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In the middle of the cold, unwelcoming winter sea was an island named Berk.
It was located just enough in the north for one to question the sanity of its inhabitants, southern enough to still be able to harvest grain, and on the perfect location between east and west to be isolated.
Isolation has always been the best soil for myths and stories to spread. The Vikings of Berk were no exception.
Hiccup wished they were. Maybe the council meetings would be much shorter, then. The thing is that Vikings tend to find wild little potentially bloodthirsty children who destroy ships to be excellent material for new tales. The scarier, the better.
Sadly, it was a rather small problem considering harvest was over and the season of the wild hunt was coming. But it was apparently more interesting than ensuring the grain was all collected and safe.
And so Hiccup was stuck in a back and forth of if they should catch a completely insignificant menace.
He could have spent the morning catching the first cold breezes with Toothless.
He should have, actually. They were going nowhere with this, and a big storm was brewing on the horizon.
To the Berkians defense, the last month had been boring. Except for vague news about a mass amount of dragons being shipped (and freed by the riders) they had not gotten any action at all. That was, until one night Hiccup and his group returned from a raid, scorched and smoked and with a real story in tow: a child who had burnt down a fleet with its dragon companions.
„The Wildfang is not a threat to us“, Stoick boomed next to Hiccup, almost something like despair in his eyes. „The planning until Yule is more important than SOMEONE different fighting the hunters.“An old man raised his shivering hand. „But what about us fighting them? We need to fight, too!“
Hiccup resisted the urge to slam his head down on the table. „No one needs to fight anyone, Aldrich.“
The crowd murmured, disappointed.
„But what if it is a BAD OMEN?“, a woman yelled.
You see, Vikings are very superstitious people. They believe in things that are completely absurd to you, but to them? Pure, unfiltered truth. And just maybe, maybe a little bit of entertainment.
Like that the world was made out of a giant’s corpse. And his brains were the clouds.
The crowd gasped, immediately pondering on possibilities how their lives could be ruined. „What if it destroys our harvest?“, „What if it burns down our ships, too?“ What ifs everywhere.
„The riders can go and scout the situation right now“, Hiccup said before anyone could come across the idea that it was a mythical creature. Distraction was the right way to go, most of the time.
Stoick sighed, the despair now even filtering into his voice.
„A bad omen would now be if we didn‘t plan for the winter ahead. Let the riders take care of it.“ He nodded to Hiccup. They were dismissed. Finally.
The crowd cheered, now willing to discuss more life-threatening matters.
If there was one thing the village was terrible at, it was listening. Gather a hundred hot-blooded, thick skulled adults with weapons around a fire and hope for a miracle.
As Hiccup made his way through the crowd, Astrid grabbed him by his arm. „Really, Hiccup? You know I can‘t go. Stormfly’s still not back.“
„Well, do you want to stay here and discuss grain?“
She shook her head. „But listen, I don’t know about this. Capturing it? Isn’t it better to leave it out there?“
„I didn‘t say I‘d capture it. Also you could come with me and Toothless.“ He spotted the other riders and waved at them. They were already by the door. Astrid shook her head. „And when we found it, what then? We can‘t let a child run around all by itself! Both options are just… I don’t know.“ It was snowing outside. The wind stung their faces like needles.He turned around to her, trying to make his voice sound more confident. „We‘ll find out when we get there. I promise, if you consider the situation for too bad we‘ll take it, alright?“ Astrid smiled tiredly. „Okay. But don‘t you think I‘ll forget it.“
„How do you want to find that little beast?“ Snotlout arrived and crossed his arms, pretending like it wasn’t freezing. The riders crowded around Hiccup, a colorful group of several layers of wool and big furs.
„We’re going to split up and look around the area. I‘m not sure if the dragons were close enough but maybe they‘d be able to track it by its smell. Also Snotlout, it’s not a beast. It‘s a child. And scared. This especially is why you can’t allow yourselves to underestimate it.“
Ruffnut laughed. „What’s it gonna do, light us on fire?“Memories of it screeching and throwing a torch at a man‘s face replayed before his inner eye. „Yes, pretty much.“ Maybe the decision in the council had been… a little rushed. Did they or his father want a feral child-something on this island? How should they approach it, like a dragon or like a human?
He shook his head. „Listen, as long as we appear non-threatening towards it, absolutely nothing will escalate. Keep your voice nice. Keep your stance nice. Fishlegs, you search East. Snotlout, you go South, Ruff and Tuff go West and Astrid and me go north. Stay in the area.“
„Do you think we’ll get to see the dragons, too?“ Fishlegs asked almost dreamily. „Probably. Weren’t they always with it?“
Two small ones and a big one, he thought. Shouldn’t be to hard to spot. „If you find trails, report back and we’ll search all together. Don’t get your face clawed off.“~He had been wrong. Even after an hour, with Astrid and Toothless, he found absolutely nothing. Not an ounce. The area where the ship hat been was larger than he had assumed, and with no trails to follow they had no chance of finding it. The only good thing was that they were flying, the forest far beneath them. And spending time alone with Astrid. The preparations for the winter had been stressful.
„I haven’t had enough time to practice. My axe throws are going to be extremely sloppy“, she complained. „Ooh, how horrible. I saw you hit every man you aimed at last week.“ He tried to stare intensely at the ground, but his eyes grew watery every few seconds, the wind numbing his face. „It was the limbs, not their chests. But thank you“, Astrid grumbled. He could almost feel her rolling her eyes.
“Thank me when I find a track. Or thank Toothless. Or yourself. Or-“
“I get it, I get it.”They both fell silent, staring at the snow beneath.
The days were growing shorter and shorter in this time of the year, and so did their time to actually do things. The combination of dawn and snow tinted the world in an eerie blue shade.He just wanted to propose to fly back when a shrill screech resounded through the forest. “What was that?”, Astrid asked no one in particular.
That was the problem. They saw nothing. They didn’t even know how far away it was.
Toothless dove lower, rumbling deep in his chest and jerking his head.
That was when they saw it, too.
A dragon trap. A bloody dragon trap. But it wasn’t green- it was red.“Skítur.”
Astrid jumped off Toothless the moment they were low enough, letting go a string of curses while Hiccup stomped to her through the snow.
“It’s fresh”, she stated. “It is barely covered by snow.”
“You think it’s here? That screech-“
“It could be possible. We’ll have to follow the tracks before… something happens.”Hiccup stared at the open trap again. The metal was still slick with red that had covered the old coppery green. Those weren’t traps for small children. If they already caused dragons serious injuries, how bad was the damage for a human?
“We have to get the others” he said, but Astrid already stomped off.
“I knew it, I knew something was wrong with Stormfly not returning! Traps aren’t in the wilderness just like that. They’re right in our territory!” Toothless growled, sniffing at the trap.
“Hey, there’s no guarantee she’s there. There’s no guarantee it’s there, Astrid!” He went after her. “Where are you going?”
“If a hunter captured it after this, there are tracks. And I follow them.”
“Astrid”, Hiccup tried, “let’s at least not walk there.”The flapping of wings cut their arguing off.
The riders above them waved, screamed and pointed until Ruffnut managed to establish enough dominance to shut them up.
“Hiccup, Astrid! Me and Tuff found something, and then we found the others, and now we’ve found you! We-“ “What did you find?”, he cut her off. She pointed somewhere into the distance. “In a bay! There is a hunter camp, with ships and cages and weapons! Can we… cause just a little chaos?”, she begged, grinning sharply.He and Astrid exchanged looks. Do you have a plan? she mouthed.
Hiccup nodded and looked back up at the twins who now both were grinning expectantly.
“We’ll need distraction. Wreak havoc.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Wildfang was in a cage. It didn’t look like a horrific bad omen that destroys ships and harvest.
It looked like your regular child with a regular face that had been stuffed into a cage. Except that normal, regular, respectable children don’t get locked up in dragon cages. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third was, sadly, not a normal child. But he wasn’t afraid, either.
Or at least that was what he told himself, teeth chattering from the cold, exhaustion weighing heavily on him. “I will NOT be afraid, I will NOT be afraid, I will NOT BE AFRAID”, he muttered under his breath, yanking his makeshift bandage harder.He felt like his leg was simply going to fall off at this point. It would very hard to not feel this way if your leg had bled heavily and now felt a little numb.
Just this morning, when the sun hadn’t risen yet, Hiccup had thought that things couldn’t get worse.The gods of course happily proved him wrong, as always. Because it COULD DEFINITELY GET WORSE. Worse as in getting chased by a bloodthirsty dragon AFTER getting your leg mauled by a trap, losing your only companions and getting chained up like a high-hazard criminal.Maybe it really was his fault. But how can you just ignore the wailing of dragons in a cage if you understand it? It all had led him to here. Maybe the gods, maybe fate. Because what seemed to Hiccup like a dead end led him to someone else who was a little just like him. The last spark of childlike wonder in the middle of the darkest, most terrible months behind and ahead of him.But there was no way he could possibly know that now. He tied the bandages shut, shivering .
“Stupid”, he said outloud, not sure if he was scolding himself, the bandages that still seemed a little to loose, or the circumstances he was in.He was not really sure how to feel about that. Maybe miserable. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Hiccup flinched and whipped his head around, making eye contact with two yellow eyes examining him.
“Small human. Little one does not belong in prison”, the dragon continued in a slightly old and simple version of dragonese, not making clear if it was talking to itself or to Hiccup.Carefully, he inched closer to the metal bars. “You’re not supposed to be here, either”, he said softly.
The dragon’s pupils widened and it pressed its- or rather her head against the bars of her cage. “Small human kit speaks?”, she asked enthusiastically. “All other humans don’t. Even my human does not. Are you one of us, kit?”He felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards. “No, I’m not. But I learned. What is your name?”
The dragon shook her head proudly, blue scales glinting in the light of the torches. “The name my human gave me, Fly-of-the-storm. The humans come to help us all. They are friends of dragons.”
“Really?” Maybe there was a way out after all. “Can you smell-““QUIET, BEASTS!”, a voice roared in Norse, making them both recoil from the bars.
It was the trapper who had caught Hiccup, Balder the Sígrænn.
His name sounded rather beautiful, if you had never met the man himself. If you saw him, the name Balder seemed like a cruel joke.Balder is a god said to be beloved by all gods, and on top of that beautiful. If you looked at Balder the Sígrænn, you probably would have made the observation that he was none of these things.
He was rather mildly terrifying.He looked like a giant bear that someone had taught to walk on two legs. His limbs, which he even kept exposed in the coldest weather seemed strong enough to crush your skull.
He had piercing blue but beady eyes that made you feel like a fish on a spear. He also seemed unsettingly familiar, the kind of where you have to ask yourself if you have ever enraged one of the many wide, blonde, hairy barbarians.Fly-of-the-storm hissed quietly after he had passed them. “Foolish human. I would rip it if I could.”
Hiccup sighed, releasing a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
“He is not very polite”, he whispered.“If the humans were polite, we would be free, little kit”, she huffed, slightly amused. Then, with much more concern, she tilted her head and sniffed. “Kit is okay?”
“I’m okay”, he said, more to calm her.
He wasn’t so sure about it himself.At least he wasn’t that afraid anymore- or alone.
They went silent for the next minutes, watching a guard almost slip on the icy ground. Nausea settled itself in his stomach and Hiccup felt himself sweat despite the cold. To stop focusing on the now thumping pain in his leg he started to map out escape plans, which all failed at the first step: the lock. It was actually a very bad lock. In fact, it wasn’t even a lock, it was a latch. Its difficulty was that it could only be opened from the outside. Dragon limbs were to big to fit through the bars and accomplish this.
Hiccup could have probably done this, weren’t he as aforementioned CHAINED. He really wished Camicazi were here. She would have never let a this poorly designed prison contain her.
The second part of the escape route was even worse, if that was possible.
The dragon trapper camp had been built on multiple platforms that were built to either lead down to the sea and their ships, or up, to a cliff with a guarded path up.To make it even better, Hiccup was in the last row of platforms by the sea. He had three options:Hobbling unarmed through a camp of armed, angry Vikings, hope for the best and jump into the cold winter sea and drown, which he both wasn’t keen on, and getting on a ship, which was plain ridiculous because they first, they didn’t leave, and second, have you ever tried to steer a dragon trapper ship alone? All of this meant that Hiccup had no, ZERO ways of getting out without someone’s help. Which wasn’t great.
If you have read Hiccups adventures before, you’ll probably think that he’ll escape by all himself with a very spectacular and heroic plan. Which is wrong. Because just when he deemed them both doomed, something exploded.Both his and Fly-of-the-storm’s heads shot up like a cat hearing a father’s stink fart. He turned his head, looking up the ascending rows of platforms.
He said something very inappropriate. Gobber had drilled swearing like a sailor very deeply into his students, even Hiccup, the most polite boy in the entire Archipelago.“Are those your humans?”, he asked Fly-of-the-storm.
“Don’t know. Feels a lot like… the NUTS.”
“The nuts?”
“THE NUTS.”
“Fly-of-the-storm, what in Thor’s name do you mean by THE NUTS?”
“Humans. HOO-MANS called Nuts.”Hiccup had never heard of humans that were both called nuts.
He hoped it was a misunderstanding.Screams of terror filled the air, a word he had never heard before shouted with intense fear: “NIGHTFURY!”
And then, dragons rose into the air, first only a few, but within minutes they grew to a fire-spewing swarm out for revenge. They were setting them free.He grinned, at first carefully but then wildly, yanking at his shackles, trying to stand.
“They’re freeing them!”
Fly-of-the-storm let out a gleeful cackling sound in response, making him grin even harder.
He was going to get out and find Toothless and Windwalker AND Wodensfang, and then he was going to find his friends, as simple as that.Then he heard the unmistakable tock of a peg leg on the ground and his blood, that just had been carrying warmth and happiness froze.It.It couldn’t be.Not here. The first ashen flakes mixed with the snow.The taste of iron in his mouth and frost settling in his lungs, he turned.He couldn’t bear the cold of his breaths anymore. There was no air in them. It was not Him.It was not Him, but he could still feel his head spin, his shivery breaths as he stared at the young adult with the flaming sword, opening cages after cages.He couldn’t stop.His panic made the world even more incomprehensible as he tried to follow the movement of the fire in the air.He said something to Fly-of-the-storm as he opened the cage, she took off and-a squeal, stuttering but loud.Hiccup dropped to his knees when he saw the little green dragon, almost breaking his shoulder while trying to reach through the bars.“Toothless”, he breathed, trying to filter the air for oxygen again.
Toothless needed him.
So he needed to calm down.
Again, as simple as that. “H-H-Hiccup!”, the dragon squeaked, as if they just had played hide and seek back on Berk, “Toothless f-found you!” Despite of his horrible situation, Hiccup had to smile.
“Yes you did.”Footsteps neared the cage, and then the possible human friend of Fly-of-the-storm crouched down next to Toothless, his helmet removed.
“Hey. Uh, do you speak Norse? Because I am going to open that cage and then I have a key…”, he said, setting down another small dragon.
“Wodensfang- I mean, yes, I can speak Norse”, he hastily corrected himself.
“Oh okay, great! That makes things easier.” He stood to open the latch.“What are you doing HERE?”, Hiccup mouthed at the two dragons.
“We are executing an escape plan!”, Wodensfang proudly announced. “But then we got help by those excellent dragon riders- they are very nice and can open latches…”
“And what does that plan look like?”The rider meanwhile had opened the latch and pushed the door open. “Almost everything’s on fire- your dragons helped us quite well.”Hiccup was questioning the strategies and sanity of both parties, but not his way to freedom. He stretched out his hand before the rider could come even closer.
“Please give me the key”, he demanded.
“I’ll unlock one hand, unless it’ll take too long. Okay?”Hiccup warily watched him, glad that he decided to go to where he could still see him. The first weight fell off, cold air and pain touching his skin. The key was dropped into his hand, and the rider backed off.
“Do it fast. We don’t have much time.”Hiccup fumbled it into the second lock, cursing his teary eyes.
Again, it opened, taking the oppressive weight with it. He felt around the last one on his neck, finally finding an opening.It opened with a click, and he immediately stumbled away from it, leaving the key.
“All right, I need to get Toothless”, the rider said, squinting into the far darkness.Hiccup stared at Toothless, who was sitting right next to them, but then it hit him.
“Your dragon’s name is Toothless, too?”, he asked weakly.“Yours too? Man, and I thought it was original… he does have teeth but he can make them disappear, y’know?”
“No, I don’t. Mine simply does not have teeth.”The rider grinned and whistled.
“Well, how about we get you out of here and discuss that later?”
Hiccup already wanted to open his mouth and say something along the lines of no thank you when someone roared: “OH NO, YOU DON’T!”They both flinched, the rider pulling Hiccup behind him.
Balder the Sigrænn stood between the cages, looking scorched and VERY, VERY angry.
“You are not freeing that little rascal. He cost us almost ALL OF OUR SHIPS”, he fumed, “and he must pay in blood to Balder the Sigrænn!”He unstrapped two axes, removing a sword first and dropping it to the ground behind him.This was the start of Hiccups very foolish plan of the day, purely driven by adrenaline and pain.
Balder’s mistake was that in his haste, he had worn his family sword over the axes and had to remove it first to draw them.Just as he threw the axe, Hiccup shoved the rider aside, dodged it and let himself fall to the ground.
Maybe the dear reader still remembers that the ground was very icy, and so Hiccup slid right past the trapper, hooking his fingers into the belt of the sword.
Which might have been a fabulous plan to get a weapon, but the momentum was enough to take him over the edge.He collided shoulder first with the ground, a loud crack shooting through his arm. He retched, stars dancing before his eyes as he still held on to the sword.
The trapper stood on the edge, one axe still in his hand. “This is it, you little beast”, he hissed. “I am going to behead you!”Hiccup gripped the sword tighter trying to remember how to threaten enemies.
“I WILL BITE YOU!”, he yelled back. They stared at each other for a few seconds, both of them baffled.
“In your wrist”, Hiccup added weakly.A whizzing sound filled the air.
Balder drew his arm back. The axe left his hand with deadly precision, spinning, when…“Gotcha!” The ground was yanked from beneath Hiccup, the rider hauling him into the saddle like a wet sack. The wing of the dragon briefly brushed the waves before he pulled up, circling over the trapper who screamed obscenities at them.
“Let’s go bud”, the rider said, one hand patting the dragon, while the other still held Hiccup in an iron grip.He regained his wits, wiggling out and casting a look over his shoulder, calming down as he saw Toothless and Wodensfang behind them.
But it only lasted shortly. “Have you seen Windwalker?”
“I would recommend for you to look down but you look like you’ll fall off.”
“No, it looks like it’s supposed to be dead”, a voice scoffed.Hiccup leaned over the side anyways. Maybe five dragons flew below them, but in the dark it was hard to tell which one was Windwalker.
“Don’t be rude”, another one chided, and Hiccup could make out the smallest glint of blue.
“Fly-of-the-storm?”, he muttered, leaning to the side so far that he could see her bright yellow eyes. “Woah! What’s all that about?”, the rider said, tugging him back gently before he could slip out of the saddle.
“Fly-of-the-storm?”, Hiccup called again, now louder, trying to stabilize himself by trying to grab the leather saddle.
His fingers felt clammy now, every word more garbled.
“Is Windwalker here? Please tell me… I don’t…” “Hey, are you alright?”, the rider asked, at the same time as Fly-of-the-storm answered: “Dragon is here.” Hiccup didn’t reply, but asked, tired of having many questions but not enough answers.
“Where are we going?” Despite the snow still stinging his eyes and cheeks he didn’t dare to avert his eyes from something he believed to be fire in the distance.“This is Berk.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hiccup knew that this probably had been a bad idea.
But what should he have done? Astrid had been right about all of it.
Now the issue was how to explain to his father that their way of dealing with a bad omen was lugging it all the way to Berk.
Because despite it being a little kid with a silly dragon helmet and a dragon skin suit, the Wildfang was definitely involved in something greater than Hiccup could currently comprehend.
He just hoped they didn’t have another Heather situation at hand.
But maybe he didn’t have to worry about that right now and more about the boy’s bloodied leg (and whatever else that was bloody, bruised or broken). If there was anything he did not want on his: „proof the gods hate me“ checklist then it was having a kid bleed out on him.
Funnily enough, while Hiccup was absolutely losing his mind about the growing bloodstain, the kid seemed almost unfazed.
Mostly because the first thing he did upon landing was flailing around, elbowing Hiccup in the space between his stomach and ribcage with a surprising force and booking it.
While he was busy wheezing and coughing, the kid stumbled to its dragon friend, frantically checking it for injuries and muttering without taking a breath.
Hiccup felt himself reminded of why exactly he didn’t have the patience to teach aspiring young dragon riders, slowly regaining his ability to breathe properly.
Maybe leather scales weren’t meant to fend off sharp elbows.
„You okay?“, Snotlout asked, as if he hadn’t been sniggering a few seconds before.
He glared at him and answered: „I can handle it.“
For a moment, everyone went silent except for the chittering between the little dragons, and the boy.
Hiccup was fascinated by what that entailed.
„I can handle it“, he repeated, slipping out off Toothless‘ saddle, painfully slowly approaching them. He stopped a few steps away.
„Your leg is bleeding.“
Kept his voice at a even, low level. He could tell the others later.
The boy glanced at him, clutching the ornamented sword he had stolen tighter against his chest, then down at his leg. „Oh, yes. That’s quite a… lot of bleeding“, he said, suddenly looking even paler than before.
Hiccup wasn’t surprised when his knees buckled, but he wasn’t ready for this little weight to hit him. The sword seemed to weigh even more than it’s owner (thief?) himself.
For a moment he hoped that the boy had passed out, but while he tried to lower him on the ground the other kept a vice-like death grip on his arm.
„You have to let go so I can have a look at it“, he demanded. Despite wearing vambraces he almost felt the other’s nails dig into his flesh.
„Come on. It’s alright.“
The boy shot him a panicked, slightly crazed look, his forehead sweaty. Not good. Hiccup really had to work on his coaxing tone.
„It’s not. My leg is BLEEDING.“ His voice sounded feeble but this time he did let go, little puffs of flat breathing in the air.
Hiccup took that as an agreement and took a look at the leg.
He immediately wished he hadn’t.
The dragon hide was soaked with half-frozen blood; the makeshift bandage that had been wrapped so tightly hadn’t held, hanging and stained with rust-coloured flecks.
When he pulled the tears apart, it got stuck under his fingernails and made his cold fingers even redder. The boy took a shaky breath.
This was bad. He could only see three or four half-moon shaped wounds in the boy’s leg, but they were deep. Too deep. Had they reached his bone?
The pale, freckled skin was smeared with red.
„Someone get Gothi.“
He normally wasn’t great at lifting people but with the kid it was disturbingly easy, even as he jerked in his hold. „What are you doing?“, he babbled, clawing at his chest.
„You can’t do this to me. You can’t take me, you’re hurting me! It hurts!“
His dragons did not move, except for the small green one, but before it could try to bite Hiccups peg leg, the brown one tugged it back.
It put its trust in him.
And so, Hiccup trudged through the snow before any more blood could drip, his left leg aching as if in sympathy.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hey there! I’m really sorry I left this fic to rot for so long. I really wrote myself into a corner, or so I felt and I think I’ve been hit by the AO3 Author curse. This does not mean I am willing to abandon this. But I might owe an explanation.First off, this school year was practically my graduation year of obligatory school. I am going to another after this, but in theory I am graduated. I’ve been under a lot of stress and now need to crawl out of my post-school funk hole.Secondly, my grandfather has sadly passed away. This and other personal struggles have prevented me from continuing this, and the fact that I repressed everything in favor of school does not help. So yeah, AO3 author curse has hit me like a truck. Now I can only hope things get better for me at my new school and that my muse stops hitting me with a baseball bat.So yes, I’m still alive? I figured some of you would care for an update. See you in the skies! (I laughed at the concept of insane author updates and look at where I’m now. Don’t taunt fate kids)
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He woke with the distinct feeling that something was wrong, as always.His head felt like that time when he had banged it during the swimming tournament-achy, throbbing and absolutely gods-awful.
But it wasn’t that. There were no bodies radiating warmth beside him, no calming heartbeats.
He was alone.
Over the past year or so he had never slept alone- his dragons had never left his side. So, clearly, the conclusion he jumped to the second he was fully awake was that something was wrong.He shot up, or rather tried to and flopped again against… a bed. Which was even worse because he couldn’t remember how he got there. His leg pounded and he felt like he had been run over by a wagon.Now, a reasonable person would have tried to pull themselves together, remember and stayed calm.
Hiccup however immediately stumbled to his feet, crashed into a table and to the floor, taking quite a few things with him, which perfectly executed his goal of not attracting attention under any circumstances.
He winced and attempted to stand again, wobbling like a newborn deer.He certainly looked the part: in the past few months he had grown quite a lot, but not eaten enough to keep up with it. Still, in comparison to any other Viking he had remained a tiny thing.The whole ordeal sent a stab of pain through his leg.
Judging from the feeling, someone had stitched it- he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but judging by the constant throbbing, it hadn’t been enough.
His shoulder on the other hand felt vastly better- just slightly tense.
Scratch. Scratch. SCRATCH.
He turned around and found himself facing a door. A door from which, very audibly, came a scratching sound.
It sounded like something a cat would do.
Or a very little, very spoiled dragon.
Of course, when he wrenched it open, he found said little spoiled dragon sitting in front of it, looking all proud.„H-Hiccup!“, he squeaked. „T-Toothless is h-here.“„I can see that“, Hiccup croaked, stopped in his tracks for a moment before he snatched the little dragon and hugged him against his chest.„E-ew. P-put Toothless d-d-down“, he protested, although he was only struggling half-heartedly in the boy’s grip.Hiccup laughed as relief flooded him and he cradled the dragon like the big baby he was. “Sure, sure”, he finally said when Toothless started squirming and let him crawl onto his shoulder.The movement made him slightly dizzy, like the world was misplaced below his feet.He noted he was wearing things that did not belong to him. The thought that he had stayed unconscious during that quickly sobered him up.
“Do you know where we are?”
Toothless huffed. “O-o-old weird la-lady’s h-house. W-with w-weird o-other dragons. B-but Toothless didn’t b-bite h-her be-cause Wodensfang s-said I couldn’t.” He seemed rather dissatisfied with that.
“W-wodensfang also t-told me to w-watch out. Because he is i-investing-gating. B-but it’s a-a SECRET.”
“Is that so? And Windwalker?”
Hiccup eyed the dark room ahead of them and decided that getting out would be the most reasonable action. He currently had none of his weapons or his fire suit, and it felt unsettling. Like they had stripped him of his second skin.
“T-they are with o-other dragons. T-theres a-a lot.”
Hiccup frowned. He had just found them and now he had again not much of an idea where they were. And that either meant that they felt safe enough- or that they had been separated.“A lot?” He asked and limped around the house’s fireplace, laying his hand upon the heavy wooden door.“A LOT”, Toothless repeated.Hiccup forced the door open to a very bright and very cloudless winter day.
And Toothless was right.
Riding the strong cold winds were dragons, all across the island they could see perfectly from the ridiculously high spot the hut was on. More than the average number a viking village would keep around, all soaring free and unchained.“Oh”, Hiccup breathed, the wind whipping around him, turning his face to the sky.He hadn’t seen something like this since the war. He hadn’t had the hope to expect to ever see it again.Fly-of-the-Storm apparently hadn’t been lying when she told him the humans here were friends of dragons. He recognized only a few of the species, but many he did not. Just how far were they from home?
He turned and almost FELL off the porch.
Next to him, perfectly silent, stood the old woman Toothless had mentioned, scrutinizing him.She was rather short, with gray hair and clad in fur- the strong winds didn’t seem to bother her. “O-old lady!”, Toothless crowed unnecessarily directly into Hiccup’s ear.She looked like she had been sitting there for a while, holding a bone staff, surrounded by other little dragons Hiccup couldn’t quite place. They reminded him of Toothless, but their heads were too round and they also babbled in that rough dragonese accent Fly-of-the-Storm had.Hiccup clutched at his chest, letting out a little OOF. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you”, he said very politely for someone who just got almost scared to death.She raised her brows and slammed her staff onto the wooden planks.Hiccup flinched unwillingly, smiling nervously. Toothless hissed.
“Well I’m just- going to…”
The woman extended a pair of boots towards him, pointing at his feet, then at the beginnings of a very long stair that presumably led down.
“Thank you?”, he asked, taking the boots, wobbling as he tried to get them on. As soon as he was done, the woman pointed at the stairs again, petting one of her little dragons.
Hiccup shuffled towards the edge of the platform and peered down.
It was very, very high.
“C-crazy lady”, Toothless grumbled.Hiccup gulped, then began his clumsy descent.His leg still throbbed, slowing him down. He did not dare to actually look at the ground. The wind tugged at his many layers as he stiffly clambered down.How did that old woman even get down?He was a little off-kilter despite Toothless’ counterweight on his shoulder, and the snow made the wood rather slippery. He almost missed a step not far from the ground, his injured leg uncoordinated and he yelped, before catching himself and finally reaching the snowy ground.He tried calming his breath and then followed the path into the village. The houses reminded him of ships, a little different from home but still vaguely familiar and very colorful amongst the white of the snow.
Toothless stretched crawling under his tunic and curling up above his heart. “T-t-tired.”
Hiccup sighed.
His stomach roiled, if from anxiety or hunger, he couldn’t tell.
MAYBE walking around after suffering an injury to his leg wasn’t the best idea, but Hiccup was pretty sure that it was better than staying up there with the old woman. Also, he was bound to find out something out here.
Now that Toothless had decided sleep was his priority, he might as well try making sense out of the muddled mess- blurry, half aware pain and fear. He was pretty sure he had elbowed the rider.
He hoped he hadn’t turned someone else against him now. The last time he managed to do that with someone in these parts his leg had almost been severed by a dragon trap. He was mostly just glad that he and not Windwalker had stepped into it.His companion already had enough of a limp and decidedly, had been through enough for a lifetime.
He was ripped from his thoughts upon seeing a young man saddling his dragon. It was a great day to take flight today- his heart ached when he thought about the last time flight had felt exhilarating instead of terrifying.
Curiosity made him stop. He hadn’t seen a dragon like it before- then again, that was almost always the case here.
It was red, with large protruding teeth and wavy spikes on its back. Still, its rider seemed to have found a way to ride it, with the saddle on its neck. Hiccup wondered whether the weight could cause pain.
Then again, the dragon didn’t seem like it would tolerate it if that were the case, grumbling at its rider.
The rider Hiccup did not recognize either, until he heard his voice.
It was the one from the group that had been at the dragon trapper camp. He looked short and compact, like a brick, and appeared to be arguing with his dragon (rather one-sidedly, Hiccup noted).
That was, until the dragon noticed Hiccup awkwardly standing in the middle of the village path, watching them.
“Small dragon human”, he huffed.
Hiccup froze, begging for the rider not to notice him, too. Begging that his hair actually COVERED the dragonmark this time.The rider did, turning around and looking decently surprised that someone had been watching him make a commotion.“Oh well. If it isn’t the Wildfang kid”, he said. “What are you doing out and about?”“Walking”, Hiccup answered stupidly. He kept staring.
The rider crossed his arms. “Never seen a Monstrous Nightmare before kid?”
A Monstrous Nightmare. He was pretty sure they were supposed to be… smaller?
“No”, he lied.
The rider grinned. “This is Hookfang. Impressive, isn’t he? Best flight partner there is.”
Hookfang didn’t look like he wanted to fly.Hookfang, a Monstrous Nightmare. Toothless, the other rider’s dragon. Hiccup felt like he had been spun around thirty times and then been told everything he knew was wrong.
“What’s your name then? The rider asked, scratching Hookfang’s neck.
“H-hrafnar”, Hiccup blurted out, fiddling with the ends of his sleeves.“The Wanderer.”
He could feel his ears growing hot- he waited for the rider to point at him and scream “LIAR!”
Instead he said: “I’m Snotlout Jorgenson.”
Hiccup hated it. It felt impossible. But then again, this Island was also named Berk- and then again, he never knew the past.Because this island was Old Berk, and people with the same traditions tend to have similar names.But Hiccup had lived on because of his paranoia in the past year. So instead of making that connection like before-him perhaps would have, he turned around and limped away as fast as he could.
“HEY!”, Snotlout called after him. “WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY NAME?”
Hiccup ignored him until he was out of sight. Exhaustion and fear pumped through his veins. He wasn’t sure which would win, but he was absolutely sure that his hands were numb.He was going to be absolutely pragmatic about this. Calm. But his breaths were flat and ragged- still, he told himself all the same, he had to stay calm.He had no idea what he was doing, actually. He had told himself he had a plan, but truly he was just lost in a strange place far from home.He walked further and heard the noise of a hammer hitting metal.The blacksmith shop was near a cliff- the wind hit Hiccup full force, finally knocking sense back into him, but making him shiver. The snow had clumped in the fur of his boots and old hand-me-downs that were slightly too big couldn’t hold off the cold too well. Only Toothless radiated warmth above his heart.It had a sign with a tooth and was open at the front. The air was so warm it felt like it was burning his face after all the cold.
It smelled of leather and iron and other things he couldn’t quite place.
The hammering had stopped- the owner, a large blond man had gone over to stamp holes into leather with something attached to where his hand should have been.Now, dear reader, you should imagine exactly what the blacksmith saw when he looked up in that moment- a shivering boy that looked like Hel had personally run him over standing in front of his shop.A boy who very much matched the description of the bad-omen-dragon child that had been apparently destroying ships, freckled, with a very unremarkable face.
The blacksmith waved at him.
“Hallo. I have yer sword. Come here.”Hiccup took a careful, small step in and then glanced around.
“I’m the blacksmith here, but I also make saddles and look at the dragon’s teeth. But let me tell you”, he stood up and retrieved the sword, “I don’t handle things like these often, laddie. T’is a very grim but beautiful thing.”
It was the sword Hiccup had stolen. Its scabbard and hilt were a beautiful, mossy green. Sigrænn, evergreen like the giant moss that grew in the Archipelago.
“It’s not mine”, he uttered. “It was a hunter’s.” “Well, it’s yers now. Better like that. Can’t have these idioter possessing something like this.” The blacksmith held it out to him. “My name is Gobber. What’s yers?” He asked as Hiccup hesitantly reached towards the sword.It was long and heavy, almost a reassuring weight in his palms, but different from his own, his own that now was in the hands of Alvin.It was a hand-and-a-half sword instead of a one-hander, and much fancier, something that was usually passed down through families.“Hrafnar”, Hiccup answered softly, torn between awe at the sword and the realization that this man had the same name as his former teacher.He swallowed.“I wanted to ask… I’ve been to another place called Berk once, further north. They had similar names there.”
“That’s because this is Old Berk, laddie. You probably came across new. But that’s a long way from here. How did ye get here?”
Hiccup tried to not let his relief show- no the gods hadn’t cursed him with another strange thing, he was perfectly sane.“I’m a Wanderer. I’ve lost my friends and was searching for them.”Gobber nodded, as if it made absolute sense that a teenager would put such a distance behind him just to find his friends.“Well, yer a brave one. But are ye suppose to be walking around just yet?”“Well actually no”, another voice deadpanned, “But I imagine Gothi didn’t stop you.” The other rider with a dragon named Toothless leaned against a table. “I never knew it was so easy to lose someone here.”