him. Meanwhile, the Ingerman boy checked that Hiccup had read and remembered most of the Book of Dragons, which was more than most could say. Although, the other boy did say Hiccup sometimes stumbled over a beast's name, even if he could otherwise describe it perfectly.

The real problem was that while Hiccup seemed to have forgotten Stoick's and Gobber's hands in his departure from Berk, he was completely avoiding Astrid. Both had played it off like he was just trying to get out of training, but that didn't match with how angry she seemed and how nervous he was. She had even looked like she was going to refuse when Stoick suggested having the other teens help her drag Hiccup to the arena to lock him in for a lesson. It almost seemed like she was trying to get him alone for some reason, and he was doing everything he could to not let that happen.

Putting that all aside for the time, Stoick wrapped an arm around his son and gently squeezed him. “Remember to keep your shoulders back and your chin up! The portrait's gonna hang in the Great Hall forever. It will take its place among all the other Chiefs and their sons.” He pushed open the doors to the hall and pointed towards the shield painting that had been done when he was Hiccup's age. “That is the only picture of your grandfather and I. It was a great day.” He looked down at his son with a smile. “And so is this!”

Hiccup hummed, looking over the shields. “Who's painting it? No outside ships have docked lately.”

Stoick considered questioning how he knew that considering how little time he spent in the village, but decided that might risk an argument that could ruin the important day. “Bucket volunteered.”

“Bucket?”

The man in question let out a huff as he came into view. He looked Hiccup over, then shook his head and started digging through a crate of jars that was sitting next to an easel holding an unpainted shield. “I pulled out the wrong green! It won't do! It won't do!”

"Aye. When he lost half his brain he suddenly became an artist,” Stoick answered as he led Hiccup over to where they needed to stand for the portrait.

“So, Bucket can actually paint?”

“Oh, he's the best! He's gonna do us proud, son.”

His son looked towards the hanging shields again. “Does that mean it's going to be a Hiccup portrait or a Hamish one?”

That...

It should be the latter. It was typical for the portraits to add a little extra strength to the heirs. Stoick's jaw hadn't been quite that chiseled when he was sixteen, for instance. The shields were meant to show the strength of the tribe's chiefs and heirs, so there was nothing wrong with... exaggerating a little.

For Hiccup though...

He wanted Hiccup's portrait to be something both he and future generations could look back on with pride. That really should mean exaggerating even more than usual, shouldn't it?

“It's a reminder of what a Hiccup can really do.”

“It will be your portrait,” Stoick said, giving Bucket a pointed look.

The man looked a little confused, but nodded and got to work.

“Now come on, chest out, son!”

Hiccup took a deep breath, then let it out with a snort. “Yeah, this is as out as it goes, Dad.”

“Ah. Very well, then.”

Chapter Text

“I can't believe that stupid painting will be hanging in the Great Hall from now on. Did you see how pathetic he looked in it? Way to ruin the whole place.”

“At least we don't have to see your face all the time,” Ruffnut said, elbowing her brother. “I wouldn't be able to get through a meal without throwing up.”

“Yeah!” Tuffnut laughed before pretending to vomit.

Snotlout socked him in the gut, then the two were on the ground roughhousing.

Astrid rolled her eyes and looked away from the group. Her eyes landed on a small shadow slipping out of the doors of the Great Hall and into the night. “See you guys later.”

“What? No, Astrid don't -” Snotlout cut off as Ruffnut poured a bucket of water over him and her brother.

As Fishlegs tried to mediate the three's fight, Astrid followed the shadow through the village.

“This time! This time, for sure,” she whispered, staying further back than usual to be sure her target didn't spot her.

Hiccup didn't seem focused on sneaking, though. He was too busy staring at a paper in his hands as they crossed Farmer's Bridge, then headed off the path and into the woods. As the trees grew thicker, then thinner again, Astrid jokingly wondered if he'd walk right off Wild Dragon Cliff without noticing. To her surprise, while he did look up from the paper in time, he still walked right off the cliff.

She could only stare for a second before she rushed forward. She looked down, expecting him to be a smear at the bottom of the old riverbed or clinging to the ravine's walls. Instead, he was nowhere to be seen.

She slammed her fist on the ground, realizing it must have been a trick.

“[Are you staring at yourself again?]” Toothless asked as he walked into Hiccup's forge.

“[No,]” his clutch-mate denied, though it was buried under the confirmations from Snoopcurl, Sharpshot, and Meatlug. “[Thanks, guys.]”

“[You're becoming as bad as a proud-thorn.]”

“[Don't let Stormfly hear you saying that,]” Hiccup said, swatting at the chuckling wind-walker's ear. He looked back at where he'd hung up the sketch of his portrait next to Hiccup II's shield and the shelf for the plush lightning-walker Astrid had gifted him. “[And it's not about looking at myself. It's... It looks like me. I know it's just because I said something, but Dad didn't argue. He just agreed right away. He even talked to Bucket to make sure it looked like me after we were done posing.]”

“[It's the least he could do.]” Toothless sent the sketched Stoick a glare as he lay down on the wide rock that was set over the hearth for just that purpose.

“[I know it's not much, but maybe it means he's finally starting to see me as something other than just a disappointment,]” Hiccup said, going back to working on the nails he needed for the new water system he was building.

“[I hope you're right. You'd deserve it.]” Toothless leaned over to lick Hiccup's cheek as he passed. “[Just be careful. As clever as you are, you can be too quick to trust.]”

Hiccup wiped the drool off with a grimace. “[It's worked out well for all of us so far, hasn't it?]”

“[The Stripedback venomous-vorpent almost ate you the first time we visited their island.]”

“[Dreadstrider is a... work in progress.]”

“[She still wants to eat you!]”

“[A work in progress!]”

Before anything else could be said, a pink common-garden came flying in. “[Kings! Kings! Kings! Kings!]”

“[Woah, hey, breathe. What's wrong?]” Hiccup said, though the small dragon didn't seem to hear him over her screeching.

“[Kings! Kings! Kings! Kings! Kings!]”

“[Stop!]” Toothless roared and she squeaked, shooting over to hide on Hiccup's back.

“[Thank you,]” Hiccup said calmly, reaching back to soothe his flock-mate. “[Now what's wrong?]”

“[There's a human!]” she announced shakily, leaning into his hand. “[In the hives!]”

“[What!?]”

It had been six days since Hiccup vanished after walking off Wild Dragon Cliff. Astrid had come back in the morning to make sure she hadn't missed anything in the dark, but she couldn't figure out where he'd gone. She at least knew he hadn't died since she spotted him helping Gobber at the forge when she'd returned to the village. Annoyed, she'd decided to stake out the opposite side of the ravine to try and catch him. She'd even traded some favors to get out of night watch.

The first and fourth nights it had been too dark to see anything. The second night she'd been forced to stay in the village because of a storm. The third and fifth nights had luckily been clear and bright, but Hiccup had never shown.

That sixth night was overcast and drizzling, but thankfully there was still just enough moonlight peaking through for her to see. Not that there was much to see. Astrid grew frustrated as midnight approached and was starting to think she should start looking for a new way to pin Hiccup down.

Then the boy stepped out of the trees. He had something on his back and was staring back at it as he approached the cliff, but it was too dark for her to see what it was. He gave a musical whistle, then turned back to the cliff just as he stepped off it. She watched him spin as he fell before grabbing onto the walls of the ravine. His feet swung towards the wall, then he was gone.

She made note of exactly where he'd fallen, then carefully made her way around the ravine. Using a rope, she rappelled down to where he'd disappeared.

There was a hole in the wall. It was under an overhang so it couldn't be seen from the top, and it angled down so she bet it wouldn't be seen from the bottom either. There was a metal bar anchored into the overhang, which she realized Hiccup must have used to swing inside. The opening was small. Astrid and her axe could squeeze through, but someone Snotlout's size would have had a hard time. Someone Fishlegs' size or bigger had no chance.

A perfect hideaway for a little Hiccup.

“Got you,” she whispered as she dropped down the slope and landed in a small tunnel.

It was dark and cramped. Tall enough that she wasn't crawling, but short enough that she couldn't stand straight. The walls were close too, so close she could cover the distance just by stretching out her elbows. What little light made it through the opening revealed small animal burrows all along the walls and ceiling. Some were as small as mouse holes and others as large as badger setts, but all looked recently used.

“What is he doing out here? Rescuing lost bunnies?” Keeping crouched in the center of the tunnel, she headed for the light she could see coming from the other end of the tunnel. “Is this why there are burrows in his house?”

The tunnel forked off a few times, but she kept heading for the light and slowly the tunnel grew large enough for her to comfortably move. Her caution also grew the further in she got as animal noises began to reach her. At first, it was just flapping and chittering, making her think she and Hiccup had disturbed some sleeping birds or bats, but then it shifted to growling. She was starting to worry she was about to stumble into a bear cave.

Then she turned a corner and the tunnel opened up to a large, firelit cavern.

Spiraling walkways and large ledges lined the walls of the cavern while the center was an open pit. Fires were burning everywhere, from hearths in the middle of certain ledges to braziers hanging on the walls to lanterns lining the walkways. Outnumbering the fires, though, were the dragons. She spotted at least five of every type that frequented the raids, but she could hear even more out of view. Beyond those, though, there were also fireworms darting from fire to fire and a couple of skullions on a walkway with their noses in the air. She even spotted a timberjack's massive head hanging off a ledge.

Where had they all come from? How long had they been on Berk? They had to be rogues considering the raids came from the sea, but how had so many rogues settled on Berk without anyone noticing

Almost anyone.

Mildew was right, she realized, horrified. There is an infestation. I need to get back to the village and warn everyone.

She tried to back up, but stopped when she heard scraping. She slowly turned her head to see a dervish prowling up behind her, dragging its tail against the rocks. She glanced to her left as a pair of gronckles landed next to her, then to her right as a nadder skipped forward, spines at the ready. She faced forward again as a nightmare's head rose from the pit as it climbed the walls.

"I'm dead," she accepted as she tightened her grip on her axe. "But if you think I won't take as many of you with me, you have another thing coming. My name is Astrid Hofferson, and I'm going to arrive in Fólkvangr covered in your blood, beasts!"

She raised her axe and started for the nightmare as it lit itself on fire and opened its mouth.

Both flinched back when a crossbow bolt shot down between them.

The nightmare's mouth snapped closed and its flames went out, but Astrid barely noticed as she looked to where the bolt had come from.

Her eyes first caught on a dragon she'd never seen before. It looked strangely soft for a dragon, with a sleek body like a cat's. If a cat could be the size of a large horse. It had sleek wings on its back that were folded up and four tailfins on its long tail, two at the base and two at the end. There were no claws on its wing joints, nor were there spikes on its tail. It also had no horns as instead eight flaps stuck out of its rounded head, shaped vaguely like rabbit ears. Its only spines were short and rounded, starting just above its eyes and trailing down its back to the end of its tail. The beast was almost completely pitch black, but there were strange silver and dark grey markings around its chest and forelegs that she couldn't quite see with the way it was crouched. The colors also streaked down to cover one of the fins at the end of its tail.

Making note of the additional threat, she raised her eyes to the walkway above it, where the very boy she'd been following was standing. He was holding his silver shield in his hands, but it had unfolded to reveal a crossbow-like weapon.

Before she could even consider what to do now that she had some backup, the black dragon gave a loud roar that echoed through the cavern. As if on command, dragons immediately began fleeing into the pit or tunnels until all that remained were the black dragon and the five circling her.

She wasn't exactly sure what had happened, but she wasn't about to question it. Her eyes went back to Hiccup, hoping to convey that they should strike while the dragons' numbers had been drastically reduced.

It was then she realized the crossbow wasn't aimed at the dragons, but her.

“Hiccup,” she said, voice quiet yet firm. “What are you doing?”

His answer was a wordless growl that had the nightmare looking up at him. Her breath caught as it hissed at him, but he simply tilted his head to the side and clicked his tongue the same way he had with the typhoomerang baby.

She watched, shocked and terrified, as it twisted in the direction he'd gestured. Hissing and gurgling, it crawled up onto Astrid's walkway and behind the nadder to stand between it and the dervish.

“Astrid.”

Her head shot back to Hiccup, despite her instincts telling her not to look away from the nightmare's glare.

He nodded his head. “Put your weapons down.”

Her jaw fell slack for a beat. “Are you ki-Why in Thor's name would I do that!?” she shouted, waving her axe at him.

Instantly, all the dragons snarled, the sound echoed by those hidden in the pit and tunnels. The black dragon crouched lower and spread its wings, its jaw opening to reveal purple embers.

“Astrid,” Hiccup repeated her name in a growl. “Unless you want to spend the next day as a statue -- or worse -- you will put all your weapons on the ground. Slowly.”

The bolts had been coated in speed stinger venom, Gothi had explained after they'd brought them to her. Yngvildr had gotten lucky that the venom had been weakened by time and weather.

Astrid's teeth ground together as she set her axe on the ground, then stood up straight with hands in the air.

The nadder gave a short chirp.

“All of them,” Hiccup said.

“I don't have -”

“Astrid.”

She cursed him out under her breath as she pulled a dagger out of each boot and set them next to her axe. “There. Happy?”

He nodded and a pair of terrors darted down from where they'd been hiding at his feet. One grabbed the daggers while the other grabbed her axe.

“Hey!” She stepped forward to grab them and the nadder shot a spine in front of her foot.

She stayed where she was as the little dragons made off with her things.

Hiccup put the bolt back in the quiver on his hip and refolded his shield to place it on his back. He climbed over the edge of the walkway and the black dragon rose to let him drop onto its neck. As he sat down and the dragon shifted to glide over the pit, she realized why the grey and silver parts around its neck and shoulders looked weird.

The dragon was wearing a saddle.

Hiccup flew a saddled dragon over the pit to land in front of her.

She shook her head and took a few steps back, only to be reminded of the dervish behind her as it breathed down her neck.

“How did you get in here?” he asked as he slipped off the dragon's back and grabbed the bolt he'd shot before.

“How did-How did I-What are you doing in here?” She stepped towards him and got another spine near her feet for her troubles. She stopped moving and quietly said, “Hiccup, what is going on? How are you... controlling them?”

The black dragon looked up at him and growled, causing the nightmare to perk up and the dervish to purr.

He slapped the black dragon's leg and hissed at the others.

“I'm not controlling them.”

She looked at the two submissive dragons, then back to Hiccup and the black dragon.

The latter bared its teeth in the mockery of a smile and he smacked its leg again. The dragon made a rumbling noise that almost sounded like laughter.

“It's complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it,” she snapped, crossing her arms. “Because three months ago you lost your leg fighting just a couple of dragons and now you've not only somehow killed the red death, but,” she gestured at all the dragons, “there's this! I want answers! Now!”

“I didn't lose my leg fighting a couple of dragons.”

“Yes, you did! I was there!”

“And you saw me fighting dragons?” he asked, smirking as he shared a look with the black dragon.

“I saw a dragon standing over your unconscious body.”

“Because she was helping me.” He walked over to rub the nadder's nose. “They knew they couldn't do anything about my leg so Stormfly brought me to the village.”

Her eyes widened as she realized the nadder was the blue and yellow one who'd attacked him. She also had another realization.

“You're the one who stole the dragons from the arena!” she clenched her fists as she fought down the urge to grab him. “What? Were you jealous that we got to train and you didn't so you stole all the dragons and brought them here?”

“I didn't care about dragon training. I just wanted to rescue them all before you could kill Hookfang,” he said, gesturing to the nightmare. “I didn't expect them to want to stay with Toothless and me after.”

“Toothless?”

The black dragon growled.

“Toothless,” Hiccup said, walking over to run a hand over its spines.

She stared pointedly at the dragon's teeth.

He just leaned against the dragon's leg with that stupid smirk.

“Where did he even come from? He wasn't in the cages.”

“Nope. Like I said before, I shot him down,” he said, his voice going soft at the end as he looked down at the dragon.

She watched incredulously as the dragon gave a soft rumble and nuzzled his cheek. “You've never told anyone you shot down a dragon. When did that happen? What even is he?”

The two shared a look and he smirked while it gave a toothless grin.

She stared wide-eyed at its empty mouth as Hiccup swung up onto its back.

It carried him closer and he held out his hand. “Come see for yourself.”

She smacked the hand away. “Yeah, I don't think so.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, still smirking. He turned to the nadder and gave a few whistles, then the black dragon leaped into the pit.

There was a beat, then the two were shooting up through the cavern. She hesitantly approached the edge to see what they were doing as the nadder dove off as well, only for a tail to shove her over.

“Oh, Great Odin's ghost!” she screamed, even as she landed on the nadder's back. She scrambled forward to grab its horns as it twisted to follow Hiccup. “Oh, this is it!”

The dragons flew up through the cavern and into a large tunnel that quickly let out near the top of Highest Point.

“You okay over there?” Hiccup called as his dragon flipped over the nadder.

“Get me down from here!” she snarled.

“Come on, Astrid, just relax and enjoy the show,” he laughed before his dragon turned to climb.

The nadder stayed level with the peak, circling it as Astrid tried to keep track of Hiccup's beast. It was almost invisible in the night, its scales blending perfectly into the darkness. The only hints of its location as it climbed higher and higher were when its body blocked the few stars that could be seen through the clouds. Then it passed over the shrouded moon and she got to watch it drop into a dive.

Seconds later a chilling shriek cut through the air.

She held her breath as the sound grew louder until a blast of fire shot towards her and the nadder, exploding in the sky a few yards to their right.

The black dragon -- the night fury -- flew through it, Hiccup's laughter trailing behind them.

Chapter Text

The nadder Astrid was riding turned to follow Hiccup's night fury as it slowed to a glide. Her dragon drifted over his, then she was falling again as the beast bucked her off. Hiccup grabbed her arm as she landed on the night fury behind him and she quickly scrambled up to wrap her arms around his waist.

“You-That-It's a -”

“Night fury,” he said, glancing back at her. “The one I shot down.”

“Okay, but I hit a Night Fury,” he tried to defend, even as the chief dragged him away. “It's not like the last few times, Dad! I mean, I really actually hit it! You guys were busy and I had a very clear shot.”

“You actually did it,” she breathed. “Why didn't you tell anyone?”

“I did. No one believed me.”

“But you have proof. It's right here! If you brought it to the village, -”

“They'd kill him.” He ran his hand down the fury's head. “I can't let that happen. He's my best friend, my brother. He means more to me than anything, even the village's opinion of me.”

“You can't be serious,” she said as he pressed his forehead to its. “It's just a mindless beast that would kill you without a second thought.”

“That's not true.” He turned as much as he could while keeping his feet in the stirrups. “They're not what we've been led to think they are.”

“It's a monster,” she said, grabbing his arm hard enough to make him flinch. “You'd have to be an idiot to think it would ever care about you.”

He shoved her hand off his arm and opened his mouth to argue.

Then the dragon was flying straight up.

She screamed and clawed at the saddle as she slid down it. She dragged herself back up and grabbed him as he snarled at the dragon, his hands firmly on the saddle's handles again.

He reached back to help her pull herself closer as they leveled out. “Sorry. He's not usually like this. He's just being needlessly overprotective and-Oh no.”

As he'd been talking, the dragon's right wing had folded in and they flipped upside down to plummet towards the ground.

She screamed again, pressing her face against his back. She looked up as they leveled off again, only to get splashed with seawater as the dragon dove through a wave.

Hiccup tried to snarl at it again, only to cough up seawater. “Tooth-Toothless, stop! I can't talk like this!”

The dragon dove through two more waves.

“Would you stop! I'm fine! Calm down! We need her to like us, remember!?”

The dragon huffed, then took to the air again.

“And now the spinning,” he sighed as the dragon spiraled upwards.

She closed her eyes and pressed her face against him again as he started hissing and growling at the dragon.

Something clicked in her mind.

He was fine.

It was being needlessly overprotective.

The dragons had looked ready to tear her to shreds when she'd waved her axe at Hiccup and hadn't let her get close to him until he approached her.

The fury had only started the wild ride when she'd hurt Hiccup.

The dragons were protecting him!

She'd known that, to an extent. She'd even reacted to it back at the cavern, but she'd assumed it was just Hiccup's strange control over them.

But this dragon wasn't listening to him. It was directly going against his orders. Like it... Like it actually cared and wanted to get back at her for hurting Hiccup.

It went against everything they knew about dragons, but she couldn't think of any other explanation.

The fury dove again, though with the spinning it felt like they were just falling instead of the earlier controlled drops.

She pressed closer to Hiccup and did the only thing she believed might help. “Okay! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll leave him alone! Just please stop!”

Immediately she felt the night fury's wings snap out and it settled into a gentle glide.

She kept her eyes closed for a moment, trying to get her breath back and making sure the dragon wasn't going to start again. When she did pull away from Hiccup's back, she gasped.

The world around them had transformed into one forged from clouds, from the rolling sea of white they were sailing over to the matching pillars and mounds that rose from it like sea stacks and islands. The sight felt hazy and dreamlike, especially with how the clouds shimmered with silvers, blues, and greens from the moon's light and the glowing ribbons that danced across the sky. She reached down to brush her hand through a cloud and shivered as the cool mist passed over it. She grabbed back onto Hiccup when the dragon banked left, but the flight stayed gentle as it drifted down through a gap in the clouds. She spotted the village far below, lit by torches and the firelight that flickered through open windows.

Amazing, she thought, staring down at her home.

“They're not monsters.”

She turned to Hiccup to see him staring at her. “Whatever connection you have with them, they still kill our people at every turn.”

He shook his head. “It's not their fault. Most of them just want to be left alone. The giant dragon you saw on the Nest? She was the queen of the flock that lived on that island and considered most of the Archipelago her territory. She forced her flock to hunt for her, and ate them if they didn't bring enough back. They couldn't get what she demanded just by hunting so they had to raid us. That's why there haven't been any raids since she died.”

She nodded, then realized that wasn't entirely true. “The dragons weren't raiding during Alvin's attack. You set them on the Outcasts to save us. That's why I was the only Hooligan they attacked.”

“Yeah, and sorry about that. Speeddemon missed the mostly part of mostly unarmed and thought you were an Outcast.”

She looked to the side as she heard more wings and saw the nadder had caught back up with them alongside two other nadders, a thunderdrum, and the nightmare from before.

Hiccup whistled and the four new dragons flew off.

“You really are the Dragon Conqueror,” she said, amazed.

His face twisted up. “That's not what I'd call myself.”

“But you control all these dragons and you killed the red death! That's -”

He shook his head. “I didn't kill her for the fun of it, Astrid, and I told you, I don't control them. Not exactly.”

“It sure seems like you control them.”

“It's,” he bit his lip, looking up at the moon. “Does my dad control you?”

“What?”

“Does Dad control you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked, but he just stared at her. “Yes, no, he's the chief. He's in charge, but he doesn't control me.”

“Are you sure? You always do what he says, even when you don't like it.”

“Because he's the chief. I respect him and I know he wants to protect the village. What does this -”

“What do you think Toothless and I have done for the dragons in our flock?” He set his hand on the fury's forehead. “The dragons from the arena stayed because they believed we could protect them. From the village, from the Nest's queen, and from anything else that might come for them. And then we offered that protection to any other dragons that wanted it.”

“Are you saying the dragons listen to you because they respect you?” she said, looking between the two beasts. “Like you're their chief.”

He nodded. “The closest thing the dragons have to one.”

The fury huffed and slapped Hiccup's hand with one of its head flaps.

“Right, but Toothless and I are equals so it's more like a council with only two people on it.” He scratched behind the flap. “Brother kings.”

“This all is so unbelievable,” Astrid said, running her fingers over its scales.

That a human could even survive among dragons, let alone become their king. That dragons could be anything other than mindless monsters.

“It's insane.”

“I know you're going to need time to come to terms with all this, but, Astrid, if the village finds out, they'll try to kill everyone. You can't tell anyone about this. Not about the flock or the queen or anything. Please.”

She stared at him.

He'd killed the red death. He'd stopped the raids. If everyone knew, they'd hail him as a hero. And he wanted to keep it a secret, to protect his pet dragons.

Somehow that was the least surprising thing she'd learned that day.

“I don't know.” What would happen if the beasts decided they didn't want to listen to a human anymore? What if something happened to Hiccup? If all those dragons fell upon the village with no warning...

“Please,” he repeated.

“They're dangerous. The village should at least be warned that they're out there. We could tell them -”

“They won't listen. They never listen. All they know how to do is kill things and fight each other.”

She scowled. “Those are our people. You're talking about them -- about us -- like we're the beasts instead of the dragons.”

Hiccup looked away, his hands tightening around the saddle’s handles. “Look, just,” he growled a few things.

The dragon purred, twisting its head to look up at him.

He let out a deep breath. “Please, Astrid. You don't have to trust us. You don't even have to like us. Just don't tell anyone.”

“Hic-”

“At the very least, think really hard about what the consequences will be if you do. Because if the village finds out, there will be a fight. We don't want to hurt anyone, but we will defend ourselves. You're smart enough to know that a lot of Vikings won't be making it out of that fight alive.”

Her fists clenched as the word we echoed in her ears. “You'd take the dragons' side if it came to a fight?”

His eyes were dark when they met hers. “As my dad likes to say, a chief protects his own. I don't want to pick sides, but I will if my hand is forced.”

Of course. Of course! “Get me off this thing.”

“Astrid,” he said as the fury growled.

“I'm not going to say anything.” Because he was right. The village would probably only hear dragons on Berk and nothing else. Even with just the small peak she'd gotten, she knew there were too many dragons in those caves. Her people were stubborn enough to make quite the dent in the dragons' numbers, but it would be a slaughter on their side too. “Just let me down.”

Hiccup hesitated and the fury growled, but they were soon swooping down to land on Wild Dragon Cliff.

She slid off as the nadder landed next to them. She grabbed the rope she'd used to get to the cave's entrance and stomped into the trees.

“Astrid,” Hiccup called just before she got out of view. “For the record, it goes both ways. I'd choose the village over dragons if you were the ones in danger.”

“Sure you would.”

“I would. I did. Why do you think the queen is dead?”

She turned to look at him. His gaze had a little of that distant look to it that it'd had at the Nest. “Because it was endangering the dragons.”

“Maybe in part, but I wouldn't have risked my flock going in there just for that. We would have just kept stealing dragons from her like we'd been doing for months. No, my flock risked our lives -- Toothless and I nearly lost our lives -- for the village. We challenged her to put a stop to the raids. We-we killed her for the humans of Berk, not the dragons.”

Her eyes dropped to his leg.

“We're not your enemy. I promise.”

“I want to believe you.” A life where they never had to worry about dragons attacking again sounded boring, but also nice. It also sounded too good to be true. “I won't say anything. I swear on my honor.”

“Tha-”

“But,” she said, stomping back over to point a finger in his face. “If any of your pets hurt someone, all bets are off. Got it?”

“They're not pets,” he muttered, stepping back, “but I got it. Thank you.”

She waved her hand and left. She wasn't stopped this time, though her axe and daggers were dropped in front of her only a few minutes later. She looked up, but there was no sign of boy or dragon.

“[Are you okay?]” Toothless whined as the three flew towards the mountain.

“[Yes.]”

He tilted his head to look at Hiccup with one big, disbelieving eye.

“[No,]” the boy admitted, breathing out against the ash in his throat. “[I’ll be okay, though. Let’s just get back to the Rookery.]”

“[Are you sure it was a good idea to let her go?]” Stormfly asked.

“[No, but what other choice do we have,]” Hiccup asked, laying his back against Toothless's. “[It wouldn't be right to imprison her just because she accidentally found us.]”

“[It wasn't an accident. She followed you,]” Toothless pointed out.

“[Yeah, I’ll need to be more careful from now on.]”

Toothless gave a soft, wordless purr as he twisted his head to nuzzle Hiccup’s leg.

In return, he scratched just under the dragon’s wing joint. “[I know you weren’t blaming me, bud. I still need to be more careful, though. People are actually paying attention to me now -- as weird as that is -- and I don't know what we'll do if someone less willing to listen finds the Rookery.]”

The dragons shared a look and Hiccup put an arm over his eyes.

“[Okay, I do, but I don't want to move the flock or hurt anyone.]”

“[We know. Maybe we should have guards at the entrances, keeping an eye out,]” Toothless suggested and Hiccup nodded.

“[We can have Snoopcurl see if any of the eye-spies will take it in shifts. They're both the least noticeable and have the best eyes,]” Hiccup suggested, sitting up as they reached the Rookery. “[The shiver-tooths could help too. They're bigger, but they'd catch the scent of the human's weapons before even the eye-spies could spot them.]”

“[I'll inform the defense horde and talk to the shiver’s High Elder to have her ask for volunteers,]” Stormfly said and the boys gave their thanks before she split off.

“How much do they understand you when you talk to them?” Astrid asked as Hiccup joined her in the woods behind his house, out for his nightly trip to visit his beasts.

“Depends on what you mean by talk,” he said, leaning against a tree next to the rock she was sitting on. “Toothless can understand Norse pretty well since it was kind of necessary before I figured out how to speak their language and the ones I rescued from the arena picked up on a few words and sentences during those early days, but most of the others don't know our language very well, if at all.”

“Their language?” she said incredulously. Sure, he mimicked their cries, but she wouldn't call that a language.

“Yeah, I call it Dragonese,” he said with a defiant look. “I can teach you if you want.”

“Pass,” she said and left. She would not be caught dead growling like an animal.

Johann double-checked his supplies as his boat slid into Berk's waters.

The Vikings of the Barbaric Archipelago weren't quite as... cultured as others he'd dealt with, but their ability to slaughter dragons was to be admired. Especially Berk's Hooligans, who'd managed to prevail against centuries of onslaughts from the nest of dragons living not far from their island.

Although, if the rumors he'd picked up were correct, the onslaughts were coming to an end. A massive dragon that the locals called a red death had been killed and the dragons of the Nest had scattered. Johann had been intrigued by the rumors, curious to see if the red death had been one of the beasts known as the King of Dragons. Unfortunately, what was left of the dragon hadn't matched any of the vague descriptions he'd heard before.

He'd been forced to turn his focus to the Dragon Conqueror in hopes the mysterious hunter could identify the beast so Johann knew how to properly market the bits he'd managed to steal. He was also sure the Conqueror's identity could be quite profitable outside the Archipelago if he played his cards right. Everyone from the Whisperer Tribe to the dragon trappers to maybe even Drago himself would want to know the identity of the person who took down a beast that large all by themself. Especially as there'd been no signs of war machines being used, just evidence of the beast having taken a few crossbow bolts to its eyes. They'd want to know the methods used, and perhaps even make the Conqueror one of their own. A part of Johann hoped it would be through force as that would increase the payout he'd get when he delivered the poor Viking to them.

Unfortunately, the Conqueror's identity was not a mystery easily solved. The best lead he had was that the Outcasts had thought the hunter came from Berk as they'd found its crest near the red death, but the idea was short-lived as it turned out the Hooligans were some of the last to find out about the beast. Even still, given their proximity to the Nest and the fact it was his only lead, Johann had decided they'd be the best place to start.

He put on a ditzy smile as he brought his ship up to Berk's dock, calls of his name echoing around as the Hooligans came forward to help him tie up and to take a look at what he had to offer. He played the part of the benign seafarer as he traded his goods. The isle had fewer dragon trophies for him than usual, but they had plenty of other worthwhile things to offer instead.

His smile widened when he saw a certain runt slip onto his ship, unnoticed by his tribesmen. It was strange to see Hiccup out so soon as he usually chose to visit when no one else was around, but it was far from unwelcome. Between his inventions and the Whisperer gold he'd somehow acquired months earlier, the boy had recently become one of Johann's favorite people to trade with while on Berk. The inventions especially had been useful, even if he'd only managed to get a very few recreated for sale.

He only wished Hiccup still made dragon-hunting weapons. He'd gone digging after the boy started trading his inventions and the stories he'd heard were quite impressive. While those within the Archipelago might have looked down on his skills, those without weren't so stuck in the past. Had he finished just one of his weapons, Johann was sure they would have sold well. The boy's ingenuity might even have rivaled Viggo's if he'd kept at it, and Johann would have profited greatly from it in turn.

It was a shame, truly.

Chapter Text

Johann watched the Hooligans search his wares with his usual fake smile. When he spotted their heir grabbing a jar, he called out, “Oh, that's pure squid ink, Hiccup. Wrestled from the colossal squid of the northern waters.”

Hiccup smiled and pulled a spyglass out of a pocket inside his vest. “Would you take an upgraded spyglass as a trade? I've altered the glass to better help with the sun glaring off the sea.”

Johann hummed. He'd accepted a few spyglasses before, but they were far from his favorite of Hiccup's inventions. Mimicking the exact curve the boy somehow managed was hard enough, but figuring out what he added to the glass whenever the boy changed it was a waste of time since his people rarely managed it. “Not today, I think. Your last spyglass is still serving me well. What else have you got?”

“What do you think of this winch? I reinforced it so it could easily help you pull up your gangplank and some of your heavier cargo.”

Johann smiled at the winch that was no bigger than his head. Now recreating that could be both useful and profitable. He rubbed the shoulder he'd injured a month back while stealing another merchant's haul, saying, “A welcome tool for a working man's ailing shoulder. Consider it done.”

As he took the winch to put it away, he heard Hiccup deadpan, “Wow. Another sword. Just what we need.”

“If you must know, it's not for me. I'm heading off to my yearly meeting with the Chief of the Shivering Shores. The last man who showed up without a gift left without a head,” the Hooligan's chief replied. “Johann! What will you take in trade?”

Johann turned to see the chief holding the dead merchant's sword. It was nothing too special so he held out his arms and said, “Stoick! It is but your good graces I desire when my amble ship passes through Berk.”

“You'll always be welcome on our shores.” Stoick turned to his son and patted his shoulder. “I'll be back in five days. While I'm gone...”

Johann watched the two walk off with interest. Between that and Hiccup arriving with the crowd, he wondered if the Hooligans were finally catching on to the boy's potential.

“Johann!”

“Mildew!” he turned to see the old man who'd sent him a message only a week before.

“Did you bring what I want?”

“Always straight to the point. I like that!” He opened a nearby basket to show the bushes he'd carefully uprooted to ensure they could be replanted. Once the old man had gotten a look, he closed the basket and asked, “I assume you've brought my cabbage?”

Mildew gestured to a basket of cabbage. As Johann put the fresh food away below deck, the old man said, “Take these to my house.”

The trader bit back a scoff and glanced around for someone he could trick into doing the work for him. He spotted Berk's tanner and put on a wide grin. “Ah, Ack, just the man I wanted to see.”

After seeing the oleanders off, he turned his focus to his real purpose on Berk. With Stoick gone, he needed to find a source of information. As the crowds were beginning to lessen, he sent the stragglers off with a promise to return soon then closed up the ship and headed for the Great Hall.

A mug of ale in hand, he drifted through the hall with an open ear. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like anyone was in the gossiping mood. He'd have to get the ball rolling, unfortunately.

He sat down next to a couple of men, asking, “So, gentleman, how has Berk been since my last visit?”

“Quiet, actually,” one said. “We only had one raid since your last visit.”

“As long as you don't count the couple of dragons that snuck around the village,” another added.

“Snuck around?” Johann asked between feigned drinks.

“Aye. A zippleback stole our boots one night, then a nightmare tore up the hall the next. And some dragon blew up the armory the next night, destroying most of our weapons since we stored them for the winter. Three nights later, there was a raid.”

“Thank Odin we'd been dealing with an Outcast invasion at the time. The two ended up running each other off and we came out untouched.”

“Nothing was even stolen, by either group.”

“What wonderful news.” And quite fortuitous timing. How had Berk gone from having more raids than anyone to only having a raid when it benefited them. Perhaps there was more to the idea that the Conqueror was from Berk after all. “And you truly haven't had an attack before or since?”

“Nope, not since Hiccup's attack.”

Johann nodded. The boy had still been sleeping off his injuries when he’d last visited Berk and it hadn’t taken much to get the story out of Stoick. He’d only known the boy was up and about again because the chief had promised to keep him updated on his condition, mistaking his grief over lost profit for concern for the boy. “Oh yes, I remember hearing about that. It seems young Hiccup has recovered well. So have you -”

“A bit too well,” one of the men cut over him with a scoff. “The runt keeps running off, despite clear orders from the chief that he's to stay in the village.”

“At least the chief gave up on having him watched. I was half tempted to lock him in one of the prison's cells the next time the chief assigned me guard duty.”

“Probably wouldn't have held him anyways, slippery brat.” A new man said as he sat down at their table. “The only thing I believe about that story of his is that he managed to sneak away from Alvin.”

Another man smacked his arm. “The elder made her decision and the chief backed her up. Ain't our place to question it.”

“Story? Alvin?” Johann pushed.

The men snorted and a few shook their heads.

“Boy claims he found Hamish I's treasure some months back. Stole it right out from under Alvin's nose.”

“Did he?” Johann leaned forward. That would explain how the boy had gotten his hands on gold bearing the symbol of the Whisper Tribe. He’d just been starting to wonder if the boy had stumbled on something that could lead him to the artifact Viggo had been searching for.

“As if,” a man muttered into his drink.

“Well, Alvin sure wasn't happy to see him here when he came looking for that Conqueror, was he?”

“Conqueror?” Johann redirected. He was still curious about Hiccup's exploits, but he was more interested in finally getting to the point.

“That's what he called them. The Dragon Conqueror. Said he killed a beast out on the Nest.”

“I don't buy it. No one man could have killed that thing. I doubt an army could have killed that thing. Its head could have filled this entire hall and then some.”

“Why did Alvin come here looking for this Conqueror?” Johann asked, playing dumb. “It doesn't sound like you know who they are, if they exist at all?”

“Nah, they found a piece of leather with our crest on it at the Nest. Probably just came from something the dragons stole, but Alvin thought it meant one of us was the Conqueror.”

“As if anyone in their right mind would keep a kill like that quiet.”

“Only thing we know is the scouting party found some crossbow bolts with speed stinger venom on them.”

“Speed stinger venom?” Using one dragon's venom against another? That was interesting. It was something he'd expect from more clever hunters like Grimmel or Viggo, not from the more simple-minded Vikings of the Barbaric Archipelago.

Johann slipped away the first chance he got, disheartened. It seemed the Conqueror was more than likely an outsider who'd slipped in and out of the Archipelago without the locals noticing.

As he made his way to his ship, he spotted Hiccup stepping out of the forge. He paused to watch the boy carry a basket of weapons into the armory, considering, before continuing on his way. He shook his head for even believing for a second it could have been the runt. As clever as he was, he was just as disgustingly soft. He could still remember how nauseated the boy looked when he'd tried to sell him a portrait of a nadder's beheading some months back after the boy had requested new paintings. Then there was his refusal to finish his dragon-hunting weapons. No, he wouldn't be able to kill a chicken, let alone the red death.

Unlike the others, Astrid wasn't surprised to find Hiccup lying next to the fire when they tracked down the smoke. He didn't even bother to open his eyes as they approached, choosing just to wave lazily.

“What are you doing here?” Snotlout asked.

“Taking a nap on the beach, obviously.”

“You should have told someone. We thought a dragon was out here?” Astrid said.

“It's just a campfire,” Hiccup scoffed.

“Everyone's on edge with how quiet it's been. Going over a month without a raid or rogue sighting is strange,” Fishlegs pointed out. “Well, Mildew's seen dragons, but he's always seeing dragons so...”

“Why are you napping out here anyway?” Astrid asked.

“Why not?”

“This was such a waste of time,” Snotlout said, turning to head off down the beach.

The twins followed him, but Fishlegs glanced at Astrid.

“Go on, I'll drag him back after we put out the fire.”

She waited until she couldn't hear Fishlegs' footsteps anymore before crossing her arms and kicking Hiccup's leg. She flinched immediately after and looked around.

“None of them are here,” he said, peaking up at her with one eye. “I didn't want to risk exposing them to the smoke. I wasn't sure if it would carry the poison.”

“Poison?”

“Blue oleander bushes,” he said, gesturing to the burning wood. “One of the patrols spotted Mildew planting them across the main island. They're poisonous to reptiles, which includes most dragons. I've spent the past week keeping the flock out of the forest while I tracked down a scauldron who I could bribe into searching the island for me.”

“Couldn't you just order one to do it?”

“My flock doesn't have any since they stick to their own, for the most part. Predatory dragons tend to be that way. They love blue oleanders, though, so I offered the one I found every flower from the bushes if he tracked them down and left without causing trouble.”

She scowled, but otherwise didn't get to express her annoyance with him bringing uncontrolled dragons to Berk before the sound of running footsteps reached them. They turned as the others came rushing out from behind some rocks.

“You will not believe what I just found!” Snotlout said, panting with a wide grin.

“A severed head?”

“Our cousin, Lars?”

“Our cousin Lars' severed head?”

“You two know what it is. Why are you guessing?” Fishlegs asked the twins.

“Why do we do anything, Fishy?”

“Why do we do anything?” Tuffnut wondered and Ruffnutt shrugged.

“What did you find, Snotlout?” Astrid asked, wanting to get this latest nonsense over with quickly.

“Technically we all found it,” Fishlegs said and Snotlout shoved him.

“Yeah, but I saw it first, so it's mine. Come on, it's this way.”

Astrid reluctantly followed the others. She glanced over her shoulder as they neared the rocks to see if Hiccup was coming, but he hadn't moved.

“It's a boat,” she said a few minutes later, unimpressed to see Snotlout's discovery turned out to be a small shipwreck.

“There's something inside, but he wouldn't let us see until we got you,” Fishlegs explained.

They walked over and peeked under the shipwreck to see a girl around their age lying unconscious in the sand.

“Whoa! Now I like the boat,” Tuffnut said and tried to lean closer, only to be stopped by Snotlout.

“Remember, I get to keep her!”

“Snotlout, she's a person!” Astrid snapped, glaring at him.

“Right?! How lucky is that?”

Shaking her head, she pushed all the guys out of the way so she could go check on the other girl. She seemed to be breathing fine, and she stirred when Astrid set a hand on her wrist. “Hey, are you okay?”

The other girl blinked her eyes open, then flinched away.

Astrid held up her hands to show she was unarmed. “Hey, it's alright. We're not going to hurt you.”

The other girl coughed and asked for water, causing all three boys to trip over themselves trying to help.

Astrid stepped back to share a look with Ruffnut.

“W-Where am I?” the new girl asked after drinking from Snotlout's water flask.

“This is Berk, and I'm the one who rescued you. The name's Snotlout.”

“And I'm FIshlegs.”

“Tuffnut.”

Shaking her head, Astrid shoved Snotlout and Fishlegs out of the way while Ruffnut dealt with her brother. She helped the girl out from under the ship. “Sorry about them. I'm Astrid.”

“Heather.”

“So, Heather... What happened to you?”

“My family and I were on our way home to our island when our ship was attacked by pirates.”

“I want to be a pirate!” Tuffnut interrupted from where his sister had him pinned on the ground and the group turned to him. “Or a fish cleaner. I'm still on the fence.”

Astrid cleared her throat as Ruffnut shoved his face into the sand. “You were saying?”

“They attacked our ship and took us back to our island, laying siege to it. I was able to escape, but my mother and father,” Heather turned away, clutching her chest. “They weren't so lucky.”

“Stupid pirates!” Tuffnut shouted as he spat out sand. “I'm definitely gonna be a fish cleaner!”

“Hey, everything will be just fine. I'll take care of you,” Snotlout said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “My uncle's the chief and I'm basically his heir so I can get things set up for you.”

“You're the chief's heir?” Heather asked, looking him over with a frown.

“No, he's not,” Astrid cut in.

“I might as well be,” Snotlout huffed, glaring at her. “Better than Useless.” He turned back to Heather with a grin. “Come on, I'll take you to the village.”

Astrid frowned and took another look under the ship before following the others.

Hiccup tried to keep his worries off his face as he arrived home that night.

He'd gotten back to the Rookery after cleaning himself and his clothes thoroughly, only to find the sea dwellers nervously fussing about a ship landing on Long Beach earlier that morning. He and a few from the defense horde had checked the boat out, but it had been wrecked and abandoned. He would have thought the boat had just washed up given its state, except Stormfly had found five scents heading towards the boat and six scents leaving.

He'd gone looking for Astrid to tell her, knowing no one else would take him seriously, but he couldn't find her. She wasn't at her house or in the Great Hall. She hadn't been on watch or practicing in her usual patch of forest. He tracked down the other teens, but she wasn't with them and he hadn't wanted to ask since Snotlout looked annoyed about something. Since it was getting late, he'd decided to grab an early dinner, then stake out the Great Hall to see if she went there for her own meal.

“Anyone home?” he called as he pushed open the door, only to pause when he saw his dad talking to Astrid and an unknown girl. “Uh, what's going on?”

“Ah, Hiccup good. This is Heather. Heather, this is my son, Hiccup.”

The dark-haired girl smiled at him and came over to hold out her hand. “Hi, it's nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he said, returning her smile and handshake before glancing over at Astrid in question.

It was his dad who answered, though. “Heather washed up here after her island was destroyed by pirates. She's going to stay with us until we find a safe place for her.”

Hiccup glanced up at his room. “With us as in our village or as in our house.”

His dad gave him a pointed look.

“Right, okay.” He turned to Heather with a smile so she knew it wasn't her he was annoyed with. “Come on, you can have my room.”

“I don't want to be a bother,” she said, rubbing her arm.

“It's fine.” It wasn't like he spent much time in his room anyway, and all of his most important possessions were kept in either his forge or the aerie he shared with Toothless.

He really only used his room to store his artwork, as he didn't want to risk keeping so much irreplaceable and flammable artwork around a bunch of fire-breathing reptiles. He trusted his flock, but accidents happen so everything except his more suspicious pieces (such as Hiccup II's shield and all his drawings of Toothless) stayed in the village.

He led Heather up to his room and gestured her in.

“Thank you for letting me stay here. I didn't mean to steal your room.”

“It really is fine. I can sleep anywhere.” Honestly, he preferred the comfort that came with sleeping against Toothless in their aerie.

“Wow! What are these?” She walked over to look at one of the shields hanging on the walls.

“My collection. The sketches are all mine and a lot of the ink drawings are too, but the rest I got from traders.”

“They're cool!” She walked around to look at some of the others before giving him a coy smile. “You must really like dragons, huh?”

He shrugged, looking at an ink drawing of Stormfly taking flight. “I like art. Dragons just make interesting subjects. There's so many types of dragons and they all move in different ways and have different abilities.”

“Yeah,” she said and he noticed her staring. Caught, she ducked her head and turned back to the painting. “I guess they're pretty beautiful, in their own way.”

“I guess they are,” he said, voice soft. “But, yeah, I'm not a warrior so I needed something to do during the raids.”

“I get that. I'm not much of a warrior either. Honestly, I'd take my books over a raid any day. ” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and turned to face him fully. “I'm surprised you're not one, though?”

“Really?” he said, confused.

She shrugged, smiling. “You just have this... strength about you. Not physically, obviously, but there's definitely something about you.”

“Oh, th-thanks.” A small, draconic chirp slipped past his lips as a warmth settled in his chest. Looking away, he asked, “So, uh, do you need anything? Some warm yak milk? A nice fish stew? Have you had dinner?”

“I think I'll just go to bed. It's been a long day.”

"Right, I'll leave you to it then.”

“Hey, Hiccup?”

He paused, turning to look at her. “Yes?”

“Thanks,” she said with a soft smile that he found himself returning.

Chapter Text

“She seems nice,” Hiccup said when he met Astrid in the woods behind his house. “I'm guessing she's the one that wrecked on Long Beach this morning.”

“That's where Snotlout found her, yeah.”

He blinked. “Wait, so earlier when he said he found something he was going to keep?”

“He meant her, yeah,” she snorted.

“One of these days a girl is going to set him on fire.”

“I'm hoping it will be that crazy Bog-Burglar girl. That way I'd know for sure it hurt without having to pay the weregild,” Astrid joked. She glanced back at the house as her smile fell. “So your dragons spotted her coming in? Why didn't you say anything before?”

“I only found out after we talked. I'd been so busy all day taking care of the oleanders that I couldn't check in with the flock.”

“Was there any sign that the pirates followed her?” she asked, feeling silly even as the words left her mouth. How would a bunch of dragons be able to tell Hiccup that?

“If they did, they're staying away from Berk. Hers was the only ship to enter our waters,” he answered despite her thoughts.

She decided not to question it, though, as she saw a shadow moving away from his house. “Is that Heather?”

He turned just as the shadow disappeared behind another house. He squinted with a frown. “I don't see anything. Heather went to bed a while ago, though. Nibbles checked on her before we left.”

“Nibbles?”

A gurgle came from above them and she looked up to see a bright gold and purple terrible terror staring down at them.

“That’s Scalenibbler, but I him Nibbles for short,” he said, holding up his arm. The terror perched on it like a bird of prey on a falconer’s glove.

“You're insane,” she huffed and left him to his beast. She tried to catch up to the shadow she was sure was Heather, but she couldn't find anyone.

“You're up early.”

Snotlout turned to see Heather approaching. He quickly threw on a flirty smile and flexed his arm. “Yeah, well, you know, you don't get these by lazing around all day.”

“Weren't you just complaining about having to get up early for watch?” Tuffnut asked and he shoved the other boy to the ground.

“Ignore him. Is there something I can do for you? How about we grab some breakfast and -”

“I already ate, actually. Sorry. I was looking for Hiccup.”

Snotlout's face fell. “Why are you looking for Useless?”

She blinked. “Useless?”

“Yeah, Hiccup the Useless. Because he's useless at everything.”

“I don't know. Astrid said he was alright with a sword,” Ruffnut said.

“He also found that treasure,” Tuffnut added.

Snotlout knocked their heads together, which only made them laugh because of course it did.

“As I was saying, whatever you want from him, I could do it way better.” He puffed out his chest, but Heather was still looking at the twins.

“What was that about a treasure?” she asked.

Ruffnut shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I guess he's been sneaking away from Berk behind our backs a bunch and one time he found some stupid treasure.”

“But he already spent it so don't bother asking him for any,” Tuffnut pouted.

“Trust us, we tried.”

“I just wanted a solid gold kidney, but no! He wasted it all on books and supplies for the village and other boring things like that.”

“Supplying the village isn't boring,” Astrid said as she and Fishlegs walked up.

“You would say that,” Ruffnut said, patting her brother on the back.

“I could have had a gold kidney!”

Astrid turned to Snotlout and Heather. “What are they on about now?”

“They were telling me about how Hiccup found treasure.”

“He says he found treasure, but no one actually believes it. Except for those two idiots,” Snotlout cut in. “Hiccup is Useless, remember. There's no way he'd actually be able to do something like that.”

“Snotlout's right,” Astrid said after a beat.

The other four Hooligan teens turned to her.

“Did she just agree with Snotlout?”

“Huh, Ragnarök's come a lot sooner than I thought it would.”

Astrid rolled her eyes at the twins' comments. “I can admit it when those infrequent moments come up where Snotlout actually uses his brain.”

“Hey!”

“So you don't think Hiccup found treasure?” Heather asked.

“I think he found a bit of gold while stomping around a deserted island, sure. But I've sparred with Hiccup. He's barely survivable with a sword, and he can't do much else. There's no way his story is anything more than a tall tale.”

“Yeah, see, that's exactly what I was saying,” Snotlout said. “So forget Hiccup, whatever you need, I'm your guy.”

“Oh, did you need something?” Fishlegs asked. “I'd be happy to help too.”

“Well, I was just trying to find Hiccup. He's not home and your chief said to check the forge, but he wasn't there.”

“He's probably out in the forest. He usually spends the day out there if he's not helping in the forge.”

“Could you take me to him?” she asked, setting her hand on Fishlegs' arm.

“No one ever knows where he is, and no one cares,” Snotlout said, stepping between the two. “He'll be gone until dinner so you really should just forget about him.”

“Oh, I see, but your chief wanted him to give me a tour of the village.”

“I can do that for you,” Snotlout and Fishlegs offered together, but the bigger boy quickly retreated under the other's glare.

“Come on, I'm a way better guide than he could ever hope to be.”

Fishlegs watched Snotlout practically drag Heather away, the twins trailing after them, before turning to Astrid. “You don't really believe what you said about Hiccup, do you? You told Stoick he was okay with a sword.”

“He could be better, but no, I don't believe any of it.”

“Then why'd you say it?”

“I don't think we should be telling her too much about Hiccup.”

“Why?”

“I just don't trust her. When was the last time someone was that interested in Hiccup.” She frowned when Fishlegs just stared at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. He liked his face the way it was too much to point out how interested she had been ever since his accident.

She narrowed her eyes and he curled in on himself.

“I'm just, you know, wondering if maybe, um, there might be a different r-reason for why you might, perhaps, be worried about another girl kind of showing a little interest in Hiccup.”

She stepped towards him and he flinched.

“It was just a thought.”

“Let me be clear. I am not and would never be interested in Hiccup. Got it?”

“Yep! Yes! Got it! Completely understood!”

“I'm just keeping an eye on him because he's been sneaking around and getting into trouble.”

“Right. Of course. Won't happen again.”

She nodded.

Fishlegs didn't breathe until she was out of sight. “Oh yeah, she's definitely jealous.”

Astrid scowled out at the forest as she sat on Wild Dragon Cliff.

“You know, the cliffs over Thor's Beach have a much better view,” Hiccup joked as he sat down next to her.

“Do they also have an entrance to your... What do you even call it? Your secret lair?”

“Lairs are for sea dwellers, and I'm seen more as a sky dweller, despite the lack of wings.”

She gave him an unimpressed look.

“We call it the Rookery. And I'm not telling you where any other entrances are. You knowing about this one and the one on Highest Point is nerve-racking enough as it is.”

He said it in a joking tone, but they both knew he was serious.

“Then I guess this is the only place I can go to get your attention when you're off doing dragon things since I'm not going all the way up the mountain.”

“Fair.” He pulled his whistle out of his vest and gave it to her. “Here. I use it to call for a messenger dragon when I'm stuck in the village so you can use it to have one of them come get me. One blow means you need help. Two means it's an emergency. Three means it was a false alarm and to stay away.”

She rolled the whistle between her fingers. “Thanks, I guess.”

“What did you need me for, anyway?”

“It's Heather. You need to be careful around her.”

“Why?”

“I think she's up to something. I told you I saw her sneaking around last night, and she was asking all these questions about you earlier.”

“What kind of questions?” he asked, sitting up more.

“She wanted to know more about the treasure when the twins brought it up and she kept trying to find you.”

He blinked and relaxed. “And that's bad?”

“Yes. I don't trust her.”

“Because she wants to spend time with me and is interested in something I did.”

“Come on, Hiccup. No one is ever just interested in you.”

His face fell blank and he stood up. “Thanks, Astrid. I'll keep that in mind.”

“You know that's not what I meant,” she growled, following him when he walked away.

“Do I?”

She shoved him against a tree. Ignoring the hissing coming from above their heads, she leaned into his face and said, “Obviously you are interesting. Those things up there prove it. It's just that no one's going to know that just by looking at you.”

“Maybe she did,” he said, trying to push her back to no avail.

“Or maybe she's up to something and you're so out of touch with humans that you're falling into her trap the same way you did Alvin's.”

He flushed and actually managed to shove her away, snarling something she couldn't understand.

“Hiccup, -”

“Just leave me alone, Astrid,” he hissed, stomping off.

Her attempts to follow were cut off by the fire from a trio of terrors.

“Look, just, be careful,” she called after him, but he didn't respond.

Hiccup stared into the hearth as Astrid's words rang through his head.

He looked up when the door opened to see Heather stepping inside. She looked shocked to see him, but quickly smiled. “Hey, I thought you'd be at the Great Hall getting dinner.”

He gestured to the stew cooking over the fire. “I prefer to enjoy a nice quiet meal more.” At least when he wasn't tucking into a dragon fire-cooked meal alongside his rowdy flock. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping there was something here I could eat, actually,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I've never really been a fan of big noisy crowds, and after everything with my island... A quiet meal sounds nice”

"Well, I made plenty if you'd like to share.” Standing up to stir the stew, he gestured to the chairs around the hearth. “I usually make extra in case Dad wants some when he gets home.”

“Thanks, Hiccup. I'd really like that. Would you like me to grab the bowls?”

“Sure, thanks. They're right in there.”

The two ate their stew and bread in a peaceful quiet for a short time before Heather said, “I was looking for you earlier.”

“Yeah, Astrid told me you'd been asking about me.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, she said you wanted to know where I was and were asking a bunch of questions about the treasure,” he said, keeping his voice even as he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, yeah, I guess I was. I was just confused. They all just sounded so dismissive of you and I couldn't get it. You didn't seem like someone who'd make up stories like that,” she said, looking up with a frown. “Especially Snotlout. He kept calling you Useless.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” he snorted, focusing back on his food. See, Astrid. A perfectly valid reason to be asking questions. “So why were you looking for me? Was there something you needed?”

“I was hoping you'd give me a tour of the village, but Fishlegs said you were out in the forest so Snotlout gave me one instead.” A bit of annoyance leaked onto her face and he flinched.

“Yikes. I am so sorry I couldn't save you from that,” he said genuinely. Between his uncontrollable flirting and his gruff demeanor, Hiccup could only imagine how obnoxious his cousin would have been. Especially considering Heather seemed to be calmer and gentler than the girls who usually had to put up with Snotlout.

“Is he always like that?”

“From what I understand, yeah. I don't spend much time around him or the others.”

“Right, Fishlegs said you're usually out in the forest.”

“Yeah, I like it out there. It's peaceful and I don't have to deal with people like Snotlout.”

She chuckled. “That sounds nice. I was... I was actually worried you were out there because of me.”

“What? No, it had nothing to do with you. Trust me, you're probably the only one on this whole island I don't want to get away from right now.” His face felt a little warm after saying that, and the smile she gave him didn't help.

She quickly looked away, though. She tucked her hair behind her ear as she said, “What about Astrid? She's your... sword fighting teacher? Right?”

“Something like that,” he sighed. “We kind of got in a fight earlier so I don't really want to see her right now.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, grabbing his hand.

He blinked, a little startled to be touched by a human in a way that wasn't forceful or painful. Even his dad and Gobber tended to be a little rough without meaning to, but her touch was completely gentle.

Pushing the thought down, he held her hand back and shrugged. “I mean, I don't even know what to say. She's just... She used to ignore me, which was still better than how some of the others treated me, but something happened a few months ago. Ever since then, our relationship has been totally different. Which would be nice, maybe, except it's been a constant back and forth. I get that she can't trust me completely since I'm me, but her bouncing between being understanding and being condescending is just... It makes me wish she'd just ignore me again! Really, I just want the whole village to ignore me again sometimes!”

Heather softly squeezed his hand as he tried to recompose himself after his accidental rant.

“Sorry.”

“Don't be. I'm sorry she treats you that way. Not to be rude, but it does seem like you'd be better off without her. She said a lot of awful stuff about you to me and the others earlier.”

His shoulders drooped and he looked away. He wasn't surprised, not really. Astrid had never really liked him. She'd only even given the time of day after he'd killed the queen because he was a mystery she wanted to solve. And now that the mystery was solved, she just wanted to keep an eye on the flock. She trusted him enough to not burn Berk to the ground, but only that much.

“Hey, let's not think about that right now. How about you make up for leaving me with Snotlout today by giving me a tour of the forest tomorrow?” Heather suggested. “It'd be nice to get away to somewhere peaceful after everything that's happened.”

Any uncertainty he'd been feeling vanished with her last sentence. “Yeah, alright, I can do that. After lunch maybe?”

“That sounds great,” she said. “Maybe you know a good place where we can eat dinner? I used to love watching the sunset on the beach. We could have a picnic, if you think it'd be safe.”

“Sure, nothing in the forest would hurt us if we stick to the right paths,” he said, thinking of good places for a picnic. Somewhere private so the others wouldn't be able to bother them if they realized Heather had snuck off with him, but not too wild where they'd run the risk of needing the flock's protection. “I think I know just the place. There's a small cove a little north of Thor's Beach that's really nice. The path down the cliffs is narrow, but it should be fine for just the two of us and it'd make it hard for any of the others to bother us.”

“That sounds wonderful. I can't wait.”

“[Human ahead,]” Snoopcurl warned, slipping into his vest.

Hiccup frowned, wondering who would be out in the forest so late in the night. The village wasn't far, but it was still further than most would wander in the dark. His mind briefly went to the ship the sea dwellers had spotted, but it had come and gone from Long Beach before the defense horde could get there. Since there were no new scents on the beach, Hiccup assumed the people on the ship realized they'd landed on the wrong island and continued on their way.

He cocked his head when he saw the shadowy shape of a teenage girl moving through the moonlit trees. “[Sunblade?]”

“[No. I don't recognize them.]”

He continued forward cautiously, though he soon relaxed. “Heather?”

She jumped and spun around. Her arms came up defensibly, then she clutched her chest. “Oh, Hiccup, you scared me!”

“Sorry, but what are you doing out here?”

“I couldn't sleep so... I went for a walk.” She ducked her head and tugged at her braid. “I was having terrible nightmares.”

“I can imagine.” He reached out to take her hand. “But why did you come out to the forest? It can be dangerous at night.”

“It looked like Snotlout was on watch. I didn't want him to bother me if he saw me walking around the village. I thought I'd walk to the beach since I remember the way the others had taken me to the village.” She squeezed his hand back and stepped closer. “I'm sorry, I thought you said it'd be safe.”

“Certain parts are, but we should still probably get back.”

She glanced down the path and bit her lip. “I don't think I'm ready to head back. Oh! Why don't we go see that cove you told me about?”

“I don't know.”

“Please? I think I really need this. I-I just...” She ducked her head as her voice shook. “I can't stop thinking about my parents.”

Hiccup hesitated and he could hear Astrid's worries in his head, but he pushed them down as he spotted the tears beginning to drip down Heather's cheeks. He laced his fingers with hers and tugged her in the direction of the hidden beach. “Alright, just stay close.”

She nodded and pulled her hand away to link her arm with his. “Lead the way.”

“Stoick!”

The chief groaned and sat up as his brother-in-law barged into his room. “Spitelout, it's -”

“Outcasts! They were just spotted in Berk's waters! Astrid says that girl Heather's working with them!”

“She's not here!” Astrid snarled, stomping in. “She must still be out in the forest!”

Stoick was suddenly wide awake as his mind transformed the words Outcasts and forest into Alvin and, “Hiccup! Where's Hiccup!?”

Chapter Text

Heather paced nervously and constantly looked between the water and the treeline while waiting on the beach. Hiccup had said the forest was safe and the others had basically been complaining when they'd told her there weren't any dragons near Berk recently, but she still felt uneasy. It was probably because of who she was meeting, but it felt like she was being watched.

Thankfully it didn't take too long for an Outcast ship to slide out of the mist. Three men hopped out, two grabbing the vessel to hold it steady without anchoring or fully beaching it while the last approached her.

“What have you learned about the boy?” Savage asked.

“Not much. He's pretty ostracized from his tribe so he spends most of his time away from the village.”

“Ostracized?”

She wasn't sure if he wanted more information or if he didn't know what the word meant so she decided to play it safe. “They all think he can't do anything so they ignore him and drive him away.”

He shook his head. “Boy's practically an Outcast already. He should have taken Alvin's offer when he had the chance.”

Not for the first time, she wondered what Alvin the Treacherous wanted with Hiccup. She knew better than to ask questions, though.

“But that's not much help to us, is it? Did you learn anything else or are we going to have a problem?”

“Not yet,” she admitted nervously. “No one wants to talk about him unless it's to complain about how useless he is and his room was empty aside from some dragon art, but -”

“What kind of dragon art?” he cut in, looking surprisingly interested.

“Just some drawings and paintings he made or bought.”

“Anything special? Strange dragons, weird killings, or unfamiliar Vikings?”

“No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I recognized all the dragons from raids and Hiccup said something about liking to draw the dragons in action so they were all just flying or walking or swimming or stuff like that. There weren't any Vikings killing the dragons.”

The Outcast hummed. “So it's just more useless information.”

“Yes, but,” she quickly added when his hand fell to his sword. “But I've got something better than information. Hiccup is taking me out into the forest tomorrow. Alone. We're going to watch the sunset in a cove just north of a place called Thor's Beach. He said it's isolated, so if you give me a little more time I can get you a lot more than just information.”

His grin grew feral. “Well, Alvin isn't known for his patience, but for this, I think he'd be happy having to wait. So long as you can deliver.”

“I can! I will! I promise!” Some rocks fell behind her and they both turned to look. The treeline looked empty, but her nerves were getting worse. “I better go.”

“Just remember what's on the line,” Savage said as he went back to the ship.

Heather raced back through the forest and to the village. She started to slip around the chief's house, but froze when she heard someone slam the front door open and stomp in. She listened and went pale when she heard how Astrid had seen her with Savage. She quickly retreated to the forest, trying to come up with a new plan.

It seemed hopeless, though. There was no way Hiccup would go with her to the cove once he found out she was working with the Outcasts. Savage had dismissed what little information she'd dug up, but even if he hadn't, she knew what the punishment would be for going back on her promise.

She stopped and turned back to the village. They would be searching the forest for her soon, if they hadn't started already. If she was careful, she might be able to steal a small boat. She'd have a day's head start on Savage. She probably wouldn't be able to save her parents even if she did make it back to Outcast Island before him, but at least she'd have a chance at seeing them before they were killed.

“Heather?” someone said behind her and she turned towards them, ready to fight for her freedom.

When she saw Hiccup staring at her with a confused frown, she dropped her arms and slapped on an innocent expression. “Oh, Hiccup, you scared me!”

He asked what she was doing and she gave him a lie about nightmares as relief filled her.

He didn't know! She still had a chance!

When he suggested heading back to the village, she looked away and bit her lip to hide her fear. She scrambled for an excuse to keep him away from the village. Her thoughts drifted to the beach. Maybe there was a way she could signal Savage to come sooner. At the very least, she could probably overpower Hiccup. Then she'd just have to hide out until the Outcasts came. Hopefully, Astrid hadn't heard about their meetup.

“I don't think I'm ready to head back. Oh! Why don't we go see that cove you told me about?”

“I don't know.”

“Please? I think I really need this. I-I just...” She scrambled for a believable lie. Her parents terrified faces filled her head and tears began to fill her eyes. She ducked her head as she went with the truth. “I can't stop thinking about my parents.”

The tears slipped free as Hiccup hesitated, then he smiled sympathetically and tugged her off the path. “Alright, just stay close.”

She kept the relief off her face as she linked their arms together and brushed away the tears. “Lead the way.”

Guilt tore apart her insides as he did just that. He didn't deserve what was coming. A part of her wanted to warn him, but she couldn't.

In the end, it was either him or her parents.

When Astrid got her hands on Heather...

Stoick had led a group out to the forest towards Long Beach to look for the spy, and Astrid had been expected to come along since she'd discovered the truth. She tried to say she could go look for Hiccup, but couldn't justify it to the chief without revealing how she'd find the boy. She'd had to wait until she could slip away, then hurry into the forest far enough that she wouldn't risk being spotted and could be sure no one was following her.

It took a few minutes after she blew the whistle twice, but then she heard a gurgle above her and looked up to see the bright purple terror Hiccup had called Nibbles.

“Hey there, boy,” she said, wondering if it would even understand her. Hiccup had said only the fury and training dragons understood Norse and she was pretty sure the training terror had been green and brown. She almost wished she had taken up Hiccup's offer to learn their language as she said, “I need to talk to Hiccup. Your king. It's important. He's in danger.”

To emphasize the point, she gave the whistle another two blows.

Nibbles growled and flew off.

She tried to be patient, but she quickly found herself practicing with her axe to ease her nerves. She put it away when she heard approaching wings, turning to see the blue and yellow nadder landing near her. She waited a moment, but the nadder seemed to be alone.

“Where's Hiccup?”

It looked back in the forest with a chirp.

“Is he coming?”

Its head shivered.

“Is... that a no?” she asked, assuming it was trying to mimic Hiccup's behavior.

Its upper body dipped up and down in a dragon nod.

“I need to talk to him. He's in danger. There's someone on the island who wants to hurt him.”

It hissed and its spines lifted from its tail. She flinched back, but it just shook itself and turned to the side. It crouched down, staring at her. After a beat, it cocked its head, then gestured to its back.

“You want me to get on?” she asked and it gestured to its back again. She wasn't happy about getting on the beast again, considering the wild trip the fury had given her, but she needed to get to Hiccup before something could happen. She carefully climbed onto its neck and took hold of two of the horns on its crown.

It sniffed the air for a moment, then took to the sky without warning.

Since they were keeping close to the tree line and it kept sniffing around, she quickly realized it didn't know where Hiccup was and had resorted to tracking him by smell. Wanting to help, she pressed close to its back to keep from being spotted and watched where they were heading. Noticing they were curving towards the northwest, Heather's words on the beach clicked in her head.

“I think I know where he is! Head that way!” she ordered and the dragon twisted to follow her command. “Hurry!”

It chirped and picked up speed.

“Down there!” she said as they neared the cove and it landed on the cliffs. She slipped off its back and quietly approached them, drawing her axe off her back. Her breath caught when she saw what was below and whispered, “Go get help! I'll try to buy time!”

It cocked its head, then turned and took off over the forest.

Tightening her grip on her weapon, she hurried down the path to the beach.

“Wow, those whale songs are so pretty,” Heather said, staring out at the ocean.

Frowning, Hiccup looked up from the driftwood he was gathering for their fire. The surf-lurker calls sounded like whale songs by design, but those who knew Dragonese could pick out the warning of a boat entering the flock's waters in the moans, squeaks, and clicks. “[Snoopcurl, go tell the sea dwellers to stay clear for now so they're not accidentally seen then alert the defense horde. I'm going to get the human back to the village before I head to the Rookery.]”

She buzzed off into the night as Hiccup joined Heather by the fire.

“I don't think those are whales,” he said, setting down the driftwood and starting to toss sand on the fire. “It sounds more like sliquifiers. We should head back to the village before they spot us.”

She looked nervous, but still grabbed his hand to stop him. “I'm sure they won't bother us. The others said the island hasn't been attacked by dragons in forever. Come on, I want to stay out here a little longer.”

“It's not -”

“Please, just-just five more minutes?”

He sighed, but sat next to her. “Alright.”

He continued to toss sand on the fire as she stared out at the ocean.

“Hey, the others said Alvin the Treacherous hated you for some reason. Can I ask what that's about?”

“Why do you want to know?” He looked up at her with a frown, surprised the others had told her that without telling her the full story.

“I was just curious. I couldn't imagine how you would even get involved with someone like him.”

“It was that treasure I found. We were searching for it at the same time and fought over it. It's kind of a long story, but I can tell you while we're heading back to the village.”

“You fought him?” she said, staring at him with wide eyes. “How are you not dead?”

“Luck, and forethought. He hadn't known my identity at the time so I just ran for it once I had the treasure. He only found out who I was a few fortnights ago when he attacked Berk looking for the Dragon Conqueror.”

“The Dragon Conqueror? The warrior that supposedly killed some giant dragon? Why would he come here looking for them?”

“No idea.” He turned back to the fire to finish putting it out. “I only got there at the end of his grand speech when he was threatening to kill Astrid if we didn't turn them over. I revealed myself so she could get away.”

“Wow. Was that what caused your relationship with her to change? You saving her?”

“What?” he asked before remembering his rant from dinner. “Oh, no. The opposite, really. Three months ago, I ended up in a dragon fight after sneaking away from the village. I got hurt and probably would have died if Astrid hadn't found me. She's been keeping an eye on me ever since.”

“Three months,” she hummed quietly as Hiccup stood up. Louder, she said, “It sounds like she doesn't trust you to be alone.”

“Alone isn't the problem,” he snorted. What she didn't trust was him being around Heather, and maybe his flock to an extent as well. He shook his head and glanced at the now-silent ocean. He held out a hand to help her up. “Come on, we need to get back now.”

She looked to the ocean as well, ignoring his hand. “Do we? It sounds like the dragons are gone.”

“Maybe, or maybe they stopped singing because something bigger came around. Let's go.”

“Just a little longer? Please?”

“I can't. I'm sorry.”

She sighed and let him pull her to her feet. “Me too.”

There was a quick second where he was confused, then he was slammed to the ground. He groaned, then tried to punch Heather before she shoved him onto his stomach. “What are you doing?”

She didn't answer as she climbed on top of him and pinned his arms behind his back.

“Heath-” he cut off as he heard splashing in the water just off the beach and something heavy being dragged through the sand. He tried to get his arms free, then bucked Heather off enough for him to kick her leg with his prosthetic. She pulled back with a pained hiss and he slammed his elbow into her face before scrambling away.

Although, it was all in vain. He didn't even have enough time to get to his feet before massive arms were wrapping around him and crushing him against someone's chest. The person turned and he found himself faced with not only Heather, but a group of men in Outcast garb.

Heather didn't look the least bit surprised as she stood up.

Hiccup closed his eyes and let out a breath. Astrid was right. Of course she was. Of course! When would he learn that humans just couldn't be trusted?

He only let the self-pity linger for a second before opening his eyes again to glare at the Outcasts.

One, the one he remembered hovering at Alvin's side during the invasion, smirked as he stepped forward to grab Hiccup by the chin. “Well, well, if it isn't little Hiccup the Tailfin. And earlier than promised as well.”

He turned to Heather, who looked away. “Your ship was spotted, Savage. I had to keep him away from the village before they could warn him.”

“Lucky for you, we were watching the cove and spotted your fire,” He turned back to Hiccup, his grin vicious. “And unlucky for you. Alvin's been wanting to have some words with you.”

“You can tell him to go -”

Savage's hand dropped to his throat, cutting off his breath.

Hiccup thrashed, but he knew it was no use. He couldn't fight five grown men and Heather on his own with no weapons, shield, or armor. He'd sent the nearest dragons away (his flock-mates were never going to leave him alone again) and he hadn't grabbed a new whistle to replace the one he'd given Astrid yet so he wouldn't be getting any help soon. Running wouldn’t work either since the Outcasts had crossbows and the path up the cliffs gave no cover. He could go for the water, but he hadn't been the strongest swimmer even before he'd lost his leg.

His only saving grace was that if Alvin wanted to talk to him, then that meant he wanted him alive. He just needed to buy time playing the part of helpless hostage until his flock could find him. He could handle that alone.

“Let him go!”

Savage's hand dropped as the group turned to see Astrid jumping down from a spot on the path a few feet up the cliff, her axe at the ready. He looked at two Outcasts and they laughed as they ran towards her.

Hiccup couldn't see most of the fight around the arms of the Outcast crushing him, but he did hear the thump of one of her opponents hitting the ground before she gave a loud shout.

“Just kill her already!” Savage snapped and drew his sword, glancing up at the cliffs.

“Wait! You can't kill her!” Heather said, flinching away when he turned his sword on her. “She's the one Alvin wants.”

“He wants the boy.”

“But he's also looking for the Dragon Conqueror, right? Well, that's her.”

Savage shared a look with his tribesmen and they all laughed.

“This little girl?” one out of sight near Astrid scoffed before yelping. Suddenly Astrid was shoved into view, a bruise on her forehead and blood painting her hands. “She bit me!”

“It's her,” Heather reaffirmed.

“And why do you think that?” Savage scoffed as two others went forward to grab Astrid.

They gained a few bruises and probably a bite mark or two, but they managed to pin her arms behind her back.

Meanwhile, Heather gestured to Hiccup. “He told me.”

He barely kept a confused frown off his face as Astrid sent him a look.

“He did?” Savage asked, looking between the three teens.

“Not in so many words, but he said that right around when the Conqueror killed that dragon, he'd left Berk and ended up getting attacked by a dragon she had to save him from. And after she went from completely ignoring him to not trusting him to be alone around people. Like he had a secret she wanted to keep hidden.”

Hiccup only met Astrid's gaze for a moment, but Savage spotted it and narrowed his eyes. He thought for a moment, then glanced back up at the cliffs. “Just load them up and we can kill her later if it's a trick. We've been here too long already.”

Stoick scowled as he returned to his house. There had been no sign of Heather. The girl must have realized she'd been caught and hid deeper in the forest than they could check in the dark. She'd be found eventually, but he was worried she'd find Hiccup first. He'd need to crack down harder on his son. He might even need to lock him up like Spitelout had suggested, just until the girl was found.

“Stoick!” Mulch called as he raced up, Hallr just behind him.

“Not no-”

“We went to check the docks and found an Outcast’s helmet lying next to Astrid's axe! Both were covered in blood!”

“That girl!” He should have known something was wrong when she disappeared. She must have found Hiccup after all, which meant... He turned to Hallr. “Get the ships ready! We're going after them!”

Chapter Text

Wodensfang glared at the bloodied twin-blade and helmet that had been abandoned on the beach. If anything happened to his clutch-mate...

“[How could you just leave when King Tailfin was in danger!?]” Rockwit barked.

“[What should I have done? Fly in and put the entire flock at risk?]” Stormfly squawked, her spines raising.

“[To protect our king, yes!]”

“[Leave her alone!]” Goldfin snarled. “[She's right! The humans could have discovered our connection to King Tailfin and Sunblade if she'd gone in! That would only lead to more danger for everyone in the future!]”

“[Not if she killed the invaders,]” Speeddemon hissed and the surf-lurker turned on him.

“[Which King Tailfin would never have wanted! Not on his behalf!]”

“[Enough!]” Wodensfang roared and the group fell silent under their king's glare. “[The only ones to blame for Tailfin being in danger are the Cast-Outs! Now stop arguing so we can save him!]”

“[What's the plan?]” Meatlug asked.

“[Take these and leave them somewhere for Tailfin's humans to find so they'll know he's been taken,]” he told her, knocking the helmet and weapon towards her with his tail.

“[Put them on the docks,]” Sharpshot suggested. “[The humans go there early in the morning to catch fish.]”

As the rock-gnaw grabbed them and flew off, Wodensfang turned to Goldfin. “[Take your pod and any other sea dwellers that will help and follow the boat. Make sure to stay out of sight.]” He turned to include the rest of the defense horde. “[We'll follow from above the clouds. Tailfin is probably already coming up with a plan to get free. We need to be there to support him. Do not approach until he or I give the order, understand? We cannot risk giving away our presence to the Cast-Outs unless it’s absolutely necessary.]”

There were a few grumbles, but no one argued against the wind-walker's orders. Goldfin dove into the waves while the rest of the horde took to the skies.

Once the men carrying Astrid made it onto the ship, her wrists were bound low on the mast so she was forced to sit with her back against it and her ankles were tied together. Instead of tying up Hiccup as well, the man holding him stayed next to Savage as Alvin's right hand oversaw the ship's launch. The boy went mostly ignored until they'd left Berk's waters towards Outcast Island.

“Now, what was I doing before we were interrupted? Oh, right!” Savage turned to Hiccup and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He yanked his head back, saying, “Alvin wanted some questions answered. Let's start easy. Is the girl the Dragon Conqueror?”

Hiccup gave a dragon growl.

“What was that?” Savage asked and leaned closer, then tightened his grip on Hiccup's hair when he stayed quiet. “Alvin's going to get his answers, boy. If you're as smart as he thinks, you'll start talking now and save yourself some pain.”

“I'll wait. I don't have anything to say to you.”

Astrid tugged on the ropes around her wrists when Hiccup was punched in the face.

“You're going to regret that.” Savage looked up at the Outcast holding him and nodded towards her. “Tie him up.”

She glared daggers into Savage's back as Hiccup's wrists were tied to the mast like hers. At least his legs were free, the man having given Hiccup's prosthetic a confused frown before deciding to leave it be. Once they were alone, she turned to Hiccup to see him frowning down at his lap.

When he noticed her staring, she looked away. “I -”

“Yeah, I know. You told me so.”

“I did,” she agreed and he scowled. “But I was going to apologize for what I said earlier.”

“Are you saying you didn't mean it?”

“I didn't mean it in the way it came out.” She subtly looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to them, then lowered her voice. “No one would see you and think you're interesting, but that's just because your strengths lie in more than just running in and hitting something until it stops moving. You're smart and stubborn and brave and if you wanted you could probably burn Berk to the ground even without your friends' help. Quite a few of us might even deserve it, but I know you won't. Because you're also kind, in a way that few others are. You forgive and trust people and try to help them however you can.”

“Even when I shouldn't,” he muttered. “Toothless is always saying something like that, but I just...”

“You're kind,” she repeated, deciding to ignore how she was apparently in agreement with a night fury. “It can be a flaw, but it's also lead to a lot of good. If you weren't so kind, I doubt you would have gone after, you know, and saved us all from it. If you weren't so kind, you probably would have let your friends tear me to pieces when I found out about them.”

“If I wasn’t so kind, I would have killed Toothless instead of letting him go,” he chuckled.

“Yeah,” she frowned, leaning her head back. She'd assumed the fury had gotten free and Hiccup had befriended it after. What had he been thinking letting it go? He'd made it clear it had been the first dragon he'd worked with so how had he known the dragon wouldn't have just killed him? “The rest of us would have done it. So why didn't you?” She watched him for a second as he just stared into the sea, then knocked their shoulders together. “Why didn't you?”

“I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “I couldn't.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?”

“Because I want to remember what you say, right now.”

“Oh, for the love of-I-I was a coward! I was weak! I wouldn't kill a-him!” he growled, voice rising before dropping back down suddenly at the end as he remembered where they were.

“You said wouldn't that time.”

“Whatever. I wouldn't. Three hundred years, and I'm the first Viking who wouldn't kill them.”

She stared at him as he turned away. “First to ride them, though.” She knocked their shoulders together again, nearly throwing him to the ground. She smiled at his annoyed face. “First to be one of them. So...?”

He looked down at his lap, then met her eyes. “I wouldn't kill him because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him, and I saw myself.”

She couldn't imagine it. She'd dealt with trapped dragons. The way they thrashed and snarled, snapping at anyone who got close in an attempt to do a little more harm before they were put down. It wasn't fear. It was pure fury, so she could only imagine what a dragon with fury in its name would have been like. For Hiccup to have been faced with that and still managed to see the frightened animal underneath...

“You’re a good person. Absolutely insane and stubborn as a yak, but good,” she sighed. “I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I really was just trying to help you, but I took it too far and that's on me.”

He stared at her for a moment, then smiled and pressed their shoulders together. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m pretty forgiving then.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. Her good mood faded when she noticed someone approaching them. “Just remember not to be too forgiving.”

He followed her gaze, then looked away.

Heather sat down on a bench next to the mast and looked him over. In a subdued voice, she asked, “Are you alright?”

“What do you care, traitor?” Astrid shot back, leaning forward to hide as much of him as she could. “Worried your chief will be mad if he’s too damaged?”

“It’s not like that,” Heather said, curling in on herself.

He leaned forward before Astrid could respond. “Did you mean anything you said to me?”

As he spoke and Heather responded, Astrid felt his finger brush over the back of her hand.

“My parents and I were attacked at sea, it just wasn’t by pirates. Alvin took us prisoner and he said the only way we’d be allowed to leave with our lives is if I went to Berk and spied on you.”

It took her a second to realize he was writing on her hand.

“And when you couldn’t find anything on him, you decided to just hand him over to Alvin instead.”

“It was a choice between my parents and a stranger. What would you have done?”

She glared the dark-haired girl down even as she realized Hiccup was writing boots. She brought her legs to her, angling her feet between her and Hiccup by making it seem she was trying to push closer to Heather.

“Astrid don’t! Just… Let’s just ignore her,” Hiccup sighed, leaning against Astrid’s legs.

“Are you okay?” she asked, twisting her feet further between them as she felt his fingers creep into her boot.

“Headache,” he grunted, squirming around before pressing his temple against her knee.

She put herself a little more between him and Heather, meeting her supposedly worried frown with a glare. “Nice try, but we're not buying your fake sob story so take a hike. Preferably into the sea.”

“It's not fake, though I understand why you wouldn't believe that,” Heather sighed, turning away. She frowned and stood up, walking to the ship's railing. “Are those sliquifier calls too?”

Astrid resisted the urge to look down at Hiccup as the other girl's words made her notice the song that had slowly begun to fill the air. It was still faint on the breeze, but she knew that the dragons were likely much closer than the sound indicated.

As if to confirm that, one of her daggers was placed in her hand while he said, “No, those sound more like whales.”

“Look, you got what you wanted, now leave us alone,” she said as she felt him grab her other dagger.

Heather sent one last nervous look at the sea, then turned back towards them. “I... I'm sorry. I wish there was another way.”

Astrid looked down at Hiccup as the other girl walked away. She set her hand on his and wrote, Plan?

Wait signal run sea, he responded. He closed his eyes and started humming softly, the sound more of a purr.

Because she was looking for it, she noticed the slight change in the sliquifiers' song, the change rippling out from the ship. She closed her eyes and tried to rest up so she'd be ready for his signal. She listened to the song and found herself trying to hum along, earning a snort from Hiccup that only made her try harder.

The sun was high in the sky when the song slowly began to change. She opened her eyes to check on the Outcasts, but they were oblivious. The one she’d taken an axe to was resting near the bow with his shoulder bandaged up. Savage and Heather were standing near him, keeping an eye on the sea. Two of the men were at the steering oar, talking quietly. She spotted the last man eating nearby and quickly looked away as her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten in almost a day since she'd missed dinner looking for Heather and the Outcasts (unsurprisingly) hadn't offered them breakfast.

Unfortunately, she must not have looked away quick enough because she saw the man smirk and stand out of the corner of her eye.

Three fingers pressed against her wrist.

She nudged Hiccup and nodded towards the approaching man.

One finger left her wrist.

She pulled her feet under her as Hiccup sat up, carefully keeping himself in front of her ankles until they were hidden by her skirt. She pushed the cut ropes off her boots and wrists.

Another finger lifted away.

“You hungry, girly?” the Outcasts huffed, leaning over her and waving a half-eaten piece of dried mutton in her face. “Maybe if you're good, you can -”

The last finger dropped and she sprung.

She slammed the dagger into the creep's shoulder, making him jerk back with a yelp. She didn't bother to recover her dagger, just grabbed Hiccup's wrist to keep him close and ran for the edge of the ship. Someone tried to grab her, but she spotted Hiccup slashing at their wrist before they both jumped overboard. She started to swim, but Hiccup tugged her under the ship and she followed his direction.

They came up on the opposite side and she took a few deep breaths as she oriented herself. Ahead was a small forested island. Behind, all the men were on the opposite edge of the ship, looking for them. She met Heather's eyes right before she and Hiccup ducked back under the water and swam for the island.

A second later a fin brushed her leg and she almost released all her breath in a scream. She peaked her eyes open despite the saltwater's sting to see a sliquifier was just beneath her. It brought the fin on its neck up to her hands to grab and she carefully did so. She looked over at Hiccup to see him grabbing the nose horn of a thunderdrum as her dragon gave a few clicks and the two began towing them forward.

It pulled her along until she needed to breathe, then nudged her chest to send her up to the surface. As she caught her breath, she looked back to see the ship trying to follow them. She dove back under the water as something clicked in her head.

Despite the fact they weren’t moving much faster than a human could swim for appearance's sake, the ship stayed far behind them. She assumed the dragons must have been slowing them down somehow, which led her to realize the dragons were the reason their ships had reached the Nest as fast as they had.

As they swam towards the island, she idly wondered how much distance a dragon could cover if they weren’t trying to hide.

The dragons were as careful to stay out of view while helping Hiccup and Astrid up onto the rocky shores as they had been when letting them up for air.

“So we're here. Now what?” she asked once they made it into the trees. She looked up at the clouds as she wrung her braid out. “Is one of them going to come grab us now that the Outcasts can't see us?”

“No, they'd get suspicious if we just disappeared. We need to either lead them away from their ship to steal it or find a place to hide. Tornado said my dad is headed this way with a few ships.”

She glanced back at the beach that was disappearing behind trees as they kept walking. “I'd say hide. Even if they're dumb enough to leave the ship unguarded, it would be hard for just the two of us to launch a ship that size. Not if you don't want the dragons to help.”

He nodded and held out his hand. “Do you still have my whistle?”

She handed it over and he blew into it.

Sharpshot nervously landed on the wings of the Cast-Outs' boat, crouching down so he hopefully wouldn't be seen. He wished he didn't understand so much Human-Tongue. If he was stupider (like Snoopcurl), then he wouldn't have even been considered for the job of spying on the Cast-Outs.

He peaked over the branch that held the wings as half of the humans climbed off the boat, the smallest of the three barking, “You two, stay... boat! The rest... you, spread out... find... If... see them, aim... legs... wants them alive... need... punishment.”

The two big humans in the boat got into relaxed lookout positions while the two big ones on the ground headed off to the left with hunting postures. All four carried spine-shooters like the one hidden in Tailfin's shield. One of the hunting humans rubbed the healing wraps on his shoulder and growled something about revenge.

The small ground human turned to the littlest human with annoyance and pointed to the forest. “Get down here... help find them... Unless you want your parents... killed because... you.”

The littlest human's fists clenched as she stomped off the boat.

Sharpshot followed them into the forest since they were heading in the same direction Tailfin and Sunblade had gone. The leader human was hunting, but the littlest human was tracking. She kept looking at the ground and plants until they reached the river where the kings had met up.

The leader hunter growled something and the littlest human made the human no head gesture.

“The trail ends here. They... river... hide their tracks.”

“... searching that way... we'll go upriver.”

They continued up the river as the littlest human continued to check the banks for tracks. They stopped when the river turned into a waterfall-fed small pond at the bottom of some cliffs. The littlest human looked nervous while the leader was angry.

She checked around the edges of the pond, then said, “Nothing, they... downriver.”

“You... you're right,” the leader growled and the two headed back downriver.

Sharpshot watched them go before flying up the cliff and ducking through the waterfall. Wodensfang, Tailfin, and Sunblade were sitting inside the hidden cave, watching the entrance cautiously.

He gave a wide berth to the female human, who was sitting right at the entrance. He remembered her from when he was trapped in the big stone cage. She'd nearly stabbed him twice with the same kind of small weapon that was currently in her hands and she'd hit him even more times with shields and buckets. Tailfin had assured the flock she wouldn't hurt any of them so long as they didn't hurt her or any of his other humans, but it was still a little scary to have her looking at him.

Not that he was scared. He wasn't scared of anything. He was just being cautious because he's smart (unlike Snoopcurl).

Sunblade opened her mouth and he ducked under Wodensfang's wing with a screech.

Because he was being cautious.

Stoick stared out at the sea, his hands tight on the ship's railing.

“We'll find them,” Gobber said, setting his hand on his shoulder.

“We need to hurry. We have to find them before they reach Outcast Island.” He doesn't want to think about what Alvin would do to his son. Between his grudge with Hiccup and his grudge with Stoick... And Astrid? Was she even still alive?

“We will,” Gobber said, slapping his back. “Have faith.”

Stoick closed his eyes and sent a prayer up to the gods. He reopened them when he heard a screech and glared up at the nadder flying above them, too far to be taken down. His eyes followed it as it flew towards a nearby island.

“There!” he shouted, spotting the beached Outcast ship.

Chapter Text

Whatever Astrid had planned to say was forgotten as Sharpshot screeched and hid under Toothless's wing.

“Is it okay?”

“He's fine. You just make him nervous,” Hiccup said as Toothless snorted and pulled his wing away from the timid common-garden.

“[Cautious!]” Sharpshot corrected, ducking behind Hiccup.

“Sorry, he's being cautious because he remembers you from training.” He rolled his eyes as he scooped up the small dragon. “[What's going on with the Cast-Outs?]”

“[They know you went to the river, but they went the other way since they couldn't find anything this way. The littlest one keeps trying to track you since the leader is threatening her parents, but she's only looking instead of smelling or listening.]”

He frowned. “[Her parents?]”

“[Yes, he said something about killing them if she doesn't find you. Cast-Outs are really mean to each other, huh?]” Sharpshot snorted.

Hiccup hummed as he scratched under the small dragon's chin. “[Yeah, something like that. Good job. Go keep an eye out and let us know if they head back this way.]”

Sharpshot whined, but flew back through the waterfall.

“What's wrong?” Astrid asked, but he didn't get the chance to respond.

“[Tailfin's humans are here!]” Stormfly squawked as a horn was blown.

Toothless raised his wing to cover Hiccup just before there was a large splash.

Hiccup peaked over the wing to see Astrid drenched and scowling at Stormfly, who was prancing forward without a care for the water dripping off her from her dive through the waterfall. “You okay?”

“Fine,” the girl huffed, standing up and pushing her wet bangs away from her eyes.

“If it makes you feel any better, my dad's here so we need to go back through the waterfall anyway.”

Stormfly, realizing what she'd done, shuffled up to Astrid and nosed her arm. “[Sorry.]”

“She says sorry,” he translated as the girl flinched away.

“Right.” She hesitantly set her hand on Stormfly's nose and the dragon nuzzled it.

Smiling, Hiccup came over and brought her hand down under the proud-thorn's chin. “Scratch here.”

Astrid frowned, but followed the instruction. Her eyes widened as Stormfly collapsed with a purr.

Toothless gave a dragon laugh and the proud-thorn swatted lazily at him with her tail.

“[Like you don’t love the way their little human claws can get that perfect spot between our chin scales,]” she purred and Hiccup teasingly slid his hand under his jaw.

The wind-walker jerked away, making it seem like he was just moving his saddle closer to Hiccup. “[We should get moving.]”

Hiccup bit back a laugh as he climbed on. “Let's head towards the beach.”

He held his hand out to Astrid, but Stormfly rolled back onto her feet to nudge the girl towards her back.

She stepped back, then slowly climbed on with a frown. “I guess they don't all remember me from the arena.”

“Oh, she does. She's just willing to give you a chance despite that. She knows we're just kids and that you were only doing what you were taught to do to protect the village. Besides, you tried to save her friend and king. That's important for them. Loyalty to the flock is one of their strongest traits.” He leaned down to nuzzle foreheads with Toothless.

Astrid hummed and gave Stormfly's cheek a stroke before grabbing her horns. “I can respect the loyalty, at least.”

He smiled and grabbed the handles of Toothless's saddle.

“Where are they?” Savage snapped as he and Heather ran up to the ship, Arnulf and Goatwart not far behind them.

“We don’t know,” Glug said, standing next to the boat with a horn.

“Then why are you calling us back!?”

Burkhard, still on the ship, pointed out to sea where four ships were sailing towards them. “The Hooligans found us.”

“Stoick!” Savage growled. “We need to move. We can lose them in the Mazy Multitudes.”

The others launched the ship and climbed aboard, but Savage grabbed Heather when she tried to follow. He threw her to the ground and drew his sword.

“Wait!”

“Alvin’s not going to be happy about this failure. You should be grateful you won’t live to see his fury.”

“I brought you Hiccup! It’s not my fault you lost him!” she said, half pleading and half berating.

He brought the sword down, then Hiccup was standing over her wielding a nadder’s spine like a blade. He redirected Savage’s sword before Astrid rammed into him, throwing him into the water. She quickly grabbed a shield off the side of the ship and stepped in front of Hiccup as the men raised their weapons, covering Heather too as a result.

“You!” Savage sputtered, spitting out seawater as he scrambled to his feet.

“Think about this carefully,” Hiccup said. “You can stay to fight us, giving my dad time to catch up, or you can get on your ship and escape to fight another day. Your choice.”

Astrid raised her dagger as she shifted into a fighting stance.

Savage glared at them, then looked over his shoulder at the approaching ships. “Your day will come, boy.”

“Thank you,” Heather said as he climbed onto the boat and the Outcasts set sail.

Astrid snorted and pulled Hiccup away from her.

She sat up, but didn’t bother to get to her feet as she watched Berk’s ships. Three split off to follow the Outcasts, but the last continued towards them.

Hiccup whistled and tossed the nadder spine towards the trees. He turned back to Astrid with a sigh. “How mad do you think my dad is?”

“Furious, but just with me and the Outcasts. He’s only going to be relieved you're safe.”

“Yeah, then he’ll try to lock me in my room for the next year.”

“Not like that’s stopped you before,” she chuckled, softly punching his arm.

He rolled his eyes before frowning. “Wait, why would he be mad at you?”

“I might have gone against his direct orders to find you.”

“Thanks,” he said, leaning against her and she shrugged.

Silence fell over the beach until the Hooligan’s ship landed.

“Hiccup!” Stoick shouted as he and a blonde woman jumped down and rushed over to the teens.

“We’re fine, Dad,” Hiccup said just before the giant man scooped him into a bone-crushing hug.

The blonde woman grabbed Astrid’s shoulder with one hand and her cheek with the other. She gave the girl a relieved smile before looking her over.

“It’s Outcast blood,” Astrid said when the woman’s eyes caught on her shirt.

“That’s my girl.”

Heather looked away as Hiccup choked out, “Dad, I can’t breathe!”

She brought her legs to her chest and pressed her face against her knees, tuning out the reunion. She pictured her parents, locked up in a cell. The moment Savage got to Outcast Island... Her fingers dug into her calves as tears built at the edge of her eyes.

“Heather!”

She looked up to see Stoick looming over her.

“Dad -”

“I invited you into my home and you nearly stole my son from me!”

Hiccup stepped between them. “It’s not her fault. Alvin took her parents and forced her to spy on us.”

“So she says,” Astrid said, glaring at Heather, but he shook his head.

“Savage threatened her parents earlier. When-when I was spying on them after we escaped.”

Heather’s eyes widened. He’d been spying on them? But she’d still been on the boat when that had happened, so how had he heard them? Had he been hiding in the water somehow?

“You can’t punish her for something she was forced into doing. Especially since Astrid and I escaped. No harm done.”

“There was harm done,” Stoick sighed and his hand came up to brush his thumb over the right half of Hiccup’s face. It and his neck were showing the signs of Savage’s mistreatment. The chief looked back at her. “She can make her case in front of the council. Let’s just get you two home.”

Astrid was waiting for Hiccup when he dropped out of his window. “Your dad locked you in, then?”

“Yep. I didn’t argue, but I think he still knows I’m not going to listen,” he said as they headed into the trees. “From his muttering, I’m pretty sure he would have locked me in one of the cells if it didn’t mean putting me and Heather in the same building. How much trouble are you in?”

“I’ve been taken off all the guard, watch, and patrol rosters until I can prove I’m capable of following orders again, which means I’m going to be doing a lot of grunt work.”

“Sorry.”

“It could have been worse, but Dad pointed out I had managed to bring you back mostly unharmed so I’d done the right thing in the end. If I hadn’t disobeyed orders, we would have lost you since Thor knows you wouldn’t have escaped on your own,” she said, her voice teasing at the end.

He shook his head. “Oh yes, whatever would I have done?”

They laughed as Hiccup led her into a clearing where Toothless was waiting.

“So what kind of work are you going to be doing?” he asked as he greeted the dragon. "Working with your parents on the farm?"

“That's what Dad wanted, but Mom wanted to load me up with a bunch of domestic lessons.” Apparently, Astrid had honed her fighting skills plenty and now she needed to start putting more focus on learning how to take care of the house so she’d be ready to settle down with a husband in a few years. “Thankfully your dad stepped in with his own idea and my parents agreed the job was bad enough to work as a punishment. Especially since no one else wants to do it.”

“What is it? Helping Mildew with his fields?” he chuckled as he checked Toothless’s saddle.

“Nope. It’s Hiccup babysitting duty.”

“Oh, haha,” he deadpanned. He started to climb on, but Astrid grabbed his arm. Their eyes met and he frowned. “You’re not actually going to try to keep me from going out, are you?”

“No, but I need to show your dad I can be trusted again, which means you need to work with me to show I’ve got at least a little bit of a handle on you.” She let go to cross her arms. “We need to talk about how you can keep me updated on where you are and figure out a better way of getting ahold of you in an emergency. You also need to start taking your sword lessons more seriously. You can’t always rely on your dragons, as today showed.”

Toothless huffed and nudged Hiccup’s side.

He rubbed its head and swung his leg over the saddle. “Alright, we can talk tomorrow. I’ll try to be back by sunrise.”

“Where are you going?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“The Rookery. I need to check on a few things.”

“And you’re going to stay there?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes darting away as he locked his prosthetic into the saddle’s stirrup.

Toothless twisted his head to look back at Hiccup with a gurgle.

She crossed her arms. “Why don’t I believe you?”

He smirked. “Because you’ve constantly been suspicious of me since I took down the Queen.”

“For good reason.” She gave the night fury a pointed look. “Where are you actually going?”

“I told you, the Rookery.”

“And after that?”

He glanced at her before quickly looking away, his shoulders slumping. “Outcast Island.”

Her jaw dropped. “Out-Are you insane? Why would you hand-deliver yourself to Alvin after everything we just went through? If this is some revenge quest, then -”

“It’s not,” he cut her off. “It’s...” He gestured off to the side. “Heather’s parents. If they’re still alive, then that will change the moment Savage gets back. But the dragons are a lot faster than a ship and he had to go into the Multitudes to lose our ships. I think I can beat him there if we move quickly.”

“You want to rescue her parents!? Hiccup, -”

“They’re in this situation because of me, Astrid. If Alvin wasn’t after me, -”

“He would have just killed them right away.” She grabbed his hand. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“Maybe, but I can at least try to keep Heather from becoming an orphan.”

“How do you even plan to get to them? You can’t fight past all those Outcasts on your own and I doubt you want Alvin to find out about the dragons.”

“If all goes to plan, there won’t be a fight. After we took down the queen, her flock scattered. Some of them claimed the northern half of Outcast Island as their nesting ground. That flock’s friendly enough with ours that we should be allowed to land if we bring them some fish from our nets as an offering.”

“You’re going to take fish from the village?”

He looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I meant the flock’s nets. We use them to feed any dragons who are too injured or young to go out on their own and to build up a stock of fish in case the weather gets too bad to safely hunt.”

Right, of course Hiccup would build his dragons a storehouse. “So that gets you onto the island, but how are you going to get down to the cells and back out? And how will you get her parents off the island without revealing the dragons?”

“Some of the faster dragons are coming with us, so they’ll cause a distraction while I sneak in with some sidewinders keeping watch. Once I get her parents out, I’ll bring them to the nesting ground. The sea dragons are going to steal an Outcast ship and bring it there for them.”

“Hiccup, that sounds stupidly dangerous. If something happens, -”

“Toothless will be waiting nearby to get me out.”

Nearby isn’t going to be close enough if the fury’s not going into the prison with him, she thought with a scowl. He needs someone watching his back.

He met her eyes with a stubborn glare that she’d seen on the chief’s face many times.

“I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?”

“No.”

She shook her head, then climbed on behind him.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t get yourself killed doing this.”

His wide eyes fell into a smile. “Thanks.”

He brought her into the Rookery and to a tunnel off the main cavern that almost immediately forked in two directions. They climbed off Toothless and he and the dragon headed to the right. She looked to the left curiously since there was a metal door blocking the way, but Stormfly nudged her to the right.

Hiccup noticed her pause and said, “That’s mine and Toothless’s aerie. I put the door up to keep the nestlings and fledglings out of my things.”

“Aerie? Nestlings and fledglings?” She followed him down the other path, only to find herself at another metal door. However, this one took up the entire tunnel instead of being the size of a front door like the other one.

“An aerie is the nest of a dragon or a group of dragons who are primarily sky-based, like nadders and furies,” Hiccup explained as Toothless opened the door to reveal a forge. “The other kinds of nests are lairs for sea dwellers like scauldrons and thunderdrums, dens for land dwellers like skullions and whispering deaths, and hives for swarm dwellers like fireworms and terrors.

“As for nestling and fledglings, it’s two of the younger stages of a dragon’s life,” he continued to explain, walking up to a group of metal crates in the corner. He opened one and started pulling out his armor to put on. “Like how Vikings use short wing and broad wing, but they have eight stages instead of the five we use. The first is the egg, obviously. The second and third are hatchlings and nestlings, which Vikings seem to combine into tiny tooths. Hatchlings are the babies fresh from the egg and nestlings are the equivalent of toddlers and little kids, stumbling around and getting into everything. Fledglings and juveniles are the next two stages, which line up with short wings. Fledglings are kind of like preteens so they still get into stuff, but they’re smarter about it. Unfortunately. Then juveniles are like teens: almost adults, but not quite as big and powerful. No matter what certain ones might think.”

While he’d been talking, Astrid had looked around the forge. It didn’t look too different from the one in the village, likely by design. Wooden walls and tables were replaced by stone, but the hearth looked almost the same. The only real difference was that the chimney leaned diagonally into solid rock to make room for the flat boulder that was placed over it. The walls not taken up by the forge and metal crates were mostly covered in tools or metal depictions of dragons, but two spots were different. One held a pinned-up sketch of Hiccup’s Heir Portrait, what must have been Hiccup II’s Heir Portrait, and (to her surprise) a little shelf holding the skrill plush she’d given him for his birthday. The other spot had strange objects hanging from the walls. They were triangular pieces of leather stretched over metal rods and painted a variety of colors, some even bearing designs. They looked almost like wings.

Or, she realized as she turned to Toothless, like tailfins.

She’d noticed before that the silver and near-black color of his saddle matched his miscolored tailfin, but she hadn’t realized what that meant before.

Toothless swatted at Hiccup at his last comment and Astrid blinked.

“Wait, are you saying Toothless isn’t an adult?”

“Nope. He’s actually sixteen like us,” Hiccup chuckled, finishing up with his armor and draping himself over Toothless’s head. “Funnily enough, night furies age similarly to humans, if maybe a little slower or faster depending on the fury.”

“Have you found any others?”

“No, but I’m not really expecting to.” He slid off with a shrug and turned back to the chest to grab his sword and shield.

Her eyes dropped down to his leg before drifting back to Toothless’s tail. “Did he lose his tailfin fighting the queen too?”

He shook his head, hooking his gear to his back. His voice was quiet and remorseful when he said, “He, uh, lost it when I shot him down.”

The fury huffed and pushed its head between his arm and side to nuzzle him.

“He shouldn’t be able to fly without it, right?”

“Yeah, he can’t, and a downed dragon is a dead dragon.” He let his hand trail down its tail along the straps that led from the saddle to the prosthetic. “So I built this to help him fly. I can use the stirrup to control it and let him fly like he’d never lost it.”

“How did he fly without you earlier?”

Hiccup twisted something at the base of the fake tailfin. When he pulled his hands back, the fake and natural tailfins opened and closed in sync.

Chapter Text

“We’ve entered Outcast waters. Just keep your head down when the other dragons approach.”

Astrid nodded, leaning closer to Stormfly’s neck and tightening her grip on her saddle. It was just a simple brown thing, not as padded or sleek as the one on Toothless. Hiccup had apologized and said it was because he’d made it early on in case he ever had a reason to ride Stormfly. He also had ones for the gronckle, nightmare, and zippleback he’d freed from the arena, though none of them had been used before this.

She’d wanted to fly with Hiccup, uncomfortable with being alone on a dragon high above the open ocean, but he said he needed to greet the Outcast Island dragons alone to ease any discomfort they might have at seeing a human that wasn’t him.

As such, Stormfly stayed back with the other dragons from Berk when a group of dragons flew up from the sea stacks they were approaching.

Astrid watched as Toothless and a monstrous nightmare began to circle each other before landing on a large sea stack. Hiccup slid off his dragon and began to approach the nightmare. His steps were confident, even as it set itself on fire. He stopped a few feet in front of it and held out his hand, turning his head to look away from it.

It roared and bore down on him.

Meanwhile, Hiccup didn’t so much as twitch.

Slowly, the nightmare’s fire went out and it lowered its head to press its nose horn against his hand.

As Hiccup rubbed the nightmare’s snout, Astrid let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

He’d turned a furious dragon completely submissive, and just by looking away from it while standing his ground.

Toothless came up to Hiccup’s side after giving a quick screech to Berk’s dragons. The dragons carrying fish flew down to empty their nets on the sea stacks, allowing the local dragons to start picking through the offerings.

Hiccup only stopped stroking the nightmare long enough to take the small basket of fish off Toothless’ saddle and empty it in front of the green dragon.

Once all the fish were gone, the local dragons flew off and Hiccup returned to the air.

“The queen only gave us permission to enter if we turned over the fish and agreed to rescue her heart-mate and any other dragons we can find.”

Astrid hummed.

Hiccup turned to meet her eyes as much as he could with his hood casting his face in darkness. “Are you okay?”

She blinked and looked away. “Fine. I just... haven’t seen you tame a dragon before.”

“I didn’t tame her. That’s not how it works,” Hiccup said, the frown clear in his voice. “I just showed her she could still trust me, that I was a friend. It’s all about trust with dragons, and she was feeling nervous about us after her heart-mate was taken by the Outcasts.”

“Heart-mate?”

“Her romantic partner. Kind of like her husband, to an extent.”

“So the king?”

“No. Heart-mates don’t share titles. It’s actually rare for a flock to have more than one leader since the leader is meant to be the strongest, most respected dragon. The leaders need to be complete equals to share the title.”

“Like you and Toothless?” she asked, giving dragon and boy both a pointed look.

“Yes,” Hiccup shrugged, “in our own ways.”

The night fury gurgled and moved to glide underneath Stormfly.

Hiccup held his hand up. “We’ve reached the island.”

Astrid carefully lowered herself from her saddle, then dropped onto his. As soon as she was sitting with her arms around his waist, Stormfly left to join the rest of Berk’s dragons for the distraction while Toothless dove down towards the island.

“So the queen’s husband was taken?”

“Yes, alongside a handful of other nightmares. She wants us to set them free. Thankfully, she said the Outcasts keep humans and dragons in the same dungeon so we won’t have to go too far out of our way.”

“But the more time we’re in there, the more likely it is we’ll be caught. Can we even be sure the nightmares are still alive?”

He nodded. “The queen said a few of the smaller dragons in her flock managed to sneak in. They weren’t able to rescue their flock-mates, but they did find out that the Outcasts want something from them so they’re keeping them alive for now.”

She thought that over while Toothless landed at the edge of the no man's land between the dragons’ nesting ground and the Outcast’s village. As they climbed off it, she asked, “What could they want?”

“I'm not sure, but knowing Alvin, it’s nothing good. We need to get them out before he gets it.” He grabbed his shield and sword off Toothless’s saddle, not even acknowledging the sidewinders crawling out of the bags to wrap around his wrists and neck. “Ready?”

She nodded, pulling her axe off her back and taking the dark fabric he handed her.

Sharpshot watched the outsider human sneak through the village to the docks, keeping away from the firelight. As she stole a small boat, he flew over to the sea stacks where some of the defense horde was keeping watch.

“[The outsider’s leaving.]” He landed on Hookfang’s head, only to quickly jump off when the smoldering-scales clawed at him.

“[Should we go after her?]” a rock-gnaw asked.

Hookfang snorted. “[As much as I’d like to roast her, Tailfin forgave her so we need to leave her alone.]”

“[Which means it’s not our problem if the humans can’t keep her contained,]” a gas-zap’s head yawned as she laid back down to sleep.

Meatlug hobbled forward to nudge Sharpshot. “[Fly ahead and warn the sea dwellers that went with the kings so they know to keep an eye out for the outsider while escorting her parents.]”

He whined pitifully, but took flight when she was unmoved.

Mae pressed closer to her husband as the sounds of a dragon raid echoed through the dungeon. “I hope Heather’s okay out there.”

Wilton wrapped his arm around her. “The lass will be fine. She’s a fighter. Has been since the day we fished her out of the sea.”

She nodded, but she couldn’t help but voice a worry that had been plaguing her since they’d been captured. “What if this is our punishment? If the gods brought her to us, maybe they’ve taken offense to us trying to figure out where she came from. Maybe they’ve decided we didn’t appreciate her enough and now she’s...”

“Don’t think like that.” He squeezed her, shaking his head. “The gods know we've treated that girl like she’s our own blood. They’ll keep her safe. Just have faith.”

She nodded, even as tears beaded at the corners of her eyes. She pressed her face into his shoulder as she sent up a prayer.

“It’s getting late,” came the gruff laugh of one of their captors. “Seems your little Heather hasn-numph!”

Mae looked up at the sudden silence to see the man standing in front of the bars, mouth still open like time had stopped for him alone. His eyes were slightly squinted in pain and a crossbow bolt was sticking out of his bare forearm.

“What -” Wilton began to ask, but stopped as a figure stepped out of the shadows.

For a moment, she thought it was Heather, but she quickly realized her mistake once the figure came further into the light. While the girl was around the same age and size as Mae’s daughter, her hair was blonde and her face round under the black hooded cloak she was wearing. It didn’t make sense for the girl to be an Outcast, though, as only men were Outcasts. So who was she?

The strange girl looked them over, leaning her axe against her shoulder. “Are you Heather’s parents?”

“We are,” Wilton said, standing up and trying to put himself in front of his wife.

She just pushed past him as she rushed to the bars. “How do you know Heather? Where is she?”

“She’s safe. She’s on an island called Berk. We’re here to get you out.” The girl looked over her shoulder and another teen stepped out of the shadows. They were slightly smaller than the girl and wore armor that hid their appearance. They had a quiver of bolts on their left hip, a sword on their right, and a shield on their back.

She didn’t have much time to think about the strange placements or the lack of crossbow before the newcomer was swiping the keys off of the frozen Outcast’s belt.

“You should lead them out while I release the others,” they told the girl as they got to work unlocking the cell.

“I’m not leaving you down here alone.”

“I’ll be fine. He’s the only one that stayed.” They nodded to the frozen Outcast as the cell's door opened. He walked over to the girl and said something Mae couldn’t quite hear, glancing towards her and her husband.

The girl groaned. “Fine, but be quick and don’t get captured again or I’ll sneak back in just to kill you.”

They nodded with a snort and bumped shoulders with her as they ran off.

“Come on, there’s a boat waiting,” she said gesturing for them to follow her.

“You’re friends of Heather’s?” Wilton asked as she led him and Mae through the prison at a fast pace.

“Something like that.”

Alvin glared at the dragons harrowing his men. The raid hadn’t done much damage, but neither had the Outcasts. The dragons were staying just out of reach of their weapons as they rained down fire and spines. If they weren’t just stupid beasts, he’d almost think they were toying with them.

“Alvin,” Savage called as he ran up.

“I see you’re back.”

“Yes. The men at the docks said to tell you the beasts knocked a few ships loose. At least one got away before the men could grab them.”

Alvin ran his thumb pointedly down the flat of his sword as he turned to his second. “And here I thought you’d come to give me news that could bring an end to our troubles.”

Savage took a step back and held up his hands. “The girl got herself caught before she could find out anything useful. Last I saw she was pulling out every excuse to save her own head. She even claimed the Dragon Conqueror was that little blonde girl who tried to attack you on Berk.”

Hand tightening around the grip of his sword, Alvin looked back up at the dragons. At least he’d been given a way to take out his anger. “Take over with the men. I’m going to get some bait.”

The main entrance to the prison had been blocked by an overturned (and burning) catapult so Alvin made for the nearest side entrance. He spotted three figures creeping out of the door and his anger grew as he assumed some of his men were slacking off during a raid. He almost called out to them before realizing only one was a man. The one in the lead was a teenager at the oldest and the last was clearly a woman.

“Well, well, it seems young Heather is staging a rescue,” he chuckled rushing forward with his sword drawn.

More dragon bait will only mean more dragons to kill. They might even lure in more nightmares, preferably ones that will actually give him what he wants.

He drew his hatchet to throw it at the girl, but paused when a snarl cut through the air and a shadow peeled away from the rest of the darkness.

“What is that?” Heather’s father asked as the girl placed herself between the dark dragon and Alvin’s prisoners.

“Night fury,” she said, drawing her axe as the color left both adults’ faces.

Alvin, on the other hand, was surprised for another reason. When the girl had grabbed her weapon, her hood had fallen to reveal a familiar blonde braid.

“You’ll be fine if you stay behind me. Get back, beast!”

The night fury hissed and its shark-toothed maw lit up with eerie purple light.

Alvin smirked and was ready to sit back and watch the girl get torn to pieces.

“I said get back!”

The dragon’s mouth snapped shut and it cocked its head. Then it let out a series of huffs and lowered its head, stepping back. Slowly, she stepped forward and to her right.

It stepped forward and to its right.

The two circled each other, the girl keeping herself between it and the adults she was rescuing.

Alvin was so shocked by what he was seeing, he didn’t realize the three were escaping until they'd made it completely around the beast and she gestured that they needed to run. Instead of following her, the beast turned to carry on in his direction.

He tried to quietly walk around the dragon to follow them, but its eyes immediately snapped to him the moment he moved.

Trying to menace the beast as the girl had done only earned him a snort and the return of that purple light.

He only had a second to duck behind a boulder before the dragon fired.

The boulder didn’t survive the blast.

He ran back to the village, barely dodging the beast’s attacks. The barrage finally stopped when he crossed into the torchlight and other Outcasts rushed to his side, but he couldn’t spot the dragon when he turned to look.

Furious, he stomped his way back to where he’d left Savage and slammed his second into a wall.

“Alv-?”

“Tell me everything little Heather told you about the blonde girl?”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s true. She is the Dragon Conqueror.”

Wodensfang was watching Sunblade from atop a hill when his clutch-mate approached.

“[All the captured dragons are free and Typhoon is back with Queen Emeraldember. Were things okay on your end?]”

He nodded and flicked his tail at the boat that was sailing off. “[She got the humans to the boat fine. The Cast-Outs’ leader tried to stop them, but I scared him off before he could get close.]”

“[You made sure to make it look like you were attacking her too, right?]”

“[I’m not stupid,]” Wodensfang huffed, shoving him with his wing. “[I went with the plan. She was the one who didn’t.]”

“[What happened?]”

“[She went big-tough-scary-human on me and tried to boss me around,]” he purred, sitting on his hind legs and trying to imitate how she’d stood. He waddled around for a moment, parroting what she’d said, before dropping back down. “[As if I couldn’t still tell how scared she was. It was so funny.]”

The two chuckled and Tailfin draped himself over Wodensfang’s neck. “[I’m guessing you played along?]”

“[It was the fastest way to get her to safety since she wouldn’t just run. I’m going to have Stormfly give her a dip in the ocean for that stunt, though.]”

“[Please don’t. I told you we need to keep on her good side.]”

The wind-walker’s tail flicked back and forth as he peaked up at his clutch-mate. “[You mean you want to be on her really good side.]”

Tailfin turned red and smacked his ear with a wordless snarl.

The two started play fighting, rolling across the ground with snaps and growls. The smaller tried to get onto the larger’s back or hit the sensitive spot on his neck while the larger tried to pin the smaller without exposing his neck.

“[You’re scaring Sunblade.]”

The two’s horseplay paused and they turned to see Sunblade and Stormfly standing nearby. The proud-thorn was amused while the human was staring at them with wide eyes and a tight grip on her twin-blade.

“Oh, hey, Astrid,” Tailfin said, rubbing the back of his neck as he hung upside down with his legs wrapped around Wodensfang’s neck.

The wind-walker huffed and collapsed on top of him. “[I win.]”

“[Yeah, yeah, now get off.]”

He licked under Tailfin’s chin, just managing to briefly get inside his helmet. He purred as his clutch-mate sputtered and uselessly tried to wipe off the drool.

“Are you... okay?” Sunblade asked, slowly lowering her weapon.

“No! He knows that doesn’t wash off!” Tailfin growled, wiping a drool-covered hand over the snout lying on him.

Wodensfang snapped playfully at his hand in revenge.

Stormfly clucked and came forward to drag Tailfin out from under him by the scruff of his armor. She set him down next to Sunblade, saying, “[You’re only going to scare her more.]”

He cocked his head, then turned to the human. “Wait, did you think Toothless was going to hurt me? He wouldn’t. Not intentionally at least.”

“It was trying to claw and bite you.” She looked between them, eyes widening, as she put her twin-blade on her back. “You-Were you playing with it?”

“Yeah, we do it all the time. It’s not that different from how Vikings roughhouse.” Tailfin’s nose scrunched up and he rubbed his side. “Actually, from my experience, it’s safer.”

Wodensfang bit back a growl at the thought of how Tailfin had been treated by the humans. He nuzzled his clutch-mate’s flank, then nudged him towards his saddle. “[Come on, let's head home before it gets too late. The others aren’t as nocturnal as us.]”

“[Oh, right, good point.]” Tailfin looked towards the horizon. “[I wish we could stay here and rest, but my humans will start getting worried if Sunblade and I aren’t back by morning.] We should get moving.”

Sunblade stared at him for a moment before nodding.

“Do you want to fly with us or Stormfly?” he asked, getting onto the saddle and hooking his fake-foot into place.

Sunblade took a step forward, then paused. She studied them a moment, then turned to Stormfly.

The proud-thorn lowered her head to be eye-level with the human.

After a beat, Sunblade rubbed her snout and climbed onto her saddle.

Heather stared up at the clouds with a heavy heart. She was still on course for Outcast Island, but as the day went on, she lost any hope of getting there before Savage.

Of seeing her parents alive just one more time.

A horn sounded and she pushed herself off the bench she was resting on. Her breath caught when she realized it was an Outcast ship.

She rushed to the steering oar, then froze when she spotted the flag tied to the top of the mast. It was the one with their tribe’s crest on it, which her mother had secreted into her dress just before the Outcasts boarded them to keep them from knowing where they were from.

She raced to the bow, climbing up onto the railing with one hand on the stempost and the other waving frantically.